Well, the elections are over and rather than be destructive by getting angry or engaging in pie fights I’ve decided to be constructive by doing a rundown/comparison of Michigan voting patterns for the state between 2012 and 2016 as to where the most recent campaign declined both on a county level as well as on a municipal level as it wasn’t *just* Macomb County (this was the worst, but it wasn’t the only, and if Hillary had did better in 1-2 other places she still could have pulled out a win in the state). In pinpointing the locations to target I’m also going to look at the most recent demographics (courtesy of US Census Quickfacts (Michigan Page) www.census.gov/... ).
Michigan, excluding third-party candidates had the following result in 2016: Donald Trump (R-NY) 2,279,543 vs. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) 2,268,839 a difference of only 10,704 votes. This compares with the 2012 Presidential Election results of Barack Obama (D-Illinois) 2,564,569 vs. Mitt Romney (R-Mass) 2,115,256 which was a win of over almost 450,000 votes which meant that in addition to having a swing over 230,000 there were also 131,443 voters who did not vote for either of the top two (though most of these went to third parties). However, Michigan is no more a monolith state than either California, NY, Ohio, or another state and can be broken up into a couple of key regions for Democrats that they either will win, can win, or can at least keep it close. For simplicities sake I’m going to break down the state into around 5 regions (there are more but they matter a bit less): Tri-County Detroit Metro (Wayne-Part I, Oakland, and Macomb counties, will be covered in Part II), Other Southeastern Michigan (Washtenaw, Monroe, Genesee, Saginaw and arguably Bay county covered in Part III), Mid Michigan (Ingham and others which will be covered in Part IV), Western Michigan (Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, and numerous others also grouped in Part IV), and the Upper Peninsula (exactly what it says, grouped in Part IV also).
I’ll start with the single biggest population of voters in the state, Wayne County (which is large enough that I’m going to do a breakdown of just this county in Part I, especially as it’s probably the key to the state for any Democratic candidate). The votes for these three counties were as follows: Wayne: Clinton: 519,444 vs. Trump: 228,993 as compared to 2012 which was Obama 595,846 vs. Romney 213,814. Already we can see the margin of victory even before we get to the more often discussed Macomb County. Trump scored over 15,000 votes more and Hillary received 76,000 less.
Some of this was due to turnout in Detroit (2016: 234,871 vs. 7,682, 2012: 281,382 vs. 6,016), which was both somewhat expected as well but points to a failed GOTV effort in the city (certain people have complained about the Clintons efforts overall, no idea in Michigan) as well as less excitement for Hillary compared to Obama (as well as a 5.1% decline in population between 2010 and 2015 www.census.gov/... ). The demographics of Detroit are still predominantly African American (82% African American, 10% White, with the rest being various other minority groups) though other groups are present as well (it is also starting to have younger people move back into the city). While gentrification has started to occur, the city as a whole is has a large problem with poverty (40.3% of residents living in poverty, 18.9% without health insurance, only 13.5% of residents having a Bachelor’s degree or higher).
Another area with a relatively large swing was the suburban city of Westland (www.census.gov/... with election data from www.cityofwestland.com/... ) as the 2016 vote was: Clinton 20,961 vs. Trump 14,708 (with Johnson getting 1,313) compared to 2012: Obama 23,840 vs. Romney 12,598 (with all other votes getting around 500 total). There is a total difference of margin of 4,989 (Hillary received 2,879 less while Trump received 2,110 more) which was 46.6% of the margin of loss. This is one of the blue collar, primarily white (over 75%) cities that Trump *did* get some traction in this state (and which Hillary got noticeably less traction, her decline compared to Obama being around 27% of her margin of loss). Westland kind of has the reputation as being an old-line auto town, with many working in the plants. Westland is less educated (only 18.8% with a Bachelor’s or higher, lower than both the nation as a whole and Michigan as a whole), starting to get poorer (15.8% living in poverty, 12.2% without health insurance), and with a slightly aging declining population. It’s also worth noting that, while Hillary’s margin declined, she did still win the city fairly comfortably.
