President-elect Donald Trump has won Michigan, according to a race call by the Associated Press.
The victory delivers Trump an additional 15 electoral votes and a solid win through all the so-called “blue wall” swing states that Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris were hoping to win.
Michigan was considered a critical state for both campaigns.
Michigan is part of the so-called “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that helped cement success for President Biden in 2020. Biden carried Michigan by 150,000 votes, a major reversal after Trump unexpectedly carried the state in 2016 by just 10,000 votes.
Trump sought to repeat that success by turning out votes in rural counties and through better margins in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit and its suburbs, including among union households and working-class voters in Macomb County.
This year Trump made inroads among groups of voters that have a long history of supporting Democrats, including the state’s sizeable Arab and Muslim-American population that has been angry at the Biden administration over its handling of the war in Gaza. Some prominent Arab-American civic and religious leaders also endorsed Trump.
Republicans were able to overcome a major mobilization effort on behalf of Democrats by unions — including the United Auto Workers whose president Shawn Fain repeatedly told his members at rallies that “Trump is a scab,” a well-known epithet in union circles for someone who is an enemy of labor.
Trump also gained traction with some voters by opposing electric vehicle mandates for carmakers, and promising to use protective tariffs against foreign-based auto companies that sell cars in the US market.
That brings Trump's electoral count vote tally to 292, to Harris' 224.
Copyright 2024 NPR
