Of all the Midwestern states the results from which shocked me on election night 2016, Michigan’s result was perhaps the worst jolt I received. Michigan had gone Democratic six straight times. Barack Obama won comfortable victories in the state twice, winning 57.33% in 2008 and 54.04% in 2012. So it was dismaying to see the final result in 2016:
|
Donald J. Trump |
Michael R. Pence |
Republican |
2,279,543 |
47.25% |
16 |
|
Hillary Clinton |
Timothy Kaine |
Democratic |
2,268,839 |
47.03% |
0 |
|
Gary Johnson |
William F. Weld |
Libertarian |
172,136 |
3.57% |
0 |
|
Dr. Jill Stein |
Ajamu Baraka |
Green |
51,463 |
1.07% |
0 |
|
Write-ins |
- |
- |
25,301 |
0.52% |
0 |
|
Darrell L. Castle |
Scott N. Bradley |
U.S. Taxpayers |
16,139 |
0.33% |
0 |
|
Other (+) |
- |
- |
11,121 |
0.23% |
0 |
[Source: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections]
That 16 in the upper right corner indicates the number of electoral votes Trump received from this painfully narrow win. By the way, that Stein vote really grinds my gears. Clinton lost the state by only 10,704. Unfortunately, 51,463 people voted Green and helped put the most viciously anti-environment “president” in history in office.
The Democratic presidential vote fell from 2,564,569 in 2012 to 2,268,839 in 2016. The Republican presidential vote rose from 2,115,256 in 2012 to 2,279,543. So our vote fell by almost 300,000 while the Republican vote rose by about 164,000. The strongest Democratic county was, of course, Wayne County, the home of Detroit. In 2012 Obama received 595,846 votes. In 2016 Clinton received 519,444. This drop-off of 76,000 proved to be disastrous. (I am NOT blaming the voters of Wayne County, in general. Wayne County provided Clinton with a big win. But if only our numbers had reached 2012 levels...)
Our other Michigan counties were: Washtenaw, Kalamazoo, Oakland, Ingham, Genesee, Muskegon, and Marquette (the only Upper Peninsula county to vote Clinton).
The Michigan counties we carried in 2012 but lost in 2016 were: Gogebic (UP), Manistee, Lake, Isabella, Bay, Saginaw, Shiawassee, Macomb, Eaton, Van Buren, Calhoun, and Monroe. Macomb, for example, went for Obama by a margin of 16,000 in 2012. In 2016 it went by a margin of 48,000 for Trump. This was also catastrophic. The Democratic vote in the county fell by almost 32,000 from 2012 to 2016. Saginaw went from a margin of almost 12,000 for Obama to a Trump margin of 1,000. And we just got clobbered in rural Michigan in 2016, with dozens of counties giving Trump over 60% or even over 70% of their small numbers of votes. It added up.
In 2012 63.7% of the voting age population of Michigan voted. That hardly budged in 2016, as 64.2% of the VAP turned out.
So our Michigan objectives are clear:
1. Return Wayne County to at least its 2012 turnout, and preferably to its 2008 turnout, when Obama received a spectacular 660,085 votes there.
2. Get Macomb county back in the fold, or at least cut Trump’s margin in half.
3. Get the rest of our lost counties back, or at the very least put a crimp in Trump’s numbers.
4. Shave a few points off Trump’s rural numbers.
FACTS ABOUT MICHIGAN VOTERS:
In 2016, 54% of the voters were women. 59% of eligible men voted, 65% of eligible women.
In 2016, whites were 83% of Michigan’s electorate. Blacks were 13%, Hispanics 2%, Asians and others 2%. White turnout was 65%. Black turnout was 60%. Hispanic turnout was 32%, Asian turnout was 26%.
2016 Michigan voter turnout by age group:
18-24: 36%
25-34: 51%
35-44: 62%
45-64: 69%
65+ : 74%
Voters 45 and older made up 65% of Michigan’s 2016 vote.
(You’ll find more Michigan demographic data here.)
Voter registration figures:
In 2018, 7,471,088 voters were registered, of whom 4,341,340 voted. (This was a HUGE increase over the 2014 midterm election, and only about 500,000 less than the 2016 presidential turnout.)
Source: Michigan Secretary of State’s office, found here.
