ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan’s presidential contest will come down to the margins, and three key voting blocs will tip the race to either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday.
Michigan’s black, Arab American, and union voters traditionally favor Democrats, but this year they could be in play for Republicans, who need just a small contingent of Democratic defectors to flip the swing state’s 15 electoral votes into Trump’s column.
The Post talked to two of Michigan’s veteran political operatives to weigh in on how these three demographics will determine the race Tuesday.
Arab Americans
This diverse and sizable population is one of Michigan’s most important voting blocs, Republican strategist Jason Roe told The Post.
“To me, it’s what makes Michigan the most fascinating of the battlegrounds,” said Roe. “After 9/11, they saw the Republicans as an enemy. It was Bush and Republicans and the US government controlled by Republicans that was targeting their community.”
But the Trump campaign is courting the Arab-American population in 2024, even opening a campaign headquarters in Hamtramck, Mich., a city home to a large Yemeni Muslim community, in the hopes of winning over voters disenchanted with Democrats’ handling of the Israel-Hamas War.
Many blame Biden for the continued carnage in the Middle East, and the veep along with him. Harris’ campaign messaging on the war in the Middle East has left many Arab voters wanting, with many even deserting the Democrat for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
But Roe says there are signs that Michigan’s Arab-Americans may be willing to look past Bush-era policies and Republicans’ pro-Israel stance to cast their ballots for Trump on Tuesday.
“After October 7, we’re the most Zionist party to ever walk the earth,” the strategist said of his fellow Republicans.
”So we’re not exactly a warm pool to come swimming in after October 7. But they think Trump is the guy that can get this done because of who he is — not because he is their ideological ally, but because they think he’s a kind of strong man.”
But Michigan Democratic strategist Bernie Porn, who runs the Michigan polling firm EPIC/MRA, is skeptical of Trump’s appeal to that demographic.
“If it’s dead even in Michigan [among Arab Americans] when election comes, that could make a difference. But I don’t think it’s gonna be dead even,” said Porn.
Black voters
Perhaps the most reliable voting bloc for Democrats in Michigan, African-Americans are signaling that their votes are in play for Trump this election cycle.
Roe is confident that Trump will gain black support at the polls next week, telling The Post it’s “unquestionable” that more black voters are casting their ballots for the GOP column this year.
“A Republican typically is always gonna pull around 10% [of the black vote]. Do we get to 20%? That’s not a huge number of raw votes, but that’s a doubling of support from where we were,” he explained.
“Anecdotally, I hear more and more and more of it than I believed was out there,” he added.
Bernie Porn said that although there were worrisome signs of Harris losing black male support at the beginning of the campaign, he believes that black voters will vote for her in typical numbers, thanks to the appeals from the VP and former President Barack Obama.
“In our last survey, we had 69% of black voters supporting Kamala Harris. And this was in August,” Porn told The Post. “Obviously it was a short period of time after she had gotten into the race, but she had a long way to go, and I think she is probably almost there in the eighties as a percentage — like 85, 87% in most of the polls that I’m looking at. And Biden in 2020 was at 90% among black voters.”
Nationally, Harris is polling at 78% support among black voters, per a New York Times poll conducted late September to early October. That’s well behind Biden, who received 92% of the black vote in 2020.
Young voters
A strong turnout of young, pro-choice voters helped deliver control of all three branches of Michigan’s government to Democrats in 2022, when a state referendum on abortion rights was on the ballot to enshrine access to the procedure into the state’s constitution.
But Roe says two years later, the tables have turned as Trump makes major gains with young male voters.
“We’re playing offensive with some of these young voters,” said Roe. “In 2022, we were just hiding under a rock. Now because of Trump and the gender realignment, we can offset some of those female voters with an increase in male voters.”
Roe added that he was uncertain of whether or not young men will turn out in the same numbers as young women, who overwhelmingly support Harris.
“Younger men historically don’t vote at the same clip as younger women,” said Roe. “Younger women are more issue driven. So do the bros go from cheering Trump and waving flags to voting? That’s going to be a big question.”
Union members and the white working class
The path to victory in Michigan for any party has always involved winning white, working class voters. Home to tons of Teamsters and United Auto Workers union members, the Wolverine State is no stranger to the political power of organized labor.
“One of the headlines of Obama’s victory — and it has, I think, been lost to time — was he won the white working class,” said Roe, adding that this voting bloc is just as essential to any victory Trump might pull off in Michigan and other Rust Belt states.
“College educated voters are increasingly breaking to Democrats and non-four-year-degree voters are breaking to Republicans. It’s very much a big class and socioeconomic realignment. It kind of falls along the lines of the elites and the proletariat.”
Porn’s take isn’t as lofty as his Republican counterpart. While he believes Harris will get less union support than Biden did, he’s not convinced that there’s been a great realignment of political parties.
“I think that [union support] may be a little bit below where Biden had it. He was, I think at 65% and one poll we had Harris at about 63%. And I think that’s about where she’s at now,” the strategist said.
How reliable are the polls?
The burning question in the final week before Election Day is: Are the polls on target, or not to be trusted?
Porn pledged to The Post that his polls are highly accurate, despite past reluctance from many voters to disclose support for Trump to pollsters.
“I’m not sure that reluctance is going to exist as much now as it has in the past,” Porn said of the polling trend among secret Trump supporters.
“He ends up over-performing what people are saying because, to the extent that people are voting for Trump now, I think they’re much more supportive and motivated to vote for Trump and less likely to be nervous about telling the truth to pollsters.”
Roe agreed.
“I have to assume to some degree the pollsters — not all of them, but some of them — have addressed that,” he said of voters not sharing their support with surveyors. “People are less secretive about their support for Trump. There’s more willingness to say it.”
