On Tuesday, journalists and experts warned voters that it might take days before we knew who won the presidential contest. That warming turned out to be unnecessary.
The race was called for former President Donald Trump in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Michigan, once considered part of the so-called "blue wall," lived up to its status as a swing state. After going for President Joe Biden in 2020, 49.8% of Michigan voters (with 98% of precincts reporting) cast their ballots for Trump.
Stateside talked to Mara Cecilia Ostfeld about what we know so far about how Trump won Michigan. She's research director at the Center for Racial Justice at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She's also an analyst at the NBC News and Telemundo Decision Desk.
Race and gender are two big topics of discussion as exit polling comes out from Michigan and other swing states. But Ostfield said in this state, neither candidate moved the needle much among women or Black voters.
"The gender gap in terms of vote for Trump versus Harris was actually pretty steady, about 10 percentage points in 2020 and in 2024," she said. "There had been a lot of discussion about a big defection from Black men towards Trump, and there was no evidence of that in Michigan or in the rest of the country."
Where Trump did manage to shift votes seems to be among non-college educated voters, where the former president took a sizable lead over Harris.
"We did see that Trump did much better among voters who didn't attend college, especially in Michigan. He won about 50% of these voters in 2020. And according to the exit poll, about 64% in 2024. So that's a big jump," said Ostfield.
Hear more about Michigan's general election results in our conversation with Ostfield above.
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Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.
