along with Washington, DC,

for a long time, were known as “the blue wall.”

And we called it that because,

starting in 1992,

each one of those places voted for a Democrat for president,

again, and again, and again,

and, well actually--

“The blue wall, right?!”

In 2016, Donald Trump won by breaking the blue wall.

“We didn't break it, we shattered that sucker.”

And the way he shattered that sucker

is that he won three blue wall states:

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,

and, just barely, and in maybe the biggest surprise:

Michigan.

“Michigan, a state that was supposed to be a lock for Hillary Clinton.”

“Michigan has been blue for a long time.”

“Michigan, isn't that one of the pillars of the infamous blue wall?”

But here's something that people missed about “blue wall” Michigan.

Even though Michigan had consistently voted

for Democrats for president over the years,

it wasn't as blue as it looked.

By 2016,

Michigan already had a Republican governor and a Republican legislature,

and it had been that way for some time.

During the 2010s,

that Republican state government had undermined unions...

“so-called right-to-work legislation”

...restricted abortion...

“The bill is passed.”

...loosened environmental protections...

“Controversy surrounding this oil refinery.”

So Trump winning Michigan didn't really come out of nowhere.

But then, in 2018,

Michigan elected a Democrat as governor.

In 2020, it voted for Joe Biden over Trump.

And in 2022, in a midterm election

that was expected to be a red wave,

Democrats won every elected branch of Michigan's state government --

for the first time in 40 years.

So now Michigan was blue...

again, I guess.

And its new blue government got to work fast:

repealing some of the Republicans’ signature legislation...

“The first state to repeal a right-to-work law in decades.”

...expanding anti-discrimination laws...

“The bill is passed.”

...and pouring money into the state's transition to clean energy.

“Michigan, a national leader in the fight against climate change.”

In this video, we're going to ask why Michigan went so red, and then so blue.

What do political scientists say, what does the data say...

Because, maybe Michigan is just a swing state,

and this is what it looks like when a swing state swings.

But the forces pushing these swings

tell us a lot about the US right now - and about our next election.

So let's go back to this timeline of big Michigan elections,

and we'll start here.

In 2008.

Michigan voted for Barack Obama for president,

and for a Democratic state House of Representatives.

But the next election would turn out differently.

2010 is really a response to 2008.

We see a blowback to Obama's national policies.

In 2010, Republicans won control of the whole state.

And the reason that matters is because the next year, 2011,

was a redistricting year.

Which means Michigan Republicans were in charge of redrawing these:

Maps of the state's political districts.

Maps that can favor one party or another, depending

on which voters they draw into which districts.

The new maps they drew looked like this.

And as you can see:

well...

it's kind of hard to tell, actually.

If you just sort of look at the map, it doesn't look too gerrymandered.

But once those maps took effect, in the 2012 election,

the impact was clear.

Let's just look at these.

The state House of Representatives districts.

If you added up the votes across all of these districts in 2012,

Republicans only won about 46% of that vote,

but they ended up with 59 out of 110 seats,

which was a majority.

Meaning, they had successfully skewed this map in their favor.

And for the rest of the decade, Michigan Republicans

actually never won a majority of the statewide vote

for the House of Representatives, but they always won a majority of its seats.

Which kind of tells us something about this whole period.

Redistricting explains the whole thing.

If not for Republican complete control of redistricting in 2012,

Michigan would look a lot different,

throughout the whole decade and even into today.

So Michigan wasn't as red as it looked either.

But redistricting doesn't actually explain everything.

For example, 2016,

which is when Michigan, the whole state,

broke the blue wall.

So what was going on there?

This chart looks at how close the vote was in every state

in the 2016 presidential election.

And Michigan is all the way at the end over here,

the closest state in 2016,

voting for Trump by a margin of 0.23%.

When it's such a close margin, we could find

a dozen different reasons.

That's true, lot of factors here.

Let's just start with one or two of them.

This is a map of all the counties in Michigan.

There are 83 of them,

and on the map, a lot of them are geographically the same size.

But if you were to resize each county

according to how many voters there are in each one,

that would look more like this.

As you might be able to tell,

these three counties alone

make up a huge part of the state's population.

So the way that they vote matters a ton.

So let's start here:

in Macomb County.

“Macomb County, just north of Detroit.”

Traditionally Democratic, overwhelmingly white.”

“Historically home to autoworkers, union members...”

“Between 2000 and 2010, half of the manufacturing jobs in Macomb vanished.”

