President Donald Trump’s expressed “love” for Michigan will be tested during his 2020 reelection bid if trends from the midterm election are any indication.
Trump won his slimmest victory of 2016 here, edging Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes, or about two-tenths of a percentage point, 47.5 to 47.3 percent. He did so in part, Michigan pollsters say, because of a drop in turnout among independent and Democratic voters as well as the presence of third-party candidates: the Libertarians’ Gary Johnson and the Green party’s Jill Stein.
But in a record-setting midterm turnout, Democrats elected a governor, attorney general, and secretary of state, their first such trifecta since 1986. Two issues helped drive the intense interest in voting in 2018: an unpopular president and an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana, which voters approved.
Of course, the president will have the advantages of incumbency. Only Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush have lost re-election bids since World War II, notes Steve Mitchell, pollster and Republican strategist at Mitchell Research & Communications in East Lansing. The Democrats choice will also be important for Trump’s prospects, as an unpopular Clinton proved in 2016.
Still, Trump faces serious challenges, some of them of his own making.
1. Trump’s style. While the president can take credit for a strong economy and a traditional conservative foreign policy that has slapped sanctions on Iran for its nuclear weapons ambitions, treated Israel like a “true ally,” and improved the climate with North Korea, his “unpresidential” bearing is a problem, says John Truscott, a Lansing-based consultant who worked for three-time Republican governor John Engler.
“Many people are turned off by his attitude and approach,” Truscott says. “The very things that have brought him success are also the same things that turn many people off. In a campaign environment, it may be difficult to distinguish between the two.”
About 57 percent of likely voters have viewed Trump unfavorably during the past three years, says Rich Czuba, head of Glengariff Group in Lansing and a pollster for the Detroit News during the past two elections.
Besides the marijuana ballot proposal, the subject most on Michigan voters’ minds this year was Trump. Both supporters and opponents brought up Trump unprompted with Detroit News reporters outside polling places. Republicans lost two U.S. House seats and a Michigan supreme court seat and suffered their largest loss of state senate seats since 1974.
2. Democratic turnout. There’s a myth that a GOP surge propelled the New York magnate to victory in 2016, the first time a Republican had won in Michigan since 1988. But Michigan Republicans always turn out in strong numbers, as Czuba and Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley have noted. The wild cards are Democrats, who have the clear registration edge in the state, and independents.
When Democrats are highly motivated to vote, their candidates at the top of the ticket usually win by 9 to 10 percentage points, as gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer did in November, Czuba points out. On a scale of 1 to 10, Detroit News polls found that Republicans, Democrats, and independents all said their desire to vote was higher than 9 in 2018, which spelled widespread GOP defeats.
Independents also are a potential problem for Trump, and they usually help decide races in Michigan. College-educated independent women voted mostly for Democrats in November, Czuba says, noting that the former Republican stronghold of wealthy Oakland County “was the epicenter of this shift.” Equally troubling: College-educated men also are backing Democrats in southeast Michigan, where the bulk of the state’s votes are cast. Republicans lost state house and senate seats in cities like Birmingham and Troy that used to be synonymous with the GOP.
Democrats have assembled an informal coalition with independents in the Trump era, “making them an unbeatable force in pure numbers” if they are motivated to turn out, Czuba says.
3. A double-edged trade war. While getting tough on trade plays well in Michigan, the tariff wars with China and other countries could cost more votes than they gain.
If the auto industry continues to be hurt by tariffs, it could be a problem in the greater Detroit area, where the state’s dominant auto industry is concentrated. This issue was heightened during the past week when General Motors said it might lay off as many as 5,750 salaried employees and perhaps some union workers as it prepared to idle five factories, including three in Michigan and Ohio, as part of a competitive restructuring. The Democratic National Committee pounced, repeating a quote from Lordstown, Ohio, factory worker Bobbi Marsh: “I can’t believe our president would allow this to happen.”
“Union men are increasingly becoming attracted to the GOP, but a bad economy could stop that attraction,” Czuba says.
Still, Trump has been adept at using auto industry executives as foils. He attacked Ford Motor Co. for its production of vehicles in Mexico during 2016 and hit back hard at GM’s plant announcements, saying he would somehow cut off the automaker’s electric vehicle subsidies if it didn’t reverse course. But scheduled auto union contract talks next year may produce a face-saving compromise in which GM “saves” certain factories and blue-collar jobs, as has happened in recent contracts. These factories haven’t been shut down yet, as some have reported, but are targeted.
The tariffs also pose a problem among Trump’s supporters in rural areas. Michigan soybeans, pork, apples, and cherries have been hit by China’s retaliatory levies, and Trump strongholds in rural areas are increasingly dependent on agriculture.
“If farmers and rural voters reliant on the ag industry in Michigan start recoiling at the trade war, Trump will be in very deep trouble if he cannot hold his margins in the smaller rural counties,” Czuba says.
4. The third-party factor. The Green party likely sapped votes from Clinton in 2016 as much as the Libertarians cost Trump support. Having someone like a Ralph Nader or a Jill Stein on the ballot would aid the president. “Michigan will be a heavy lift [for him] without a strong third-party candidate,” says Mitchell. “But until the Democratic candidate is learned, it is hard to predict what will happen here in Michigan or nationally.”
Former vice president Joe Biden is a potentially formidable candidate who could siphon off voters now attracted to Trump. Progressives such as senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker would have a tougher fight with Trump and be dependent on high turnout by African-American voters in Detroit, says Dave Dulio, head of the political science department at Oakland University.
Without unity among the Democrats, Trump’s prospects improve markedly. “If Democrats can give both the mainstream and the liberal wings of the party a reason to be excited as they did in Michigan in 2018, they can win simply on the volume of Democrats over Republicans in Michigan,” Czuba says.
West Michigan could be a barometer for the president’s chances. Trump and Mike Pence spent a lot of time during the last two weeks of the 2016 campaign in the region, trying to calm traditional conservative voters spooked by Trump’s bombastic style and lewd remarks on the leaked Access Hollywood audiotape.
Trump’s final 2016 speech occurred in the early morning hours on Election Day in Grand Rapids in the GOP stronghold of Kent County. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos hails from that area. But Democrats have been making gains, and Whitmer won there by three points in November.
Says Czuba: “If Trump has trouble in Kent County and motivation to vote is high, then the new realignment will deliver Michigan to the Democratic column.”
