Four years ago, President Trump won Michigan by just 0.3%. It was a stunning win, since a Republican president had not won the state since 1988. Trump changed that, in part because Hillary Clinton was a horrible candidate, but also because Trump’s brand of populism appealed to a certain brand of Michigan voters still reeling from eight years of failed economic policy.
Trump’s strong economic record should have won him the state again. But he lost it by a little over 1% to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Why? Because he failed to win over the one group he needed most: suburbanites.
Trump managed to win this group in 2016, which was evident in his surprising Macomb County victory last time around. But this year, he was not running against Clinton, who repelled working-class whites. He was up against Biden, a man able to connect with the working class and suburban women and black voters. In other words, even if Trump had pulled more of the working-class vote in areas such as Macomb, Biden’s coalition would have been tough to beat. Truly, all Biden needed to do to win Michigan was perform just a hair better than Clinton had in 2016, which he did handily.
Trump may have been able to break Biden’s advantage if he had not been … well … Trump. Perhaps if he had tempered his rhetoric and focused more on substance than petulance, he could have won over the suburban women he needed.
But then again, Democrats learned a hard lesson from 2016: They learned not to neglect a single part of their base. Clinton took states such as Michigan for granted, and as a result, she pulled in a significantly lower percentage of the black vote (and the Democratic vote overall) than Barack Obama did four years prior. Yes: Clinton was a remarkably unpopular candidate. But she didn’t help herself either. She barely campaigned in Michigan and didn’t even try to campaign in other key states such as Wisconsin.
Biden did not make that mistake. To be sure, Biden was not the most appealing candidate. But he at least made an effort among white blue-collar workers and black voters, and that made all the difference in a state such as Michigan.
In the months ahead, we’ll learn more about why Michiganders abandoned Trump and why the race between him and Biden was as close as it was. Clearly, Trump struck a nerve in Michigan — even if he lost the state. Like it or not, his influence is here to stay, and the GOP would wise to figure out why the suburbs abandoned Trump this time around and what it can do next time to win them back.
