Former President Donald Trump is the front-runner in Michigan in 2024 if the latest polls are correct. Trump leads President Joe Biden by double digits in a recent Detroit News poll and has led Biden in every poll since October, when the race was statistically tied.
This is a testament to Trump’s unique political strength. Consider that before Trump won in 2016, Republican presidential nominees had lost Michigan every year since 1988, losing by an average of 9 points. Even Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), born in Michigan and the son of Michigan’s former governor, lost Michigan by more than 9 points.
Is this good news for the struggling Michigan Republican Party?
Hardly.
The Trump era has been a disaster for the Michigan GOP, and there’s every reason to think it will continue to be one.
The big picture in Michigan is that Trump does well in Michigan and harms his party in the process.
First, let’s try to understand Trump’s success. Trump wins in Michigan by expanding his vote beyond the typical GOP base.
Trump won Macomb County (which former President Barack Obama carried twice) by 11 points in 2016 and 8 points in 2020. Trump’s 262,000 votes in Macomb in 2020 was 30% higher than any previous GOP total.
But then look at the fate of other Republicans in Michigan.
In 2016, Republicans controlled the state House, the state Senate, and the governorship and had held such a trifecta since the 2010 elections. Republicans had held the state House basically forever.
Then, in 2018, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer won the governorship, and Democrats won most of the other statewide positions. In 2022, Whitmer won easily, Democrats took over both chambers, and Democrats won every statewide office. Before the 2016 election, Republicans held eight of Michigan’s 14 congressional seats, and now, Republicans hold six of 13.
Why would this be?
Trump, by being Trump, gets the blue-collar vote for himself but not for his party. And Trump, by being Trump, drives the white-bread vote to the Democrats up and down the ballot, in-cycle and out.
That is, there are two Trump effects: the gain in the blue-collar vote and the loss in the white-bread vote. Trump’s blue-collar gain only exists for Trump, while his white-bread harm persists in every election.
Trump easily won Macomb County twice, but so did Whitmer.
Trump won the white, non-college-educated vote by 21 points in 2020, while Whitmer lost that population in 2022 by only 14 points.
Back after the 2018 elections, this phenomenon was clear, and I wrote about it:
“Mathematically … every new Republican that Trump picked up in Kalkaska [County in 2016] went back to the Democrats in the [2018] midterm elections.
“Twelve Michigan counties flipped from voting for Obama in 2012 to voting for Trump in 2016. Call them the ‘pivot counties.’ Half of those pivot counties flipped back to Democrats in 2018. Almost all of them gave back a majority of the GOP gains.
“Macomb County — the most populous pivot county — swung 16 points to Trump, and then 15 points to Whitmer. Bay County swung 19 points to Trump, and then 16 back to Whitmer.”
And the flip side is that Kent County (Grand Rapids), Ann Arbor, and the wealthy suburbs of Detroit have tacked hard to the Democrats. Oakland County, for instance, the wealthiest county in the state, voted Democrat by 8 points in 2012, but by 23 points in 2023.
Trump’s style and character drive college-educated white voters into the Democratic Party permanently, while he wins over blue-collar white voters only for himself. That’s good for Trump and bad for every other Republican who tries to run in Michigan.
