It’s not news that the voters in Michigan, that ever-powerful swing state and bastion of Midwest culture, will be a key determinant of the entire country’s democratic future come fall. What may be surprising, though, is where the Mitten’s locus of power seems to emanate from these days—as well as the types of Michiganders who are gaining national attention and power as a result.

For the first time in my lifetime, the real center of my home state’s political influence lies not in Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint, or the serene forests and lake houses of Northern Michigan. Instead, it’s coming from the capital city: Lansing, the often overlooked, underfunded, landlocked municipal center of the state, home to the State Capitol and Michigan State University and Lugnuts baseball. (Also, lots of pre–Civil War buildings and potholed streets and abandoned factories and electric vehicle plants and scientific research facilities and arrays of solar panels.) It’s also coming from the suburbs and farms and professorial residences scattered throughout the lopsided district: the Greater Lansing Area, my flyover hometown situated within the borders of Ingham County.

This is exciting stuff!

Michigan has been in something of a spotlight since Barack Obama was in office. First, there was the paradigm-shifting moment that saw the state cast its electoral votes for a Republican, Donald Trump, for the first time in nearly 30 years. But then there were the 2018 midterms, which saw a new Democratic gubernatorial administration as well as a rash of progressive ballot victories on voting rights, weed legalization, and independent redistricting. By 2020, Michigan, a target of—and battleground for—Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results, had rejected the president and elected a majority-Democratic state Supreme Court. In the subsequent 2022 midterms, Democrats won total control of the Legislature for the first time since 1984—and have been using that power to great effect ever since.

© Slate