Demographically, Macomb is very...

white working class.

Before 2016, Macomb was a bellwether.

A bellwether - meaning it voted kind of like the rest of the country.

So, this chart shows how Macomb County voted

for president in the years before 2016.

These are years that voted for the Democrat for president,

this is when it voted for the Republican,

and the height is the margin of victory.

And now let's do the thing where we add

how the whole US voted each year.

And notice how closely Macomb always matches the country as a whole.

A bellwether.

Until...

2016.

2016 changes all that,

and it can come down to one word, and that's Trump.

“God bless you, Michigan.

God bless you.”

He just shifts things dramatically in Macomb County.

Focused on trade, manufacturing...

“Michigan has lost one in four manufacturing jobs.”

“This area is a manufacturing area.

A lot of people are affected by losing their jobs.”

“We will stop the jobs from leaving Michigan.”

“Job creation. Not doing all our jobs offshore.”

“We're going to bring a lot of industry back to our country”

“The opportunity to earn a living and take care of our families.

Put us all to work.”

Talking about car jobs

is one way that Trump takes Macomb from this to this.

But...

it's not the only way.

We're seeing Trump stoke racial resentment,

which has, in Macomb, always been, sort of, unfortunate to say, popular.

“Look at the city of Detroit.

Nearly half of Detroit residents do not work.”

OK, that's not true,

incidentally, unless your data includes children and the elderly.

But while we're here,

let's talk about Detroit,

which is right next door to Macomb County,

in Wayne County.

The city of Detroit is about 78% black,

and it typically votes between 93% and 98% Democratic.

And in a place with such consistent voting patterns,

it really helps to look at turnout.

Politically speaking, when Detroit shows up,

it's hard for Republicans

to be able to win the state.

This chart shows how many people voted in Detroit

in different elections over the years.

You can see that turnout in presidential elections

is typically higher than turnout in midterm elections,

and that's true pretty much everywhere.

But look at the turnout in 2016.

It's almost as low as, for example,

the midterm election of 2006.

Now, two things are happening here.

Detroit is getting smaller during this time.

Its population is shrinking, so fewer voters.

But Trump had a role here, too.

“Look how much African American communities

have suffered under Democratic control.”

The thing that I think Trump did effectively

as far as interacting with African American voters

is not getting them to become Republicans

or switch their vote to the Republican Party.

It’s to get them to not be comfortable voting for anyone.

“America must reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton,

who sees communities of color

only as votes, not as human beings.”

Republicans don't have to move the needle that much in those communities

to have an incredible impact on election outcomes.

“I’m not convinced African Americans like Hillary Rodham Clinton

as much as they liked Barack Obama.”

“No one in this race, on either side, has that same pull.”

If you don't like either side,

maybe you don't vote.

Now, there are, of course, other factors, too.

That outcome is just one more of many that take us from blue Michigan

to red Michigan.

But remember:

after 2016 is when Michigan starts to swing back.

In 2018, the state elected a Democratic governor by a big margin.

In 2020, it voted for Biden.

And to see how we got there,

we have to talk about...

white women.

This chart comes from exit polls of white women

in Michigan over ten years of presidential and gubernatorial elections.

And it shows us, in the early 2010s, including 2016,

white women in Michigan were voting more for Republicans.

In 2016,

white women across

urban, rural, suburban,

educational level, gave Trump a chance.

But after 2016, something changes.

A big swing among that demographic towards Democrats.

Now, this chart doesn't tell us the reason for that.

But there was something big happening around that time.

A kind of adjustment

in the way that many women in the US were participating

in politics.

“Not my president!”

“We will not be ignored!”

“Millions of people around the world marching for women's rights today.”

One part of Michigan was particularly energized during this period.

“The largest of all was in Washington, DC.”

“Everywhere we turned, we ran into somebody from Michigan.”

“I’m from Huntington Woods, Michigan.”

“Waterford, Michigan.”

“Franklin.”

“We’re from Ferndale!”

Huntington Woods.

Waterford.

Franklin.

Ferndale.

All in Oakland County.

Women, especially white women in places like Oakland,

were a big part of what drove the Democrats to their victory in 2018,

and led to Trump losing the state in 2020.

“I didn't think I'd ever have to worry about whether or not

the president of the United States was a good role model.

and I do now.”

“I spent every day,

from 2016 through now,

making sure I did everything I could to make sure he's not reelected.”

In some ways, Oakland is the mirror image,

or maybe a 180 from Macomb County.