Donald Trump wins Michigan, White House as 'blue wall' collapses
- Donald Trump secures national victory as vote counting continues in Michigan
- Michigan was a key swing state and part of the Democrats' ‘blue wall’ that fell when Trump won Pennsylvania
- Top issues in race included the direction of Michigan’s auto industry, the economy, abortion rights and immigration
LANSING — Donald Trump has won Michigan's presidential election, according to vote tallies finalized Wednesday, completing a stunning political comeback in a state he lost four years ago.
Trump didn't need Michigan to win the White House, however.
He'd already secured national victory by winning Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which along with Michigan had represented a "blue wall" that Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris needed to hold.
"America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate," Trump said in a Wednesday morning Florida speech, declaring victory around 2:30 a.m. even though results were not final at that time.
"We're going to help our country heal. We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly."
Trump's unofficial Electoral College conquest means he is poised to become the first president since Grover Cleveland to win non-consecutive terms.
Trump improved on his 2020 performance throughout Michigan, including small gains in Black-majority communities like Detroit and big gains in Arab American centers like Dearborn.
In Oakland County, a vote-rich area where Democrats hoped to build on recent gains, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won by 8% — far short of the 14% that President Joe Biden won there in 2020.
Check the Michigan results below:
A ‘blue wall’ state
Michigan was once again a battleground state for both campaigns, drawing multiple visits by both Harris and Trump, who capped his campaign with a late-night rally in Grand Rapids.
Trump won the state by 10,704 votes over Hillary Clinton in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden by 154,188 votes as Democrats re-established their “blue wall,” a relatively wider margin that was still within three percentage points.
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Harris’ campaign was abbreviated: Biden had been the presumptive Democratic nominee but dropped out July 21 following a disastrous debate performance, giving Harris a little more than 15 weeks to articulate a vision for her presidency.
Trump, by comparison, had announced his third presidential run on Nov. 15, 2022, and had steadily campaigned for nearly two years. Adding to the tumult, Trump was injured in a July assassination attempt and in May was convicted on felony charges related to a hush money scheme. He continues to face other criminal charges, though the future of those cases remains uncertain.
While polls had predicted another close race for Michigan’s 15 Electoral College votes, the campaigns took new approaches in attempts to build new winning coalitions amid a national political realignment.
Trump sought to woo young Black men and Arab Americans with economic appeals while expanding his margins with blue-collar workers by predicting the transition to electric vehicles — a tentpole of Biden’s manufacturing agenda — would spell doom for Michigan's auto industry.
Harris, meanwhile, courted moderate conservatives turned off by Trump while still attempting to enthuse young voters and progressives, including those skeptical she would bring a different approach than Biden, particularly in regard to Israel’s growing conflict in the Middle East.
Economy – and personality — drive voters
Voters who spoke with Bridge Michigan at the polls on Tuesday described the economy, reproductive rights, education and immigration as top issues — but personality was also a deciding factor for some.
The former president "helped out regular workers before" and understands "how hard it is" to get by, said Erin Gifford, a Lenawee County voter.
When Gifford explains her vote, it comes with tears. A housewife with two children, one with asthma, Gifford said she voted for Trump and hopes he will win because her family’s life was better then, their personal economy was better.
Her husband Robert had a factory job making $27 an hour, she said, but lost it in 2023. Now he makes $12.50 an hour and pays nearly a third of his weekly income toward health care.
“It’s less than half of what he made,” Gifford said outside the polling station in Tecumseh, a purple city that voted for Trump in 2016 but then for Biden in 2020. “I pray to the Lord every day that we don’t have (health) issues.”
Gifford said she has tried to find work without success. “Nobody is hiring, although they say the economy is great,” Gifford said.
The economy was also a motivating factor for Sarah and John Fowler of Monroe, who said they were tired of trying to keep up with bills.
“I want to be able to go to the grocery store and not have to spend $200 a week,” Sarah Fowler, a stay-at-home mom, told Bridge.
She trusts Trump to tamp down inflation.
Making matters worse is that — even as “groceries and the economy are out of control” — U.S. aid continues to flow to Ukraine, said John Fowler, who said he works both as a certified nursing assistant and at a Meijer distribution plant.
“Something has to change,” he said in the parking lot outside his polling place, where his 1-year-old daughter sat on his lap wearing his voting sticker.
But for other voters, Harris was the clear choice.
Trump "just doesn't seem like a leader for children," said Grant Ainsworth, a 34-year-old father of a newborn, who told Bridge he voted for the former president in 2016 and 2020 but backed Harris this time.
“Being a bully, possibly a bigot and calling people names” is not an example Ainsworth wants for his child, he said after voting in Grand Rapids, a former conservative stronghold that has swung Democratic in recent years.
While he leans libertarian, Ainsworth said Harris’ plan to expand the child tax credit resonated with him. And he hopes Harris can help unify the country in ways he does not think Trump is interested in.
In Detroit, 27-year-old Lauryn Allen backed Harris and said her election as the country's first female president would be "monumental,” marking a shift in how
Black and brown girls see themselves and how men communicate with women.
“A lot of people's mindsets will change, pertaining to women and pertaining to the presidency,” added Allen, who works as a researcher at Henry Ford Hospital.
Economy, abortion
In her Michigan campaign stops, Harris questioned Trump's character while emphasizing abortion rights in the wake of the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that eliminated national protections.
Despite serving as vice president the past four years, Harris attempted to frame herself as the change candidate ready to close the book on the Trump era of political discord. She won endorsements from some notable Michigan Republicans, including former U.S. Reps. Fred Upton and Dave Trott.
Trump, meanwhile, spent considerable time criticizing the economy under Democrats, including inflation that spiked in 2021 and 2022 but has since subsided.
He copied Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign question — “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” — and framed the election as a referendum on Harris' work as vice president under Biden.
As he did in prior campaigns, Trump also railed against undocumented immigrants and argued Democrats were not doing enough to protect Michigan's auto industry from foreign competition.
Trump’s campaign also made a major gamble: pivoting resources from traditional get-out-the-vote efforts to a new “election integrity” program.
That was done, in large part, to assure Trump’s most loyal supporters that the election was worth participating in, despite Trump's continued claims the 2020 election was rigged against him.
The heavy focus on litigation meant a substantial portion of the Republican ground game was outsourced to groups like the Elon Musk-funded America PAC and Turning Point Action.
A series of dark money groups funded by Musk, the world’s richest man, also funded ad campaigns meant to hurt Harris by touting her as pro-Israel in Muslim areas of Michigan and as pro-Palestinian in Jewish areas of the state.
Reporters Nushrat Rahman, Mike Wilkinson and Robin Erb contributed
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