Michigan believes in Trump: Why voters say they chose a 2nd term
Michiganders want more money in their pockets. They want that money to go further. They want something to happen at the Southern U.S. border that ultimately results in fewer people entering or staying in the country illegally.
As Michigan Republican political activist Tori Sachs put it, "people want to get back to a commonsense America that they grew up in."
That's clearly a subjective standard, one Vice President Kamala Harris blasted with her signature campaign slogan, "we're not going back." On Election Day though, the majority of Michigan voters joined the nation in sending a message: They may feel broke, but they're buying what Trump is selling.
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“I am hoping to see some better results for inflation and things like that,” said Nicole Urbytes, 21, of Frankenmuth. “It would make it a lot easier on my family. We're a low-income family, so we're hoping for some grace in that area.”
Urbytes said she didn’t stay up to see the election results. She put her 6-month-old son, Elijah, to bed early and then retired herself. She found out Trump won when she woke up and checked for results.
“I was not super surprised, just because that was what I was, well, anticipating, praying for, hoping for,” she said. “We all heard Mrs. Harris say that she wouldn't change anything about President Biden's time in office and clearly things aren't going well for our country. So I think people kind of put two and two together and recognize that it's not working.”
Trump won Michigan by about 82,000 votes, less than Biden's 2020 margin of victory but substantially more than the razor-thin advantage Trump secured in 2016 to help win his first presidency. Although Trump's so-called "weave" during this campaign offered an at times meandering message, he consistently promised to lower the cost of goods, aggressively deport people who lack legal authorization to be in the U.S. and prevent transgender people from competing in sports or using bathrooms not aligned with their sex assigned at birth.
Trump's stances meshed with voters because they felt authentic to their lives, said Peter Wielhouwer, a political science professor at Western Michigan University.
"On all three of those points, Trump’s message aligned with people's hopes and fears. And Harris was playing defense all year, with a bad economy and an unpopular incumbent."
"She was running on the 2022 game plan, of abortion and reproductive rights, and it just wasn't enough to overcome people's lived experiences."
Phyllis Pinick, an 86-year-old Charlevoix resident with a large family, said she voted for Trump out of concern for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“I have five kids, 20 grandkids and my 35th great-grand,” Pinick said as she went to shop at Oleson's grocery store. “I was praying for them, for their future.”
Pinick said illegal immigration, crime rates and "the transgender stuff" bothered her the most and drove her voting decision this year. She also hopes Trump will reduce the national debt during his new term.
“Look, we're trillions of dollars in debt,” she said. “That’s not for me, but for you and your family, your kids. Somebody's got to pay it.”
A recent Free Press analysis found that of the roughly 170,000 students playing high school sports in Michigan, two are formally competing as transgender girls. Harris more forcefully advocated for transgender rights in her previous presidential campaign, but this cycle she said she would follow federal law also enforced under Trump's first term that requires providing any medical treatment deemed necessary by a doctor to those in federal custody.
Sachs, a mother of four, said she frequently hears fears about transgender athletes and bathroom usage on the sidelines at her children's games and practices.
Economists are already predicting Trump's actions will add to the national debt — the national debt increased roughly $7.8 trillion during his first term, and bond markets have soared since Trump's election, indicating investors expect his policies will actually increase the debt and inflation. Yet voters blamed Biden and Harris for their financial hardship, even if indicators suggest economic improvement in recent months.
Trump voters trust the president-elect. They care less about how he accomplishes his goals or what experts might predict: When Trump says he will lower costs and make life more affordable, they believe him.
"People are very bad fortune tellers. But they have reasonably good memories about their own lived experiences," Wielhouwer said.
"Everybody knows that tariffs are bad. But if somebody sells you tariffs as a response to your lived pain — and most people don't know how tariffs work — then there's a concrete solution to the problem, even if that solution doesn't end up working in fact."
Garden City Mayor Mark Jacobs said his city of about 27,000 in western Wayne County is a blue-collar town that traditionally votes Democratic.
Not this time.
“I was really surprised, because looking at the preliminary results, they did go Republican on quite a few people,” he said. “That’s really surprising because typically, you can count Democrats all over the place in Garden City.”
