There is still so much to unpack from the results of Tuesday night’s election that we can’t possibly get to everything here. We really should just invite you over for beers (or your beverage of choice) to discuss it all around the kitchen table… cause that’s what we’re going to be doing all weekend long.
What’s the takeaway from Election ’24 in a sentence: Well, it’s that Michigan remains an enigmatic purple state.
President-elect Donald Trump won at the top of the ticket, but there weren’t many Michigan coattails. The proof? Democratic Senator-elect Elissa Slotkin (Democrats have now won 16 out of the last 17 races for U.S. Senate) and a Michigan Supreme Court that’s firmly under Democratic control (even if it’s technically non-partisan).
Geographically, the Michigan map is a sea of red with blue islands.
Those blue zones are where lots of Michigan voters live in populous cities like Detroit, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo. But, in 2024, those red areas had enough voters spread out across the state to flip the Michigan House from a slim Democratic majority to a slim Republican majority. A GOP-run House will work to thwart Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer during her final two years in office. That’s if House Speaker-elect Matt Hall is working with a united and disciplined Republican caucus (it’s too early to tell).
Let’s keep in mind that for most of Whitmer’s political career, she has been working against Republican majorities (her time as a state Representative and state Senator come to mind). We’ll see if that experience serves her well (it was a mixed bag in her first term as governor with both a Republican-led House and Senate).
Rick caught up yesterday with U.S. Reprepresentative Dan Kildee (D-Flint) as he is about to retire (let’s just say he looked very pleased about this decision). His advice about analyzing the results from Tuesday: don’t read too much into one election cycle before deciding whether 2024 is the start of a trend or a blip. He cautioned not to “overread the results.”
Kildee said the Democrats' big mistake this year was to “lead with issues that are not part of your core issues.” In short, too much attention on abortion and reproductive rights but not enough on finding an effective message on the economy.
Two years ago, Democrats swept statewide races and won control of the Legislature with an assist from the Reproductive Freedom for All amendment on the ballot. (It also didn’t hurt that Michigan Republicans had a historically weak statewide ticket and were recovering from a fierce bout of infighting.) It is interesting how quickly it appears voters moved on from abortion rights as a major issue. Democrats badly wanted a repeat of 2022, but there was no abortion question on the ballot (or any statewide ballot question for that matter). Now, it looks like the Michigan Constitution may be that firewall in voters’ minds.
Also, on messaging on the economy: voters don’t necessarily respond to topline numbers regarding employment/unemployment, income and inflation.They will vote their lived experience on the costs of housing, groceries and fuel. Also, improvements on any of these have a lagging effect. That is, if things seem to be getting better in August and October, voters may not be “feeling it” by the election. If that’s true, challengers who ran against the status quo this year may reap the credit for events that took place before they were sworn in.
Democratic state Senator Kristen McDonald Rivet will be taking over Kildee’s seat in Congress (we’ll talk more about the district below). It was a bright spot for Democrats this week. In Michigan’s other toss-up U.S. House race, the state’s 7th Congressional District, former state Senator Tom Barrett will become Congressman Barrett (he won the district by about 16,000 votes this year after losing to Slotkin two years ago by about 20,000 votes).
Zoe spoke today with the Congressman-elect about that nearly 40,000-vote swing and we’re bringing both that conversation plus the conversation with Kildee in a special Friday edition of It’s Just Politics. (Be sure to wait for the end to hear Kildee’s shout-out to a certain new Michigander who he thinks could represent the future of Democratic politics in Michigan).
Dig deeper: The old adage in Michigan politics has been that the more voters who turn out in a statewide election, the better Democrats do. That was upended this week when Michigan saw record voter turnout (79%) and the ‘blue-wall’ crumbled. Michigan Public’s Adam Yahya dug into the data this week with Michigan Public’s Laura Weber Davis. Though, as Yahya reported, “the increase this time is not consistent across counties… Turnout saw little to no increase in some of Michigan's biggest counties. Several of them actually saw turnout decrease.”
Have questions about what Election 2024 means for you? Or, just want to let us know what you want more of (less of?) in the newsletter? We always want to hear from you! Shoot us an email at politics@michiganpublic.org!
What we’re talking about at the dinner table:
Speaker-elect Matt Hall: We’re going to be spending a lot of time over the next two years talking about the state House and how Republicans manage their role in that chamber as the new GOP center of power in Lansing. What will Speaker-elect Matt Hall’s style of leadership be vis-à-vis the Democratic majority in the Michigan Senate and Governor Whitmer’s final two years in office? His style as the House Minority Leader over the past two years was largely to serve as a foil against the Democrats’ agenda. The Democrats had a slim 56-54 majority during this session and that dynamic has essentially flipped heading into the new session. Will Hall be a consensus seeker or the head of an oppositional caucus. He will undoubtedly seek some advice from former Republican Governor John Engler. As the Michigan Senate Majority Leader from 1984 to 1991, he was the stone in the shoes of the House Democratic majority and Democratic Governor Jim Blanchard. Engler went on to unseat Blanchard and serve three terms as governor. We’re also talking about who might be in the running for governor in two years (too soon?) but we’ll save that for a future newsletter.
Saginaw County: Last week we talked about Saginaw County as a swing county within a swing state. Since 1992, the presidential candidate who’s won Saginaw County has won the state. And since 2008, the presidential candidate who won the county won the presidency. Zoe’s conversation with Professor Kevin Lorentz from Saginaw Valley State University not only proved Lorentz correct (he predicted a Trump win in the county) but continued Saginaw’s streak as a bellwether. But, interesting enough, Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet won the 8th Congressional House seat that includes Saginaw. We’re itching to make more sense of what happened and talk with Rivet about her successful campaign.
Lame duck: Democrats have just a few weeks before they lose one chamber of their triumvirate in Lansing. What will they do with that time? Will they tackle legislation to amend the new voter-approved minimum wage and earned sick time initiatives? Business groups and Whitmer would like to see that. Labor groups and the progressive Democratic base not so much. Adopting a sales tax break in the hope of attracting data centers (aka “server farms”) is on the list. And so is opening the governor’s office and the Legislature to freedom of information requests. We’ll see how much of that gets done and whatever else gets roped into the end-of-the-year negotiations. Don’t forget: even in the minority, Republicans have enough votes to influence those decisions.
Yours in political nerdiness,
Rick Pluta & Zoe Clark
Co-hosts, It’s Just Politics
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IJP On The Road:
There was a lot to unpack this week: Zoe joined 1A on Wednesday with Jenn White to bring results from Michigan and take listener calls and Zoe joined WKAR’s Off the Record to talk all things Lansing in 2025.
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