Michigan is, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, one of three states where Donald Trump created a surprise and opened the doors of the White House in 2016. After having voted Democrat in all presidential elections since 1992, this old industrial state, cradle of the three automotive giants (Ford, Chrysler and General Motors), had tipped in favor of the Republican billionaire for 11,000 small votes (out of 4.8 million votes cast).
In 2016, Clinton’s refusal
Small victory of Trump or heavy defeat ofHillary Clinton ? By winning 47.5% of the vote, Trump had improved by three points the score of Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate of 2012. But much more spectacular was the fall of Hillary Clinton (47.3%), down seven points compared to Barack Obama in 2012.
In fact, the warning signals were red since the spring of 2016 for the Democratic candidate. Already in March, she was beaten by Bernie Sanders in the Michigan Democratic primary. The old socialist senator from Vermont, much more in tune with worker or rural voters than the ex-senator from New York, assimilated to the intellectual and financial elites of the East Coast.
In the November presidential election, many Sanders voters abstained. A fraction had referred to small candidates, whose score had quadrupled compared to 2012. Angry auto workers had defied union instructions and voted for the populist and xenophobic billionaire who promised to end the relocations: Ford was then planning to transfer its production of small vehicles from the suburbs of Detroit to Mexico. Mexico with which a certain Bill Clinton signed a free trade agreement in 1993.
The return of Democratic governors in 2018
This explanation is attractive. But not sufficient. Trump had also converted many Democratic but conservative voters in the country north of the state. Among them, it was the very calculated discourse of the populist on God and firearms that had resonated.
Are these voters definitely converted? Probably not. In the 2018 midterm elections, where the unloved Hillary Clinton was no longer on the ballots, many returned home: Democrats won every position at stake at the state level, with Gretchen Whitmer taking over easily the governor’s chair conquered in 2010 by Rick Snyder, a Republican.
And in polls taken this summer in Michigan, where the coronavirus has killed more than 6,700, Joe Biden Donald Trump averaged distance of seven points.
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