Donald Trump turned Michigan red in the 2024 presidential election, defeating Kamala Harris there and paving his way back to the White House.
One of the most hotly contested swing states, Michigan was considered to be a determining factor in the outcome of the election.
Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., said Michiganders asked themselves Ronald Reagan’s famous question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
“The inroads made in nontraditional Republican areas and constituencies is huge,” Huizenga told The Daily Signal of the Michigan results.
At the end of the day, the Democrats had a deeply flawed candidate in Harris, vice president to President Joe Biden, said Steve Mitchell, a Michigan pollster who is president of Mitchell Research & Communications Inc.
“If you look objectively at where America was for four years under Trump in terms of foreign affairs, in terms of domestic issues, in terms of the cost of living, it was better under President Trump than it was under President Biden,” Mitchell told The Daily Signal, “which is why President Trump was reelected.”
Here are three big reasons Trump won Michigan by 95,000 votes in his sweep of all three “Blue Wall” states for Democrats, which also include Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Trump Picked Up 35,000 More Votes in 2 Key Counties
To win Michigan, Trump needed to perform better in two swing counties, Kent and Oakland. Harris ultimately triumphed in Michigan’s liberal counties, but Trump picked up 30,000 more votes in Oakland County than he got in 2020 and 5,000 more votes in Kent County.
Oakland and Kent counties have undergone major demographic changes over the past two decades. Both used to be Republican strongholds, but growth in the Detroit suburbs and the city of Grand Rapids turned the counties from red to blue in 2020.
About a third of Trump’s margin of 95,000 votes in Michigan came from doing better in Kent and Oakland than he did when he barely won the state in 2016 over Hillary Clinton, 47.6% to 47.4%.
“This is only the second time that a Republican has carried Michigan since 1988,” Mitchell said, referring to Trump’s win in 2016. “The first time was by about 10,000 votes, and this time it’s by almost 100,000 votes. So it is a significant victory.”
Mitchell, no relation to this correspondent, had predicted that if Trump did well in Kent and Oakland, he would win Michigan.
“If they go very heavily for Harris, then that probably portends well for Harris,” Mitchell told The Daily Signal before the election. “If, on the other hand, for some reason it’s within two or three points in Kent County and within maybe six or eight points in Oakland County for Harris, then probably Harris is going to lose.”
Huizenga said Trump was able to pull off a win of this scale through hard work and staying on message.
“I think that’s a testament to staying on message and having Kamala Harris be a, shall we say, identifiably unqualified candidate,” the West Michigan congressman said.
Although some Republicans were hesitant to support Trump in 2020, Huizenga said he noticed people were more willing to publicly support the former president this year.
“The prosecutions, all the harassment, the lawfarethat went on with Trump, it brought some of those wandering Republican votes back into the fold,” he said.
Harris Failed to Perform Big With Racial Minorities
Trump picked up two percentage points with black Michiganders to earn 9% of the black vote, compared with 7% in 2020.
“He has clearly done something that no Republican candidate has done,” Mitchell said, “and that is to motivate African Americans to vote for a Republican candidate.”
Minorities in Michigan saw their “purchasing power diminish” during the Biden-Harris administration, Huizenga said.
“They’re seeing the cost of groceries, the cost of running a small business, the cost of pulling up to the gas pump,” the Michigan Republican said. “They felt the impact, and I think that’s why that message that was out there, about even the border, it ties into a law-and-order narrative that clearly has gotten out of control under the Biden-Harris administration.”
“I think that Trump held true to the economic message,” Huizenga continued, “as well as the safety and security message. And here in Michigan, all that the Dems wanted to talk about was abortion.”
Because Democrats were so focused on abortion, which already is legal up to birth in Michigan, they didn’t sufficiently address the economy, foreign policy, energy policy, and other issues that actually affect Michiganders, Huizenga said.
“Donald Trump has sort of become counterculture,” he said, “and I think there’s a certain appeal to that.”
Mitchell said the Democrats lost some of the minority vote because of illegal immigration.
“Illegal immigrants were taking jobs that many African Americans might otherwise have gotten,” the pollster said, “and I think they were fed up with the Biden-Harris administration for allowing this just incredible number of immigrants into the country. And that door is going to be slammed shut by the Trump administration.”
Harris Didn’t Appeal to Michiganders of Faith
This time out, Trump picked up 20 percentage points with Michigan Catholics, according to Fox News exit polling.
Huizenga said he has seen this party realignment with Irish Catholics in his own family in Michigan. He attributes it to the Democrats’ positions on social issues, abortion, and the economy.
“They’re small business owners, they’re union members, they’re the firefighters and the police officers,” Huizenga said of the Catholic vote. “I’m not surprised that people of faith have felt that the Democrats long ago abandoned them, and in fact, it’s gotten so bad they feel rejected.”
In mid-October, Harris didn’t go to the Al Smith Dinner, an annual fundraising event for Catholic charities traditionally attended by presidential candidates. Many older Catholics saw that as a slap in the face, Mitchell said.
“She basically gave the highway straight to the Catholic vote to Donald Trump by her actions,” the pollster said.
The former president also had a net gain of 16,000 votes in Dearborn, the largest concentration of Muslim Americans in the nation.
The Biden-Harris administration tried to play both sides in the Israel-Hamas war, losing both Jewish and Muslim support, Mitchell argued.
“I think what they recognized is, [Trump] will settle a war right away and [Israel] will quit killing Arabs, and that’s what they want, and they were not getting that,” Mitchell said of Muslims.
