By Simon Albaugh
YAN – LANSING, Mich. – It was a cold, rainy day in Michigan’s capital city as Air Force One lands on the tarmac at Capital Region International Airport. It’s estimated that thousands showed up, with the President remarking that his supporters were still with him, even if there were too many who showed up for the venue.
For much of his speech, the crowd chants wildly. The supporters look in awe as he lobs attacks at his opponents. Those cheers show another hallmark of his campaign’s efforts in Michigan: Rural voters support the man 100%.
This is part of Trump’s reception in the battleground state of Michigan. Formerly the key to his 2016 victory, the state is now an important part of both campaigns’ tactics to win the election. Polls show conflicting promises from Michigan for both candidates, so no forecasting can be done so easily for what is likely to be one of the most important states for winning the election.
How Both Campaign for Michigan
Michigan is a unique state, to say the least. Equal parts internationally focused and domestically proud, the state has two bodies of voters that need to be appeased for a majority. In the rural, working-class and domestic affairs-minded counties of the state, Trump keeps his campaign stops close to home. Back in 2016, those counties handed him the election.
Now, Trump is using a special mix of appeals to urban anxiety and economic worries to electrify what will likely turn out to be his voters. “If Biden and the Democratic Socialists are elected, they will dismantle your police departments, dissolve our borders, indoctrinate your children and destroy the suburbs,” the president said during his speech in Lansing.
Meanwhile, Biden is employing a careful balance of those issues by working, almost scientifically, to diagnose the changes in Michigan’s working-class challenges. With a patient voice for communicating the intricacies of this problem, Biden’s winning strategy comes from coronavirus recovery intervention:
“Folks, today’s reports reinforce another painful trend. A continuing of what economists call a K-shaped recovery. And that means while it’s going up, that’s those who are on the top. It keeps going up while everyone else in the middle class is going down and below. We’re seeing things get worse,” Biden said at a speech in Grand Rapids on Oct. 2.
At the root of much of these candidates’ ideologies is almost an oversimplification of class consciousness. Trump’s campaign is working to ensure that everyone thinks that prosperity is benefiting everyone in the United States, like when Trump called everyone at his Freeland, Michigan rally on Sept. 10 part of the elite of this country.
“Biden is waging war against the American middle class. I think most of you are not middle class. You’re upper class. You’re the elite. You know the way they talk about the elite. They’re not the elite. You’re the elite. The elite has decided. You’re the super elite.”
Biden, with his tax plan that will increase taxes for anyone with a higher yearly income than $400,000, is looking for people to internalize inequalities. The coronavirus Pandemic may have convinced enough of the state that it is a larger issue in America than conservative thinkers may believe.
How the State Could Be Decided
For people who know the way politics work, they know it’s purely a numbers game. The appeals to the right voters will yield a certain percentage of the vote. Both left and right-leaning voices have been highlighting this election as what might be the most important election in a lifetime. Voter turnout is likely to be record-breaking in the state, as many early-voting states’ statistics show that this country has taken the importance of this election to heart.
Michigan is a unique state, though. The same crowd that sat at that rally in Lansing under frigid temperatures and steady rain may not be the majority anymore. As movements for racial equality have bared the nation’s challenges, more people may be looking at a president who has divided a country, rather than brought it together.
Biden seems to be the only candidate who is seriously engaging with these new challenges that the country is seeing. Voters in Michigan may still remember the life-saving response that Biden and Obama carried out for the states manufacturing.
“We didn’t do it to give bonuses to CEOs,” Biden said. “We did it to save an iconic American industry, a testament to the skills and ingenuity of American Manufacturing.”
But while international trade pacts challenged Michigan’s stance as a manufacturing behemoth, Trump was the one in office who did respond to that challenge.
“On Nov. 3, you better vote for me,” Trump said. “I got you so many damn car plants.”
The decision made by Michigan’s working class may be the key to winning the state. But what they decide, and who leads this country into the next period of history, will only be known as next week unfolds.
