If Kamala Harris loses Michigan in two weeks, she can probably say good-bye to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and the rest of the Electoral College. Perhaps the most blue-leaning of the seven most important swing states, Michigan swung back left in 2020 after barely voting for Trump eight years ago. This time around, thanks to inflation, the economy, and state-specific issues like electric-vehicle policy have made the race something close to a tossup — but Donald Trump’s erratic tendencies, which have recently included trashing Michigan’s resurgent biggest city, isn’t helping his cause. I spoke with Emily Lawler, political editor at the Detroit Free Press, to get the lay of the land.
Of the seven key swing states, Democrats are probably most confident about Michigan, both because of this year’s polling — Kamala Harris is up there, though narrowly — and because of the state’s history. Biden won it back by almost three points in 2020, and Democrats had very solid years there in 2018 and 2022. Does that perception jibe with what you’re seeing on the ground? Are Democrats confident about the state, or is it just pure nervousness?
I’d say we’re still at pure nervousness. Democrats are maybe cautiously optimistic, but it really seems like we’ve seen Kamala Harris come here and portray herself as an underdog in this race. And Michigan’s just so close. The average people that we’re talking to on the ground really see this as balanced on a knife’s edge.
Early-voting turnout so far has been pretty spectacular, but that doesn’t really mean anything, right?
I hate to give you a technical answer, but in Michigan it’s really hard to judge, because in 2018, ’20, and ’22, we had three major ballot initiatives that made big changes to how we vote in ’18, ’20, and ’22. This is our first presidential cycle with early voting in addition to absentee, and only our second cycle where we’ve had no-reason absentee. It’s hard for me to compare year to year, but I do think we’re seeing a lot of people using both absentee and early voting.
Michigan is synonymous with the car industry, and thus with unions. Kamala Harris has had a little trouble there. Some polls have shown that Trump has made considerable headway among union voters, and the Teamsters and the Firefighters Union nationally didn’t endorse either candidate this year, whereas they both endorsed Biden in 2020. How big a problem this is for her, and what accounts for the drop-off in support? Is it just that Biden is an older white guy and she’s not?
I think unions have taken on more prominence in state and national discussions than they might’ve had in previous cycles, particularly after the UAW negotiations and strike leading up to this election. And Joe Biden, of course, appearing on that........