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Democratic candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have made their joint debut this week, with a whirlwind schedule campaigning through battleground states.
Harris and Walz have already stopped in Philadelphia, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and will soon hold events in Arizona and Nevada. They are speaking at a union event in Detroit later on Thursday for the United Auto Workers group.
The auto unions have been a key bastion of support for President Joe Biden, who even went so far as to join the picket line with members in solidarity in September of last year. Though Harris has not yet had the opportunity to build a strong relationship with union groups, the UAW formally backed her campaign last week.
Shawn Fain, leader of the UAW, recently expressed his disdain for Donald Trump and the Republican campaign, telling the Associated Press: “Trump has never supported working class people. He has never supported unions. But he sure as hell was trying to pander for our votes now.”
The current polls show a tight race between Trump and Harris. Each has shown small margins in different Michigan polls, underlining how close the race really is in this key battleground state.
Formerly a Republican stronghold, Michigan turned blue in the 90s, but has mostly been won by a few percentage points since then.
In 2016, Donald Trump won by just 0.2% of the statewide vote. And in 2020, Biden flipped the state blue by 2.8%.
Although Biden won in 2020, the state has a strong Trump support base throughout its majority rural landmass, particularly in Northern Michigan, where some counties voted for Trump by over 71%.
The Harris campaign has been trying to pivot towards a strategy which will mobilize more white, working-class people, previous reporting suggests, not least the unions.
The median household income in Michigan is $68,990, ranking it number #34 out of #50 states. Michigan also ranks #39 out of #50 for per-capita income, a dramatic decrease in the past few decades.
But who do Michigan voters actually trust to bring them a brighter economic future?
The economy is by far the greatest issue impacting how Michiganders will vote, according to a recent poll from Redfield and Wilton.
Over a third of respondents (36%) viewed the economy as the top factor influencing their vote, with the number even higher among people who voted for Trump in 2020 (44%). However, the specific issue of taxation did not seem to be a top priority for Michigan voters.
Those who voted for Biden in 2020 are mostly concerned about abortion rights (29%), for which both Harris and local Governor Gretchen Whitmer have been advocates. Overall, abortion remains a top issue for Michigan voters regardless of political affiliation (17%), in addition to immigration (9%).
Immigration will be the key deciding factor for 1 in 5 people (18%) who cast their ballots for Trump in 2020. Just under 7% of Michigan’s population is foreign-born, placing it in the mid-to-lower end compared to other states.
Healthcare and the environment are also notable concerns for voters in all of the battleground states.
Can Harris-Walz win on these issues?
The same polling from Redfield and Wilton has shown that Michigan voters lean more towards the Democratic policy position on economic issues (48%), as opposed to Republican (39%).
But in a challenging twist for the Harris campaign, these key battleground voters still trust Trump (43%) more than Harris (36%) on that same economic issue.
This puzzling trend stretches to other policy issues, too.
People in Michigan lean slightly more towards Democratic policies on inflation, but trust Trump over Harris to handle the issue better.
Michiganders also prefer the Democratic position on policing, but still slightly lean towards Trump in a head-to-head on police — despite Harris’s extensive history as a prosecutor and attorney general, working directly on police issues.
This apparent dichotomy between party lines and the candidates shows that Harris may not be synonymous with the Democratic Party, and vice versa.
But considering the fact that Harris has had less than a month — just 18 days, in fact — in the race, it may just be that Trump has an advantage in seeming ‘presidential’ at this point in the race, while Harris has to work harder to establish her position.
In more positive news for Team Harris, key voters in Michigan clearly prefer her and Democrats on abortion, healthcare, the environment, and election integrity.
Immigration is the only topic on which Michigan voters prefer the Republican stance and Trump’s leadership.