Unofficial results in Garden City showed Trump carried 53% of the vote to Kamala Harris’s 44%. Among people who cast straight tickets, the margin was closer, 50% to 46%, but the Republicans were still on top.
Jacobs runs for the nonpartisan mayor position and wouldn’t say for whom he voted. But talking to residents, he said he heard their reasons for voting as they did.
Trump was known for earning strong margins among white, working-class voters and his campaign reached out to Garden City in particular.
Foreign wars also played a role, albeit a small one — a Reuters exit poll found only 4% of voters said foreign policy was the most important issue for them in the presidential election. Kimberly Ruttenberg, 42, of Monroe, said as someone who is Jewish and Israeli, she believes Trump will end the war in Gaza. But she shared cultural and fiscal concerns that bound other Trump supporters, too.
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“I want America to return to its Christian-Judeo roots. I want lower taxes, more equality for everyone, not just white people. I want to see more opportunities for Black people, Asian people, women, and intellectual disabilities," she said.
"I want to see the price of groceries, gas, rent, mortgages, medical, etc. go down. I want more people in a position of power to be held accountable for their actions. ... I want to see more jobs and it become easier to get a job.”
Every person has their own reason for casting their ballot. Exit polling, or conversations with voters after they cast their ballots, showed the economy resonated, playing a part in the swing to Trump.
CNN exit polls in Michigan for this election determined Trump received 65% of voters who thought the economy was "not so good" and 85% who said it was "poor"; this group represented roughly two-thirds of those included in the exit poll.
The exit polls also found Trump made noticeable gains among Black, Latino and young voters in Michigan. In 2020, Biden earned 61% of the vote from those who were 18 to 29 years old. The 2024 exit polls found Trump and Harris split that population at 49% each, marking a huge swing toward Trump.
Jayden Parks, 18, of White Lake, is a senior at Clarkston High School. He’s working an internship in a real estate office and he drives DoorDash for extra money.
He cast his first presidential vote for Trump.
“I think there is a higher likelihood that we will have a good economy with Trump,” he said. “I believe that he will clamp down harder on the current geopolitical situation and not let as many wars happen.”
Social issues could be fueling some of his improvement with young voters, Parks said.
“Trump possibly stands more for the traditional values and I think people are leaning more towards that way,” he said. “People are sick of woke and people are sick of like transgender athletes in women’s sports. People are like, that's clearly wrong.”
David Dulio teaches political science at Oakland University. He said he was still studying exit poll data to draw more definitive conclusions about the election, but said some things seem clear.
“I think this election was about the economy and, more specifically, inflation,” he said.
The economy may explain what appears to be Trump’s improved standing with younger voters, Dulio said
“These are young people that are probably looking at their futures and have more uncertainty than they would care to have,” he said. “Maybe Trump did a good enough job telling them that he was going to be able to fix it.”
Evan Hubbs, 20, of Birmingham, is studying political science at Iowa State University and voted absentee in Michigan. Like Parks, he cast his first presidential ballot for Trump, though he was fond of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., too.
“There's a couple things I dislike, but I think Trump was getting a lot of more things done,” Hubbs said. “Unemployment was low, especially for certain minority groups. The economy was booming. We had energy independence.”
This is a common sentiment among many voters: The amber of memory shines more clearly than the prospects of the unknown.
"People tend to vote retrospectively. They're evaluating what has happened in the past several years, and especially the last four years for the presidential elections," Wielhouwer said.
"(Trump's) narrative about the economy fits their lived experiences and pain. Kamala Harris had no comeback for that."
The majority of Michigan voters showed this election they wanted to return to something. Whether Trump delivers on the promises of another golden era, or the fears of Michigan's Democratic minority come true, remains to be seen.
Lisa Vidaurri-Bowling of The Monroe News and Annie Doyle of the Charlevoix Courier contributed to this report.
Reach Dave Boucher at [email protected] and on X @Dave_Boucher1. Contact John Wisely: [email protected]. On X @jwisely.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan believes in Trump: Why voters say they chose a 2nd term