Sometimes, it isn’t always the biggest communities that have large swings either, as relatively small Brownstown Township (towards the central southern portion of the county, they elect school boards for Taylor and Woodhaven to give you an idea of where this is at) indicates. In 2012 the vote in Brownstown was Obama 8,037 vs. Romney 5,495 (www.thenewsherald.com/..., 2012 results not available on township website) compared to the 2016 result of Trump 7,490 vs. Hillary Clinton 7,374 (www.brownstown-mi.org/... ). In Brownstown Trump received over 2,000 votes more than Romney while Clinton’s total declined by 660 for a swing of 2,660 (which was 24.9% of her margin of loss). This relatively small (around 30,600) township with a slightly aging population (just under 37 years of age), which has and is primarily white (83.8%) and is also another auto town (a quick good indicates there is a Ford facility there, and I believe its close to a couple others). Aside from the Presidential election, the township voted Democratic for Congress (Debbie Dingell), State Representative (Dean Camilleri), township level, and for all state boards (the 3 major universities, State Board of Education).
As we move to Western Wayne we get to a relatively growing portion of the county in Canton Township and one in which Hillary Clinton actually did better than Barack Obama (26,169 vs. 19,365 as compared with 25,017 vs. 19,907, and that’s with 1,564 voting for Gary Johnson in 2016), an increase of 1,994 in terms of margin compared to 2012. Canton is part of the more educated, relatively diverse suburbs that have drifted gradually Dem over the years (its represented by David Trott due to the mother of all bad gerrymanders). Canton is also growing in terms of voters as 2,700 more votes were cast in 2016.
I will finish this write-up with the other inner-ring suburbs of Detroit: Livonia and Dearborn. Livonia, long considered the most Republican area in Wayne County voted Republican both times by a slightly larger margin for Trump, though votes for *both* parties were down in 2016 (2016 election results at www.ci.livonia.mi.us/... while the 2012 vote is at livdocs.ci.livonia.mi.us/...). Regarding Livonia it should be noted that Hillary received 2,278 fewer votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012 (with the 3rd party vote going from around 700 votes to over 3,000. Livonia is one of the few places which were relatively well educate (36% with a Bachelor’s or higher as per www.census.gov/... ) were Hillary Clinton did make headway in Michigan. If I had to guess, Livonia probably changed its vote as it did due to the long term demonization of Hillary leading to a number of residents to vote 3rd party if they couldn’t stomach Hillary or Trump.
Dearborn is generally considered to be one of the highest concentrations of Middle Eastern Muslims in America and is the site of the World Headquarters for Ford Motor Company (and is the headquarters for one of the largest AAA groups in America). The election results for 2012 to 2016 are basically the same, despite the fact that my first memory was that Obama had done surprisingly better, with 2012 being: 26,266 Obama vs. 12,732 Romney while 2016 was: 24, 940 Clinton vs. 12,171 Trump (http://www.cityofdearborn.org/documents/city-departments/city-clerk/elections/election-results). The difference in margin was only around 750 votes; the likeliest cause of any decline may be due to the small drop in population (www.census.gov/... ).
It should be noted that the vote combined vote changes in Westland, Brownstown, and Livonia almost equaled Hillary’s margin of defeat. While this breakdown is by no means a complete rundown (I admit we did not get into the downriver area, nor the city of Taylor proper as examples) but out of a 2015 population of 1,759,000 I’ve covered areas that total over 1 million. I think what I did breakdown suggests that Hillary may have failed to specifically connect to many of the blue collar suburbs (though if you look they voted Dem in most other races) and the growing white collar suburbs (such as Canton) were not enough to make up for that. We will see in Part II (Oakland and Macomb Counties…and just the thought of going through that data is enough to make me tired…could be 2-3 times longer than this blog if I do it right) if this holds true throughout the Metro Detroit Region.