The state of the election in Michigan

Michigan is once again a key battleground state in this year's presidential election. Donald Trump won the state in 2016 with 10,704 votes, while Joe Biden won the state in 2020 with 154,188 votes. This year, pundits and candidates on the other side seem to agree on just one basic fact: The race is still very close, and Michigan's 15 electoral votes are still up for debate.

Since Biden resigned at the end of July, Harris has enjoyed a stable – if at times uncomfortably small – lead over Trump in Michigan. However, polls from the end of September indicate that it is not a given that Harris will win the state comfortably on November 5th. With just three weeks left until the 2024 presidential campaign, polling website FiveThirtyEight reports that Kamala Harris is only 0.6 points ahead of Donald Trump in Michigan on October 24, 2024 – 47.6 compared to 47.0. This narrowing of the race appears to be closing the gap Harris won over Trump in August. A closer look at specific polls included in these estimates reveals that while Harris had a solid and consistent lead over Trump by as much as eight percentage points in mid-September, this was the case in polls starting in the third week of September Did Trump lead the state, did Harris win the state by a narrow margin, or were the two evenly split.

What could drive this change? A September 2024 New York Times/Siena College poll found that the three issues most important to Michigan voters were the economy (24%), abortion (17%) and immigration (14%). Trump, in turn, has campaigned intensively on two of these three issues in recent weeks. For example, he has made a strong appeal to people in Michigan whose jobs have been lost to globalization and automation by promising to revitalize the American auto industry and restart auto factories that have closed in recent years. Groups like Duty to America are highlighting Trump's strengths on illegal immigration by running ads across Michigan arguing that it has hurt white people who have been “left behind.” And while Harris, on the other hand, has major strengths on abortion rights, success in the 2022 election in amending the state constitution to secure the right to abortion and other reproductive health services may have reduced the prominence of abortion as a key voting issue in the state .

In contrast, there appear to be several issues surrounding three key Democratic voter groups in the state – Black voters, young voters and Muslim/MENA voters – that further complicate a seamless Harris victory in Michigan.

Among black voters, Wayne State University political scientist Ronald Brown has found a divide between enthusiasts who belong to the “black leadership class” and have deep ties to the Democratic Party, and black Michiganders without those ties, who are more working-class. poorer, more tired, less interested and therefore more prone to sitting out elections.

Many black voters are also deeply concerned about the economy, and as Meghan Wilson, a political scientist at Michigan State University, has noted, Harris could lure black entrepreneurs and student debt holders by discussing plans to inject capital into small businesses. The Harris campaign appears to agree. This week, in addition to unveiling economic proposals that appeal to black voters, Harris will travel to Detroit to participate in a radio town hall with Charlamagne Tha God, whose show The Breakfast Club has a national audience, many of whom are black. However, particular attention should be paid to an attempt to suppress black voter turnout. It was recently revealed that Tom Barrett, a GOP candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, placed a newspaper ad in the black-owned Michigan Bulletin newspaper that falsely informed its predominately black readership that on November 6, Election Day, to vote is on November 5th.

Young voters in Michigan represent a potential stream of untapped support for the Democratic Party. Although young voters have historically had lower turnout than older Americans, young voters in Michigan stand out from their peers. In the 2020 election, 54 percent of Michiganders ages 18 to 29 voted, a 20 percent increase from 2016. In the 2022 midterm elections, young voters ages 18 to 29 in Michigan had the highest turnout in the across the country, they showed the influence their votes had on the enshrinement of abortion and voting rights in the state constitution. This year, about 75% of students registered to vote at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University cast their ballots.

This year, however, it remains to be seen how successful Harris has been in activating the youth vote. To be sure, young Michiganders are more enthusiastic about her candidacy than Biden's, but recent analysis from Michigan State University political scientist Corwin Smidt suggests that young people's turnout in Michigan's November 2024 election is so far lagging behind its 2020 levels. In addition, young voters were an important part of the “non-committal” coalition that sent a strong signal to then-presidential candidate Biden during the February 2024 primaries that he was enabling Israel’s war in Gaza. But Harris is taking steps to connect with young voters by setting up offices at campus locations across the state. Importantly, young voters could influence not only the outcome of the presidential election, but also the partisan balance in Congress, as young voters at Michigan State University have the opportunity to cast their ballot in the race for Michigan's 7th Congressional District among the 26 tossup -Districts of the country.

Finally, Harris finds herself in an extremely precarious position with Michigan's Muslim electorate and the MENA electorate. Without a doubt, these groups will have a major impact on how Michigan's 15 electoral votes are cast. According to political scientist Youssef Chouhoud, there are more than 200,000 Muslim voters in Michigan. Over the past year, Muslim support for the Democratic Party has plummeted. In a recent poll conducted between August 25 and 27, the Council on American Islamic Relations found that Jill Stein leads the Muslim electorate in Michigan; 40% of Muslims surveyed in this poll supported Stein, 18% supported Trump and just 12% supported Harris. And as Harris' support for Israel remains unwavering as Israel continues its attacks on Gaza and now Lebanon, she has arguably angered those voters who could have been a reliable source of electoral support for her.