Pat Parker has campaigned for Democratic presidential candidates in the battleground state of Michigan over five elections, but it hasn’t always been a happy experience.
The thrill of walking in the door for Barack Obama, even though it seemed like he was going to win, was Hillary Clinton’s election campaign in Saginaw County, Michigan, where the atmosphere felt like a morgue. It was replaced by working in an office. Joe Biden’s campaign was limited by the pandemic.
But next week’s election will be different. Parker sees true fear for the first time.
This clinical social worker is enthusiastic about Kamala Harris, but many who say they will vote to make her the first black female president of the United States are more likely to vote for her opponent, Donald Trump. I am aware that I am being guided.
“It’s about him. There’s a big element of, ‘We can’t get him back, we have to stop him.’ Some conversations, it’s really hard. People were completely freaked out and upset and were like, “What do you think about Harris? ’” Parker said.
After Trump’s defeat in 2020, many Americans hoped and expected him to withdraw from the political scene. But the lasting impact of his presidency, including the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Trump’s continued destruction of trust in the electoral system, and especially the loss of abortion rights, is that the former president is now at the forefront of American politics. It meant staying on the front lines.
Parker said this year’s campaign has fueled fear as Trump has spewed threats to destroy democracy, turn the military against “the enemy within” and use the justice system to punish those who cross him. He said he would just let it happen. Add to that the frenzy of Mr. Trump’s campaign rallies, filled with vitriol against immigrants, including those in the U.S. legally, and threats to deport millions.
“We’re keeping an eye on him. It’s like we can’t take our eyes off the fire,” Parker said.
Michiganders are getting a front-row seat in all of this, amid a flurry of campaign ads and rallies as Harris and Trump battle for votes in key states where they remain close in the polls.
The Harris campaign believes the most difficult path to victory is through Michigan, along with other Rust Belt battleground states Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The key to victory is voter turnout.
Trump won these “blue wall” states in 2016, winning Michigan by just 10,704 votes.
Although the then-president significantly increased his vote share in all three states in 2020, Biden remains in the race as Democrats who stayed home four years ago turned out in droves to remove President Trump from the White House. lost votes. A higher percentage of registered voters (72%) turned out to vote in Michigan in 2020 than in any election since John F. Kennedy was elected president 60 years ago.
There are signs that turnout could be even higher this year, with county clerks in Michigan reporting increased voter registration and nearly 1 million mail-in ballots already returned. The good news for Harris is that most of them come from heavily Democratic areas like Detroit.
But the Harris campaign is well aware that after the failure of 2016, nothing can be taken for granted. Mr. Clinton did little to campaign in Michigan or engage with key blocs such as auto workers and black communities that traditionally vote Democratic. Clinton strategists assure worried Michigan Democrats that data shows Clinton has a 5-point lead in the state and they are focusing resources elsewhere. did. That confidence was grossly misplaced, and she lost Michigan and other battleground states.
By contrast, Harris has spent more time campaigning in Michigan than in any other state except Pennsylvania. The vice president and his running mate, Tim Walz, criss-cross Michigan, appealing to factory workers, black voters, white suburban women and college students.
The Harris campaign kicked out Barack Obama to rap with Eminem at a rally in Detroit and sent in Bernie Sanders, a darling of the Democratic left, to allay the suspicions of student voters who feared Harris was just a corporate Democrat.
Harris is also working to woo anti-Trump Republicans, with support from former Republican officials in the state, including former congressmen. The vice president joined former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on stage to reassure Republican voters who have rebelled against President Trump and are wary of legal attacks on women’s rights that it is safe to vote for Harris. Lined up.
Cheney’s father, Dick, also supports Harris, a group that has worried some Michigan Democrats given his role in pushing the United States into the disastrous Iraq war.
Chris Wyant, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign in Michigan who also worked on the Clinton campaign in the state, acknowledged that the strategy was shaped by lessons learned from the 2016 loss.
“I don’t think we would have had a strong team and I don’t think we would have been able to get time from the candidates like we are now,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, are hammering states with a raft of tough promises that even many supporters don’t believe will ever come true. The former president said at a rally in Saginaw earlier this month that he would once again make Michigan the “auto capital of the world.” More than a dozen auto plants in the county, which once employed tens of thousands of people, have closed in recent decades.
