Swing state guide: Michigan

Will the war in the Middle East doom Harris here?

Between now and election day, I’m going to be publishing swing state guides roughly once a week. The posts are designed to be digestible guides to understanding the political geography and demographics of each swing state, and I guarantee that they’ll make you the most informed person at your watch party on election night.

Most swing state guides are and will only be available to paid subscribers. But between now and election day, there’s a 15% discount to all annual subscriptions - so sign up now to lock in a low price and be able to access all of the guides between now and the election. You can also check out the guide to Arizona, guide to North Carolina (free to read), guide to Nebraska’s 2nd district (free to read), guide to Georgia, guide to Nevada, and guide to Wisconsin. The guide to all-important Pennsylvania is coming up next Tuesday.

Michigan is another one of the states in what used to be called the Democrats’ “blue wall” in the Upper Midwest. Along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, it was a solidly Democratic state which Republicans had not been able to penetrate since the 1990s. Then Trump came along in 2016 and was able to appeal to the region’s large pool of less-educated white voters, and suddenly it was competitive. Trump barely eked out a win that year, and Biden barely secured one in 2020. This time around, what happens in Michigan is one of the most important questions of the election. If Kamala Harris wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, she will be the next president. If she doesn’t, the map gets a lot more tricky.

The situation in Michigan is particularly unpredictable this year because the state is the home of the ‘Uncommitted’ movement - a swathe of traditionally left-wing voters who are refusing to back Harris because of the Biden administration’s support of Israel. Michigan is home to the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the United States - particularly in Dearborn and surrounding areas of the Detroit metro - and they make up about 4% of the electorate in Michigan. Although they used to be a fairly Republican demographic before 9/11, Arab-Americans have since moved hard into the Democratic column. A lot of observers are wondering whether that trend might end this year, complicating Harris’ path to victory.

The 2020 presidential election result in Michigan, with counties that voted for Democrats in blue and Republican ones in red