Donald Trump’s path to victory in Michigan: Expand support nearly everywhere

• Donald Trump grew his support in nearly every county in Michigan on his way to victory
• Even in counties Kamala Harris won, she typically got fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020
• Turnout increased in counties won by Trump. It decreased in ones that favored Harris

Michigan swung back to Donald Trump in a big way this week, as nearly every community and county shifted right, helping the Republican former president roll to victory.

From Detroit to the suburbs to the most rural parts of Michigan, Trump boosted his support and eroded it from Vice President Kamala Harris, winning by over 81,000 votes with 99% of precincts reporting.

Trump flipped Saginaw and Muskegon counties that favored Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Ditto for suburbs like Rochester and Bloomfield Hills. He eroded Democrats’ support in Detroit and Wayne County.

In the end, amid record turnout of 5.6 million votes, he cobbled a solid if narrow victory: closer than Biden’s 154,000-vote margin but bigger than Trump’s 2016 shocker by less than 11,000 votes over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

How did he do it? There’s many answers, but one simple one: His base grew statewide, while Harris’ shrunk.

Here are a few takeaways.

Surge of Republican support

In the wake of the 2016 election, many Democrats were shocked. Where were these Trump voters?

Now the answer may be far simpler: their neighborhood.

Despite millions spent on ads to portray Trump as a threat to democracy, his core of support rose across the state. He won 17 of Michigan’s 83 counties with 70% or more of the vote, up from seven in 2020.

In counties he won, turnout rose nearly 3 percentage points. 

In the counties Harris won, it fell.

In Democratic Oakland County, nearly every community moved right. Some, like Rochester, Bloomfield Hills and Keego Harbor, backed Trump after favoring Biden in 2020.

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Most others, even those that eventually supported Harris, made the same shift. 

Consider West Bloomfield Township, Oakland County’s fifth largest community, where Harris received 4,000 fewer votes than Biden in 2020.

In 2020, it favored Biden with 59% of the vote. This week, 54% of its voters backed Harris, while Trump’s support rose from 39.6% to 43.2%.

Trump’s biggest prize was Macomb County, where he grew his margin by more than 28,000 votes to nearly 68,000 votes, the largest in the state.

Another part of the puzzle: Third-party votes, perhaps motivated by anger among progressives over the war in Gaza.

Statewide, 2% of all votes, 110,000, went to minor parties, up from 85,000 in 2020 when there was a similar turnout.

Trump won the state’s largest Arab-American community, Dearborn, which traditionally backs Democrats. 

Green Party nominee Jill Stein got 15% of her total votes statewide from the Wayne County city alone.

Economic fears motivated many

Voters appeared to respond to Trump’s messaging on the economy, the potential loss of auto jobs to electrification and fears over immigration and crime.

Meanwhile, Democratic talking points about protecting democracy and women’s reproductive rights did not appear to work, according to Bridge voter interviews and national exit polls.

Both campaigns made pitches in frequent visits to the state, stopping at nearly 70 locations across Michigan, from arenas and radio stations to coffee shops, union halls and factories.

But while both campaigns came often, where they came differed markedly. Trump and US Sen. JD Vance stopped in Detroit and its suburbs often — but also in rural and less populated areas, including Big Rapids, Traverse City, Potterville and other locations far from a major airport.

In Tecumseh, Cassie Fields, a business owner and mother of two, said she remembered her cleaning business doing better when Trump was president from 2017 to 2020.

On Election Day she said she worried that “the economy could go one way or another. It just scares me. We just need change.”

The jobless rate in Lenawee County, where Tecumseh is, was 6.7% in July, well above the 4.4% of the state. 

Lenawee County turnout rose 2.5% this election and Trump increased his support, winning 61% of the total, up from 59% in 2020.

Democratic support doesn’t grow

In Wayne County, the state’s most populous, Harris won by 237,300 votes in unofficial tallies that include most of Detroit. 

But that’s over 95,000 fewer votes than Biden won by in 2020, a stark narrowing of Democratic support that was repeated across almost the entire state.

In Detroit, voters overwhelmingly backed Harris with 90% of the vote. 

Her problem was Biden got 94% and 19,300 more votes in 2020. 

And Trump got nearly 7,000 more votes in the city than he did that year, after aggressively courting Black male voters.

That shrank Democrats’ victory margin in the state’s largest city from 228,000 in 2020 to under 202,000. 

Overall, in Detroit, turnout was 47%, several points below predictions from Democrats and City Clerk Janice Winfrey. BridgeDetroit reported that progressive activists and others blamed the decline on Harris' inability to articulate differences with Biden and present a coherent economic plan.