NewsThe voters who could decide the 2024 election in Michigan

The voters who could decide the 2024 election in Michigan

If you’re just emerging from six months under a rock, I’ve got some news for you: The election is Tuesday, and it’s a toss-up. Seven swing states will decide whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump is sworn in as the next president in January, and their polling averages are all within the margin of error. In an election this close, small constituencies really matter.

In Michigan, that has meant a focus on its Arab American community, which numbers more than 200,000. Long a reliable Democratic constituency, many of these voters are furious with the Biden administration for its handling of Israel’s war in Gaza and now Lebanon. Trump has been trying to take advantage of this: He has welcomed the endorsement of the mayor of a majority Arab American suburb of Detroit, as well as the endorsement of some local imams.

But the biggest beneficiary of Arab American anger at Democrats may be Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Among American Muslims, Stein is tied with Kamala Harris, with Trump a distant third, according to a new nationwide poll by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Still, many Democrats see a vote for Stein as a vote for Trump. And if Stein is able to peel off enough Arab American voters, it could cost Harris Michigan — and the election. “If you told me it’s the morning after the election and Michigan has made the difference, I would say the most likely scenario is that Democratic weakness among Arab American voters and Black voters showed up,” Matt Grossmann, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King late last week.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Noel King

What is Kamala Harris’s closing argument?

Matt Grossmann

Well, there is a bit of dissent within the Harris campaign and the broader Democratic apparatus. The Democratic super PAC, which has tested hundreds of messages, has repeatedly come back and said that the most effective messages are about Harris herself and about Harris’s economic policy proposals. But the campaign has remained somewhat focused, while including that message, on threats to democracy and the threat of Donald Trump. So it will be interesting to see which one they emphasize more at the end. This is the most money that has been spent in a presidential race, so they really do have the money. But the message is a little bit different in the ads than it is from the candidate herself.

Noel King

What is the economic message in Michigan specifically?

Matt Grossmann

The Democrats believe that they made a mistake in 2016 by running the same ads that they ran nationally.

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