2018 Election Results in Michigan
U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow was reelected with 52.3% of the vote, running 275,660 votes ahead of her Republican opponent, who won 45.8%.
Democratic candidate Gretchen Whitmer was elected governor, winning 53.3% of the vote to Republican Bill Schuette’s 43.7%. Whitmer won a margin of 406,659 votes.
And the Democrats flipped 2 U.S. House seats.
Now that’s more like it!
Mobilization in Michigan needs to be underway in earnest. Here are local Democratic/progressive groups you can contact and/or contribute to:
The Michigan Democratic Party
12th Congressional District Democratic Organization
Oakland County Democratic Party
Kent County Democratic Party
A whole group of Democratic organizations, located HERE, courtesy of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party
Progress Michigan
Dozens of groups in the Progressive Directory of Western Michigan
A whole host of organizations listed in Women’s March Michigan
Michigan Progressive Women’s Caucus
INDIVISIBLE (This is key!!)
Michigan National Organization for Women
And I urge you to read this, from The Atlantic:
How the Democrats Took Back Michigan
Referring to the 2018 result:
Debate what counts as a blue wave in the rest of the country, but there was a tsunami off the Great Lakes. It was enormous and swept over everything: governor, Senate, attorney general, two flipped House seats with two female alumnae of the Obama administration, plus another that put a Palestinian American woman in John Conyers’ old spot, five flipped state Senate seats, five flipped state House seats, all the way down to the state supreme court and the state university boards. They legalized recreational pot, and the vote wasn’t close. They banned gerrymandering. They created automatic voter registration and an absentee-ballot process, essentially a backdoor way to institute early voting, which together will almost certainly lock in long-term the gains Democrats made.
And you know how it was done? GROUND GAME, ORGANIZATION, and GETTING STARTED EARLY.
Here’s how to register to vote in Michigan. From the Secretary of State’s Office.
These links I post regularly hold a wealth of resources:
Try these links.
POSTCARDS TO VOTERS.
VOTE FORWARD’S LETTERS TO VOTERS.
TEXT OUT THE VOTE.
THE MoveOn TEXT TEAM
And don’t close the door on canvassing just yet! There are safe ways in which this can be done!
Our Target Groups: WHERE THE VOTES ARE
Just for your information:
ID REQUIREMENTS FOR EVERY STATE, HOW TO OBTAIN VOTER IDs
1. Information from The National Conference of State Legislatures, located here. This is an excellent source.
2. Information from Ballotpedia, here. This has a wealth of detail.
3. VoteRiders will help people obtain voter IDs. Take a look here.
ABSENTEE BALLOT REQUIREMENTS
Vote.org
Absentee and Early Voting
REGISTERING TO VOTE
1. State voting requirements can be found at U.S. Vote Foundation, located here.
2. You can register people to vote at Vote.Org, located right here.
3. You can not only register to vote at this site, you can check your current eligibility, right here.
WORKING WITH DEMOCRATIC GROUPS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
1. Act Local put this guide out last year. It has plenty of good information, and I’m sure they’re already cranking up for 2020. Take a look here.
2. You want to be part of a fighting organization? Check out Indivisible, right here.
3. Check out Wave 2020, right here. Their list of local organizations is here.
4. Take a look at SwingLeft, right here. And their swing state project is HERE.
5. The Action Network has links to let you volunteer in key states.
FOR AMERICANS ABROAD AND MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY
And Democrats Abroad has valuable information.
DON’T OVER LOOK THESE LINKS, EITHER!
The Campaign Workshop: GOTV for Democrats
Nuts & Bolts, right here on DKos.
Progressives Everywhere
National Democratic Training Committee
Progressive Turnout Project
For the Win (county-wide GOTV)
Daily Kos Groups (from Kossack mettle fatigue)
Sister District Project (for winning state legislatures)
Joe Biden’s Take Action Page.
Flip Everything!
And MICHELLE OBAMA is ready to go BIG on GOTV!
Here are ALL of the state Democratic parties!
We need your help BIG TIME this year! Never think we’ve got this in the bag. We need to be fighting EVERY day.
And your money is vital as well. ActBlue is a handy-dandy way to contribute.
This is DOABLE, folks!! Trump is underwater in Michigan. Let’s kick his ass—and kick him OUT!!