Michigan is one of the most watched states this election cycle and will likely tip the balance of power in Washington, D.C. As surrogates from the Trump campaign and the Harris campaign continue to visit the state to rally voters behind their respective presidential candidates, it comes as Michigan’s primary is around the corner with less than 100 days until the presidential election.
On Tuesday, Aug. 6, primaries will take place around the state. Notably, elections include Michigan’s U.S. Senate primary, as well as two open swing district seats in the 7th and 8th Congressional Districts, as well as incumbents running in close races in the 3rd and 10th Congressional Districts. As results come in, the primary will be the first preview of turnout in counties from Macomb to Wayne to Kent, where the state will be won in November.
Dante Chinni, a research specialist and director of the American Communities Project in Michigan State University’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences, provides an in-depth account of Michigan election history, notable counties in the state and key voting groups.
Content includes excerpts from an article originally published in The Conversation.
How has Michigan voted in recent presidential elections?
Until recently, Michigan was a relatively safe bet for Democrats, at least in presidential politics. From 1992 to 2012, during six presidential elections, Michigan voted Democratic regardless of what the nation did as a whole. In 2000 and 2004, Republican George W. Bush won the presidency, while Michigan voted for Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won the state of Michigan in 2016 by activating specific segments of the electorate. He won with a combination of enthusiasm among some voter groups for him and disdain among others for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The evidence of those voter attitudes is all over the results data from 2016.
But the state has been close lately with Trump winning by about 11,000 votes in 2016 and Biden capturing by about 150,000 in 2020. So, in Michigan, small shifts can mean a lot.
Which counties should be watched closely?
Macomb and Monroe counties: Since 2016, the political leaning among voters looks more complicated in these two counties. There were unenthused Democrats in these communities too in that 2016 race and, since that election, they’ve been more likely to come out to vote. For instance, Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won Macomb in her 2018 campaign and her 2022 reelection. Can Trump recreate his huge 2016 win with those voters in 2024? These two blue-collar suburban counties around Detroit that we call “middle suburbs counties are home to many of the autoworkers in the big plants and smaller auto shops around Detroit. Both those counties flipped to Trump in 2016 from Barack Obama in 2012, and both produced more total votes — a sign of Trump’s little-noted, blue-collar suburban surge in 2016.
Wayne and Genesse counties: The disdain for Clinton was apparent in these counties, the respective homes of Detroit and Flint, both cities with large African American populations. Clinton still won both Democratic strongholds, but her margins of victory were smaller than Obama’s in 2012, and fewer people voted in each county. In 2012, Wayne County produced about 818,000 votes, and Obama won it by about 47 percentage points. That was largely in line with recent winning margins by Democratic candidates. The Democratic presidential candidate won the county by 40 points or more in every contest from 2000 to 2012. In 2016, Wayne County produced only 783,000 votes, and Clinton won it by 37 percentage points. Genesee County followed a similar track. In 2016, it produced 6,000 fewer votes than 2012, and Clinton won it by a relatively meager 9 percentage points, after Obama had won it by 28 percentage points four years earlier.
Kent County: For years, Kent, the home of former President Gerald Ford, was seen as reliable Republican turf, but the ground has shifted in recent elections for a few reasons. First, Trump was not an ideal fit for the more subdued, chamber of commerce-type Republicans who wielded power here. Second, the county itself has changed, growing more populous and more racially and ethnically diverse all while the number of people with bachelor’s degrees keeps climbing. It narrowly went for Trump in 2016 before shifting to Biden in 2020. It also voted for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by comfortable margins in both 2018 and 2022. That’s not to say this is solidly Democratic territory, at least not yet, but it has been trending that way and, absent a shift in the GOP, it’s hard to see it moving “red” again anytime soon.
What key voting groups could determine Michigan’s outcome?
Between now and Election Day, journalists are going to spend a lot of time talking about Michigan as one of a group of “crucial battleground states” in the 2024 campaign. There will be stories about the state’s blue-collar roots and the importance of the vote from working-class white people, African Americans, Arab Americans, college students and rural communities.
Union voters, long a crucial voting bloc in the state, will be a focus on analysts. The leadership of the major unions tends to be Democratic and support that party’s nominees, but the rank-and-file is much more complicated. Trump, for instance, did very well with rank-and-file union types. They were key to his win in the state in 2016. Inflation has hit some of these households especially hard, and that could be an edge for Trump.
Young college-age adults are usually some of the hardest voters to turn out for an election but, again, they are a key Democratic constituency. Voters in “college town” counties such as Washtenaw and Ingham didn’t show up in big numbers in 2016, but they did in 2020, largely because of their dislike of incumbent Trump. They also came out in droves in 2022 to reelect Whitmer, but that may have been because of a ballot proposal that enshrined abortion rights in the state. Biden also got bigger turnout and bigger margins out of Washtenaw and Ingham counties, the respective homes of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. Trump also saw his margin shrink in blue-collar Macomb County.
One of the policies that may turn younger voters off is the U.S. government’s position on the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East, which affects another important voter group in Michigan — Arab American voters. There has been a lot of attention on this group in the 2024 political coverage of Michigan because of the large concentration of Arab American voters in the state. It’s not a massive population, about 225,000 people in a state of more than 10 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, but it could be enough to sway results.
What should we look out for in Tuesday’s primary?
It seems that the race for retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s seat, the other big race in November, is pretty set. And the political scene is very unsettled right now after a month of political earthquakes — from the first presidential debate to the assassination attempt on Trump to Kamala Harris rising to the role of presumptive Democratic nominee. But I think the most important thing to look at out of Tuesday may be who turns out. It’s hard to engage voters for an August primary. I’ll be looking at which voters turn out and which communities produce more votes.
