What will the November election mean for Michigan?
Your guess is as good as mine — and I make my living from politics.
I spent the last nine months as former gubernatorial candidate Mike Duggan’s communications director. What struck me most traveling the state wasn’t how different people’s concerns were, but rather how similar.
Whether we were in Munising, Rogers City, Three Rivers, Grand Rapids or Detroit, people talked about the same things: schools, health care, roads, jobs and whether their community would have a future.
In many rural communities, those concerns felt even more urgent. Residents worried about losing another employer, another school enrollment count, another young family, another health care provider.
Poverty and the impacts of inflation aren’t unique to one part of the state or another. We’re all in this together when it comes to the ups and downs of the economy.
Then something changed this spring.
Throughout Michigan, conversations shifted away from what governors can directly control and toward national politics. People wanted to talk about inflation, gas prices, tariffs, immigration — and a whole lot about President Donald Trump. The same debates dominating cable news and social media had become the debates happening at town halls, diners and VFW halls.
In a dive bar in the Upper Peninsula community of Manistique (population 2,700), Duggan was heavily questioned by the half dozen or so locals who joined him. The questions ebbed and flowed, but kept coming back to inflation, gas prices, wars overseas and what Trump said that day.
State-level politicians can’t control any of those things (except maybe reducing gas taxes) but that increasingly doesn’t matter to voters.
All politics is local, but politics no longer stays local. The same angry posts on social media stoke division everywhere, and viral videos reach voters in both Detroit and Escanaba with the same intensity. The issues that dominate national conversation now shape how people view state and local elections.
And that’s what makes Michigan so difficult to read right now. Voters are still worried about the practical challenges facing their communities, but they are increasingly casting their ballots based on how they feel about national politics.
It’s now been a few weeks since Duggan ended his campaign. The race is now between a Democrat and a Republican. The conventional two-party race that so many were hoping to avoid in Michigan is back. Millions of dollars will be spent. The airwaves — and digital sphere — will be clogged with partisan ads through November.
As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, it’s worth remembering that the country’s greatest strength has never been blind loyalty to a party. It has been the independence of its people, the farmers, factory workers, small business owners, veterans, teachers and parents who looked at the issues in front of them and made up their own minds.
The question facing Michigan voters this fall is whether they will choose a governor based on who can improve their schools, roads, health care system and economy, or whether this election will become just another referendum on Washington.
Two hundred and fifty years after the founding of this country, that may be the most important choice voters make.
Andrea Bitely is the founder and principal of Bitely Communications, a Lansing-based public affairs firm specializing in political, corporate and crisis communications.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: It’s time to stop blind loyalty to political parties | Opinion
Reporting by Andrea Bitely, Holland Sentinel / The Holland Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Andrea Bitely, Holland Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