President Trump also stuck to the divisive issue over electric vehicles at a recent rally in Michigan, where most voters expressed interest in government-funded EVs due to potential job losses at traditional auto factories. I am against promotion incentives.
But the former president didn’t help himself at a rally in Detroit, disparaging a city still recovering from the loss of factories and population and dotted with abandoned and burnt-out homes.
“If she were president, our entire country would look like Detroit,” he said.
But Trump is far more trusted than Harris when it comes to Michigan’s two key issues: inflation and immigration. While the Biden administration boasts of a booming economy, including record job growth, the statistics are unhelpful for many Americans who are still grappling with the effects of years of high prices.
As a Black woman, Darshell Roberson, who works at a soup kitchen in Saginaw, worries more about her struggle to keep her job than about President Trump’s racist comments.
“I voted for Biden and I really feel that Biden has let me down. I trust Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for him in the last election. I was a little scared of him, but after I saw him in person, I fell in love with him,” she said.
“I think Donald Trump will make everything better. I really do. I could be wrong, but I hope I’m not.”
Roberson’s shifting loyalties reflect a deep disillusionment with many Michigan politicians, many of whom are seen as too close to corporate interests or with national Democrats who don’t care about workers. It is directed towards. Union organizers in Saginaw are despairing that so many of their members are voting for Trump, in part blaming how far the Democratic establishment has strayed from the party’s traditional base. are.
Trump is also popular among young white men in Michigan, some of whom are voting for the first time, potentially boosting the former president’s vote tally. Louis Jensen, for example, traveled from rural Michigan to attend Mr. Trump’s rally in Saginaw.
“I’m voting for Trump. All my friends are voting for Trump. He may be a little crazy in some of his statements, but he’s going to put the American people first,” he said. . “I don’t trust Harris. I think she’s under Obama’s control. She just does what the banks want.”
But the key question for Trump is whether he can win enough votes to retake the state if Democrats support Harris in the same numbers as they did in 2020.
Parker, the Democratic activist, said from conversations with other voters that many expressed the same wariness about the possibility of Trump returning to power, which he said would increase turnout.
“If he’s re-elected, he can do anything now. A lot of him is just blunt and untrue and he doesn’t have the energy to do half of it. But he’s got people around him who will now. It could completely change this country,” she said.
“I don’t think we have the ability to protest. I don’t think we have the ability to have our voices heard. And I don’t know if there will be an election. How deep will the desire for revenge go?”
Trump also faces changes to the electoral process in Michigan.
Parker was an activist with Voters Not Politicians, a grassroots group that won a referendum to end gerrymandering in state elections. The second campaign marked the first time the state introduced nine days of early voting in a presidential election. This, among other things, will help Black churches encourage their congregations to vote on the Sunday before Election Day with the “Souls to the Vote” initiative.
The issue of abortion rights is also likely to spur turnout. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, supporting a ballot initiative enshrining the right to abortion in Michigan’s constitution, voter turnout surged in the 2022 midterm elections. Michigan Democrats believe that if Trump is re-elected and Republicans take control of both houses of Congress, continued concerns about the federal ban on abortion will increase voter turnout again and attract white suburban women who previously voted for Trump. We believe that we can gain the support of
This problem was especially problematic for students on midterm exams. Keaton Henning, a student and campaigner for Harris at Saginaw Valley State University, said he expects something similar this year.
“I’ve been active ever since I heard what Donald Trump said about immigration. As someone who comes from a Hispanic family, it was a big deal in 2016 and has stayed with me ever since.” ” he said.
“But for a lot of students, it’s women’s rights. I mean, fixing Roe v. Wade, that’s a big issue that a lot of people on campus talk about. And other people talking about the war in Gaza. There’s also a subsection of people. That’s still there.”
Israel’s war in Gaza continues to be a difficult issue for Michigan’s Harris. As the Palestinian death toll soars into the tens of thousands, 100,000 people, many from the Arab-American community around Detroit, protested Biden’s support for Israel during the Democratic primary in February. The above voted unopposed. Few of these voters appear to support Trump, but there is a possibility that they will abstain. If the race is as close as it was in 2016, this could make or break the Michigan election.
A dedicated movement is now warning of the dangers of President Trump’s return, saying he would be even worse for Palestinians than the president dubbed “Genocide Joe.”
For some people, that may be too much. Parker said, “One of my dearest friends will be leaving the country on November 1st.” “She’s going to Canada to get out of the country and won’t be coming back until this is all over.”
