Donald Trump, Kamala Harris locked in tight Michigan presidential election
- Race between Kamala Harris, Donald Trump expected to be close as Michigan results begin to come in
- Michigan has 15 Electoral College votes, is key swing state and part of the Democrats ‘blue wall’
- Top issues in race included the direction of Michigan’s auto industry, the economy, abortion rights and immigration
LANSING — Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were locked in a close race Tuesday night, with the former president taking a narrow lead as ballot counting continued across the state.
Harris was leading early returns in Oakland County, a vote-rich area where Democrats expected to do well, but not by as large of a margin as Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump, meanwhile, was building on his 2020 advantage in more rural areas like Eaton and Ionia counties.
Millions more voters are still to be counted in Michigan, a crucial battleground state, including Democratic bastions such as Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Ann Arbor.
But in Macomb County, a base of support for Trump, a lack of ballot preprocessing and procedural decisions is expected to slow results considerably. Results provided by Associated Press are updated automatically and have continued to fluctuate throughout the evening.
Election officials around the state have been able to process absentee ballots and tabulate ahead of Election Day, allowing for quick reporting of two voting methods that Democrats have embraced in stronger numbers than Republicans in recent elections.
Still, it remains too early to tell whether Trump or Harris would win the state or secure enough Electoral College votes to secure the White House and become the country’s 47th president.
Check the latest results below:
A Trump victory would cap a stunning political comeback for the Republican nominee, who lost the state four years ago but is attempting to be the first president since Grover Cleveland to win non-consecutive terms.
Harris could make history as the country’s first woman president. A daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, she could also be the first Black and Asian American woman to hold the post.
Related:
A ‘blue wall’ state
Michigan was once again a battleground state for both campaigns, drawing multiple visits by both Harris and Trump, who capped his campaign with a late-night rally in Grand Rapids.
Trump won the state by 10,704 votes over Hillary Clinton in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden by 154,188 votes as Democrats re-established their “blue wall,” a relatively wider margin that was still within three percentage points.
Harris’ campaign was abbreviated: Biden had been the presumptive Democratic nominee but dropped out July 21 following a disastrous debate performance, giving Harris a little more than 15 weeks to articulate a vision for her presidency.
Trump, by comparison, had announced his third presidential run on Nov. 15, 2022 and had steadily campaigned for nearly two years.Adding to the tumult, Trump was injured in a July assassination attempt and in May was convicted on felony charges related to a hush money scheme. He continues to face other criminal charges, though the future of those cases remains uncertain.
While polls had predicted another close race for Michigan’s 15 Electoral College votes, the campaigns took new approaches in attempts to build new winning coalitions amid a national political realignment.
Trump sought to woo young Black men and Arab Americans with economic appeals while expanding his margins with blue-collar workers by predicting the transition to electric vehicles — a tentpole of Biden’s manufacturing agenda — would spell doom for Michigan's auto industry.
Harris, meanwhile, courted moderate conservatives turned off by Trump while still attempting to enthuse young voters and progressives, including those skeptical she would bring a different approach than Biden, particularly in regard to Israel’s growing conflict in the Middle East.
Economy – and personality — drive voters
Voters who spoke with Bridge Michigan at the polls on Tuesday described the economy, reproductive rights, education and immigration as top issues — but personality was also a deciding factor for some.
Trump "just doesn't seem like a leader for children," said Grant Ainsworth, a 34-year-old father of a newborn, who told Bridge he voted for the former president in 2016 and 2020 but backed Harris this time.
“Being a bully, possibly a bigot and calling people names” is not an example Ainsworth wants for his child, he said after voting in Grand Rapids, a former conservative stronghold that has swung Democratic in recent years.
While he leans libertarian, Ainsworth said Harris’ plan to expand the child tax credit resonated with him. And he hopes Harris can help unify the country in ways he does not think Trump is interested in.
In Detroit, 27-year-old Lauryn Allen backed Harris and said her election as the country's first female president would be "monumental,” marking a shift in how
Black and brown girls see themselves and how men communicate with women.
“A lot of people's mindsets will change, pertaining to women and pertaining to the presidency,” added Allen, who works as a researcher at Henry Ford Hospital.
But for others, Trump was a clear choice.
The former president "helped out regular workers before" and understands "how hard it is" to get by, said Erin Gifford, a Lenawee County voter.
When Gifford explains her vote, it comes with tears. A housewife with two children, one with asthma, Gifford said she voted for Trump and hopes he will win because her family’s life was better then, their personal economy was better.
Her husband Robert had a factory job making $27 an hour, she said, but lost it in 2023. Now he makes $12.50 an hour and pays nearly a third of his weekly income toward health care.
“It’s less than half of what he made,” Gifford said outside the polling station in Tecumseh, a purple city that voted for Trump in 2016 but then for Biden in 2020. “I pray to the Lord every day that we don’t have (health) issues.”
Gifford said she has tried to find work without success. “Nobody is hiring, although they say the economy is great,” Gifford said.
The economy was also a motivating factor for Sarah and John Fowler of Monroe, who said they were tired of trying to keep up with bills.
“I want to be able to go to the grocery store and not have to spend $200 a week,” Sarah Fowler, a stay-at-home mom, told Bridge.
She trusts Trump to tamp down inflation.
Making matters worse is that — even as “groceries and the economy are out of control” — U.S. aid continues to flow to Ukraine, said John Fowler, who said he works both as a certified nursing assistant and at a Meijer distribution plant.
“Something has to change,” he said in the parking lot outside his polling place, where his 1-year-old daughter sat on his lap wearing his voting sticker.
Economy, abortion
In her Michigan campaign stops, Harris questioned Trump's character while emphasizing abortion rights in the wake of the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that eliminated national protections.
Despite serving as vice president the past four years, Harris attempted to frame herself as the change candidate ready to close the book on the Trump era of political discord. She won endorsements from some notable Michigan Republicans, including former U.S. Reps. Fred Upton and Dave Trott.
Trump, meanwhile, spent considerable time criticizing the economy under Democrats, including inflation that spiked in 2021 and 2022 but has since subsided.
He copied Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign question — “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” — and framed the election as a referendum on Harris' work as vice president under Biden.
As he did in prior campaigns, Trump also railed against undocumented immigrants and argued Democrats were not doing enough to protect Michigan's auto industry from foreign competition.
Trump’s campaign also made a major gamble: pivoting resources from traditional get-out-the-vote efforts to a new “election integrity” program.
That was done, in large part, to assure Trump’s most loyal supporters that the election was worth participating in, despite Trump's continued claims the 2020 election was rigged against him.
The heavy focus on litigation meant a substantial portion of the Republican ground game was outsourced to groups like the Elon Musk-funded America PAC and Turning Point Action.
A series of dark money groups funded by Musk, the world’s richest man, also funded ad campaigns meant to hurt Harris by touting her as pro-Israel in Muslim areas of Michigan and as pro-Palestinian in Jewish areas of the state.
Reporters Nushrat Rahman, Mike Wilkinson and Robin Erb contributed
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