Akram Alfy (Cairo)
At 2 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6, the world will hold its breath in front of the map of the results of the US presidential elections, waiting for the announcement of the result of the state of Michigan, one of the most important swing states that holds 15 votes in the electoral college (538 delegates)… At that moment, the screen may announce the change again to Red color and Trump’s victory by less than 2% over Camilla Harris.
Michigan residents will most likely have a pleasant surprise for the Republican team in this year’s elections, a surprise that could turn the equation around and return Trump to the Oval Office, but he will have to wait for the results of the other six swing states, especially Florida, which is difficult to predict.
The importance of the Michigan battle was reflected in Harris’s keenness to make Michigan her first stop in her electoral propaganda, while Trump landed in the state several times, attacking the Democrats’ support for electric cars at the expense of the auto industry in Detroit and accusing Biden and Harris of killing jobs in Detroit. He returned to the state again after an assassination attempt on him in Grand Rapids with his deputy, De Vance.
Since Michigan joined the Union in 1837, the state had been one of the bastions of the “Republican Elephant,” but the “pick” of the Great Depression destroyed this industrial fortress to become a hesitant state that distributed its tendencies between Democrats and Republicans.
The state continued its story of hesitation by always siding with the Republican candidate from 1972 to 1988 and returning to siding with the Democratic candidate from 1992 to 2012. This is how Michigan aligned itself with the Democrats for two full decades, causing some to move it from wavering states to blue states before Trump came in 2016 to change the equation by winning the state by a margin of 0.2%. Just a few votes for Hillary Clinton to bring back to Michigan the story of her hesitation.
In the 2020 elections, Biden won the state of Michigan by a margin of votes of no more than 2.8%, returning it to the lap of the Democrats, but the percentage of victory kept Michigan on the list of swing states in the presidential elections.
“Sunset of Trade Unions” and “Rise of the Elderly”
When the results of the US presidential elections are announced, the population of Michigan will have exceeded 10 million people. This is a state that is rapidly falling into the abyss of population shrinkage, with a population growth rate of less than 0.5% annually during the last decade.
The scene of Michigan’s population is revealed to you when you visit the most famous city, Detroit, whose dozens of buildings and homes have become closed with its population declining from 713,000 to 677,000 from 2010 to 2020. Do not be surprised if you learn that the city’s population reached 1.8 million people in 1950, meaning that it lost more than One million people in 70 years!!
Everyone is leaving Detroit, where the sun set early, for the distant suburbs before the start of a wave of migration out of the state.
Besides Detroit (formerly the Great), there are a number of small cities in Michigan, such as Grand Rapids, Sterling Heights, Lansing, Flint, and One Arbor, none of which have a population of more than 200,000 people.
Population growth in Michigan over the past 100 years has been linked to the automobile industry. This state’s population increased by about 30% every 10 years from 1930 to 1960 due to the growth of the automobile industry in Detroit. The decline of the automobile industry in the United States since the 1970s led to the beginning of a population decline in the state. Cars.
This decline caused the state to lose every population vote in the Electoral College, so its share decreased from 16 votes in the 2020 elections to only 15 votes in the 2024 elections, compared to 20 votes in the 1970s of the last century.
This decline helped in the dominance of the “old” white man, as the loss of job opportunities prompted young people, especially those of African and Spanish descent, to leave Michigan for other states in search of work, while older whites (over 65 years of age) settled in the state.
According to the latest population data, 73% of Michigan’s population are white, in addition to a large minority of people of African descent (14.1%). Latinos represent about 6% of the population, and the rest of the population is of various ethnicities, the largest of which is Arabs, whose percentage reaches 2% of the state’s population.
Nearly three-quarters (73.7%) of Michigan’s population is non-Hispanic white, but the state is also home to a large African-American population (14.1%). The second largest group by race or ethnicity is the Hispanic population, which makes up 6 %.
Michigan has also seen slow population growth over the years, gaining 21 electoral college votes in the 1970s and now standing at 15, after losing another vote from 2020 to 2024.
The dominant voter in Michigan is the white worker in the state of General Motors and Ford, who has sided with the social program of the Democratic Party over the past three decades.
But this worker has become retired over time, with the percentage of elderly people (65 years and above) rising to more than 15% of the state’s population.
The Democratic Party dominates Michigan because of the support of labor unions, especially the United Auto Workers, which represents about 12% of workers in the state.
But Trump succeeded in infiltrating these unions as his influence among the Truck Drivers Union increased.
In parallel, the increase in the proportion of elderly people in the state, along with the decline in the number of workers in factories due to the decline of the automobile industry, made the state closer to Republicans than ever before.
Older whites traditionally side with Republicans, and with the working class in Michigan divided, Trump’s chances increase.
As for the guaranteed votes of the Democrats of African descent (95% of them in Michigan elect the Democratic candidate) as well as the Arabs (their support rate for the Democrats is 90%), Harris realizes that she faces a problem due to the high unemployment rate among young people, as well as the Arabs’ attack on the Democratic administration as a result of her position on the events in Gaza.
Trump…the path to regaining victory
In Michigan, Trump is facing what remains of the strength of the labor unions, in addition to the declining importance of the immigration issue in voters’ priorities, but he is benefiting from the deteriorating economic conditions in the state and blaming the Democratic administration for this deterioration and blaming the Biden administration for the rise in prices, in addition to pledging to increase customs duties on goods. Imported to 20%.
On the other hand, Harris is intensifying her implications for improving the conditions of workers and the middle class through an incentive plan of up to $25,000 for those intending to buy a home for the first time, tax exemption for families with a newborn child, calling on companies to “play by the rules,” respecting workers’ rights, and pledging tax exemption for those who… They earn less than $400,000 in higher taxes.
A number of opinion polls indicate Trump’s lead in the Michigan election race, despite Camilla Harris’ attempts to enter the race by intensifying propaganda among blacks and Arabs in the state to garner the largest number of votes.
Trump broke the Democratic dominance of Michigan in 2016 when he defeated Clinton by only 11,000 votes, making him the first Republican president to win the Motor State votes since George W. Bush in 1988, but in 2020 he lost it by a margin of 2.8% of the votes to Biden, but in 2024 it seems that Trump is betting heavily on regaining Michigan.
Trump is focusing on the votes of elderly white people living in the suburbs and rural areas, along with the votes of young white people without a college degree, to win Michigan, exploiting the frustration of black youth with unemployment as well as the reluctance of Arabs to vote for Harris because of her position on the events in Gaza. The bet depends on the vote. White in light of blacks’ lack of turnout to vote.
Trump’s bet on Michigan also depends on the fact that victory will break the “blue wall”, which includes, in addition to Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which are the three states that represent the center of any Democratic victory in the presidential elections.
Trump realizes that Michigan contributed to his victory in the 2016 elections and that it chose 9 of the last 12 presidents of the United States, so repeating his victory in the state after 8 years will likely mean a return to the White House.
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