Reporters are slicing and dicing voter blocks around the country to get a sense of what's to come in this very turbulent and unusual election.
The Wall Street Journal on Sunday published a story titled: "To Understand Trump’s Staying Power With the White Working Class, Look at Michigan."
The report notes that while the UAW backed Biden, who showed public support for the union during its strikes against automakers, "a sizable portion of their members back Trump."
The reporters also write:
The thousands of people who still work here and at other factories across Michigan and other Midwest states helped forge those states’ politics. These blue-collar voters were for many years reliable Democrats, but in 2016 a big group of them, mostly white, helped Donald Trump capture the presidency—including an unexpected win in Michigan.
His supporters said they remain loyal to him thanks to a mix of economic policy proposals and a unique personality that they haven’t seen from many other Republicans, according to recent interviews conducted by The Wall Street Journal for its “Chasing the Base” podcast series.
Former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, who lost his bid for re-election in 2022, tells the WSJ podcast:
"Republicans were able to peel off people over culture war issues like abortion and guns and LGBTQ rights… They wouldn’t have succeeded if Democrats had—if the average working-class person could say, well obviously I know what side my bread is buttered on."
Michigan voter Peter Kiszczyc says of Trump:
He’s changing the party…He’s appealing to many blue-collar workers especially, not only [in] Macomb county, but Michigan…So I am Christian, [a] patriot, and I support Donald Trump 100%.
