It’s been one of the most reliably Republican redoubts in the nation for more than a century, producing former President Gerald Ford and current Education Secretary Betsy de Vos. But Western Michigan could in November send two Democrats to the House.
It will be an uphill battle for Democrats, looking to expand their House majority, to capture the district of retiring libertarian Rep. Justin Amash, and defeat 34-year GOP incumbent Fred Upton. But the fact that the races are even remotely competitive reflects the changing demographic nature of the Wolverine State’s west side, long considered the political opposite of Democratic strongholds in and around Detroit and nearby Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan.
The Cook Political Report moved Fred Upton’s southwestern Michigan district last week from its “Likely” to “Leaning Republican.” And the Grand Rapids-anchored district represented by Amash over the past decade offers another chance for Democrats to nab a seat. Amash was elected and spent the bulk of his House career as a Republican, but after repeated clashes with GOP leadership bolted the party 13 months ago to become an independent and then a libertarian.
How much the pair of districts are in play depends on top-of-the-ticket performance of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The former vice president and 36-year Delaware is hoping to reverse Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Michigan loss against President Trump and bring the previously-reliably blue state back into the Democratic column.
Western Michigan’s shifting politics and demographics are influencing those House races, as well as the presidential contest between Trump and Biden. It’s a stark change from the congressional days of Ford, a Republican stalwart who represented the Grand Rapids area in the House for nearly 25 years, including as minority leader, before a brief stint as vice president and then elevation to the House exactly 46 years ago, after President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
Matt Grossmann, director of Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, described western Michigan as a Republican stronghold. At the same time, it was a “hotbed” for anti-Trump conservatism in 2016 and has expanding, highly-educated, densely populated areas that tilt Democratic, according to Grossmann.
“It has a Dutch social conservative background that means that it doesn’t necessarily track with the rest of the Republican Party,” he said.
Yet Grossmann believed it would take the national political tide turning against Trump, buoying Biden and Democrats down the ticket, for Upton or Amash’s districts to become Democratic priorities in the fall.
“I’m not saying they’re unwinnable for Democrats,” Grossman said. “You have a national environment where Biden is up by 8 points or so in most poll averages, and where Michigan is trending even more Democratic as a whole, and where Trump has stopped advertising in Michigan for the moment. It’s not unreasonable for national prognosticators to be moving these districts into the potential category for the Democrats.”
Upton resoundingly won his primary this week for the right to run for an 18th term in Congress against Democrat Jon Hoadley, a state representative. Hoadley narrowly clinched his own party’s congressional nomination.
Upton was reelected in 2018 with 50% of the vote to his then-Democratic challenger’s 46%. That’s a slimmer margin than in previous cycles for the former chairman of the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Two years later, pre-primary polling from May had Hoadley ahead of the incumbent by a single percentage point, 38% to 37%. A quarter of respondents to the internal survey were undecided.
Looking to Nov. 3, Hoadley will be boosted by his popularity in Kalamazoo. He’s represented the district’s most populous county in Michigan’s state legislature since 2015. He also has deep-pocketed donors. He raised $1.4 million as of July 15, though that figure’s still less than Upton’s $2.1 million during the same period.
Further north, Republican Peter Meijer, an Army veteran and conflict analyst, and Democrat Hillary Scholten, an immigration attorney, were picked to vie for Amash’s open district.
Meijer, whose family owns the eponymous Midwest supermarket chain, dominated his primary thanks to strong fundraising numbers and endorsements from the likes of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the DeVos family. Yet Scholten, who ran unopposed, still raised $1 million as of mid-July to Meijer’s $1.5 million.
Last midterms, Amash received 54% support to his Democratic opponent’s 43%, a double-digit berth tighter than past bouts. Internal June polling put Scholten with a point’s edge on Meijer too, 40% to 39%. Another 21% were yet to make up their minds. And again, Scholten has an advantage in less than 90 days in the district’s Kent County population center. That area surprisingly backed Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2018.
For Grossmann, both districts were susceptible to change since they were drawn 10 years ago with old census data. While Democrats would have had a better chance if Amash had stayed in contention and split the anti-Trump vote, he added open races were even more vulnerable to national forces.
Jason Cabel Roe, a Republican strategist, agreed vacated districts should be “treated differently.” But he said Meijer had the “right profile” as he wasn’t a Trump sycophant and had a family name that’s “part of Michigan’s DNA.”
Roe, a Michigan native and expert on the state’s politics, also downplayed Democratic posturing regarding Upton’s district, calling the sitting lawmaker an “institution” with resources.
“It’s really difficult for someone to brand him as a Trump water-carrier, a right-wing conservative, or even a populist. He’s just too well-known,” Roe told the Washington Examiner.
Combined with Democrats drastically lurching to the Left, Roe doubted the party could make gains in conservative Michigan or stop Trump from running up his totals in the region.
“Republican candidates are in a position to take Republican votes for granted because they’ve got to go fight for the swing center, independents and conservative Democrats that find some of the more obscene progressive positions of the national Democratic Party have too much to swallow,” he said.
Biden leads Trump in Michigan on average by 7.5 points and 7.8 points, according to RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight, respectively. An EPIC-MRA poll placed Biden 11 points in front of his competitor this week, down from 16 points in June. Biden’s favorability declined, as did his support among women and older voters. His appeal among independent voters, however, increased.
But Grossmann warned Biden’s momentum was a double-edged sword for Democrats. His campaign’s positive national narrative only helped those down-ballot to an extent before it started working against them, he explained.
“There are some voters who don’t like unified government, and so if they think that Trump is going to lose, they may be more likely to support Republican members of Congress. That actually hurt Democrats last time because people thought that Clinton was going to win,” he said. “And that’s the kind of argument that would work more in these traditional Republican areas that might not like Trump.”
