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      Trump Campaigns in Michigan, a Battleground That’s Tinted Blue

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      With their party out of power, some Republicans in the state are worried that the former president could cost Michigan its status as a swing state.In front of a sold-out crowd on Sunday evening in Novi, Mich., former President Donald J. Trump lamented the decline of the automobile industry under Democratic rule and said he “stood up to China” to save thousands of manufacturing jobs.It was a speech he might have given in 2020. But then the script changed. In his first campaign visit to the state this year, Mr. Trump paired rants about free trade and manufacturing with culture-war jabs against liberals and criticism of his main Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.The latter remarks received the most raucous applause at the Oakland County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, which was giving Mr. Trump its man of the decade award.Statewide, however, the Republican Party is at a crossroads, with internal disputes among Trump-aligned factions whose candidates have faced a series of losses in recent years and an establishment wing that has all but lost any semblance of power.Mr. Trump’s full-throated embrace of election denialism and a crusade against “wokeism,” echoed by his most ardent supporters, have left some Michigan Republicans wondering about his chances in a general election — and if there is any possibility of stopping his candidacy before then.Though Mr. Trump won Michigan in his 2016 presidential bid, Republicans have struggled to garner statewide voter support since. They lost the governorship to Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in 2018, and then faced another major loss in 2020 when Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the White House.But 2022 may have stung the most: For the first time in 40 years, Michigan Republicans lost control of both State Legislature chambers and failed to recapture the governorship, putting them out of power entirely. That year featured a wide array of candidates backed by Mr. Trump, many of whom embraced false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and subsequently lost their races.Oakland County underscores the party’s tumultuous past few years: Still G.O.P.-controlled in 2016, the region in the Detroit suburbs, home to the state’s largest population of Republicans, is now controlled by Democrats.Establishment Republicans have raised concerns that Mr. Trump himself is to blame for sustained losses, and that Michigan will slowly lose its swing-state status with his loyalists at the helm. Kristina Karamo, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state in 2022 and made voter fraud and election denial central to her campaign, won control of the state party apparatus in February.“Donald Trump decapitated the entire Republican establishment in Michigan,” said Jason Roe, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party who plans to support another candidate in the growing Republican primary field for president.“The reality is that other than Donald Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, all he’s done is lose,” Mr. Roe added. “So at some point, conservative voters in America have to decide if they want to be loyal to Donald Trump or if they care about the future of our country.”Party officials said more than 2,500 people were on hand for the event.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThat perceived choice, however, was a nonstarter in Novi on Sunday, where dinner attendees paid at least $250 for a ticket. Organizers said over 2,500 people packed the Suburban Collection Showplace.In an hourlong speech, Mr. Trump frequently attacked Mr. Biden, looking past the primaries and ahead to a possible general election rematch. He criticized the president for what he called a “maniacal push” for electrical vehicles that would lead to the “decimation” of the state’s auto industry.But he also continued what is now a yearslong tirade about voting security. In attendance was Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer known for carrying out frivolous lawsuits to overturn the 2020 election, who received a standing ovation when acknowledged by Mr. Trump.And the former president received significant crowd approval when he said he would sign an executive order to cut funding from schools that support critical race theory and “transgenderism.”Rather than fault Mr. Trump for recent losses, many pointed the blame back on party officials, if they acknowledged that Republicans had lost their elections at all.“It needs a little bit more leadership. I think they seem to sway sometimes, and I don’t like that,” said Lisa Mackey of Plymouth, Mich. “We all have to work together, regardless of what side of the fence you’re on, but I think sometimes they’re not looking out for our best interests.”Mr. Trump praised Ms. Karamo, saying that she was a “hard worker who’s working very hard to keep this an honest election.” And some attendees, like Monica Job of Armada, Mich., offered their praise as well: “When she lost and then ran for the state party, that showed she’s not a quitter,” Ms. Job said.Doubts that the state party leadership can steer Republicans to victory in 2024 have become increasingly widespread — party activists are discussing how to generate funding outside the party apparatus, said Jamie Roe, a Republican strategist in the state, who is unrelated to Jason Roe.“I don’t think they’re communicating very effectively with the broad base of the party,” he said. “I just think that we have opportunity, and I’m praying that we don’t forgo those opportunities.” More

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      Michigan clerk who denies election results faces recall in divided county

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      Deepening tensions within rural and conservative Hillsdale county, Michigan, are coming to a head in a recall election for an election-denying township clerk who has been accused of spreading misinformation and mishandling a vote tabulator.Elected in Adams Township in 2020, Stephanie Scott, who ran unopposed, has spent her years as a clerk – a position that would typically oversee township elections – mostly removed from the electoral process. After she refused to turn over a voting machine for regular maintenance in 2021, allegedly shared confidential voter data with a third-party IT analyst, and spread lies about election rigging, the Michigan Bureau of Elections removed Scott’s power to administer elections.Michigan’s election security issues are not limited to the small township. Similar alleged security breaches surfaced across the politically competitive state following the 2020 elections as some poll workers and clerks, convinced by Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, attempted to access tabulators. A special prosecutor in Michigan has reportedly convened a secret grand jury to investigate.In a 25 October 2021 letter to Scott, Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, wrote “your past statements, detailed in prior letters, indicate that you are unwilling to fulfill your responsibilities as clerk”, and directed the clerk to “refrain from any election administration activities”. Scott’s attorney, Stefanie Lambert, has joined lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania pushing debunked allegations of election fraud and has been sanctioned for her role in promoting election-related lies. (In an interview with the Guardian, Scott denied all allegations of wrongdoing as “one hundred percent false”.)If the 2 May recall is successful, Scott will be replaced by Suzy Roberts, a retiree who spent most of her career in the auto industry and has worked as a poll worker. Although Roberts has historically voted Republican, she is running as an independent, as required by the rules guiding recall elections.“This election is between a giant lie that has taken over our township meetings, versus people who want to make lying wrong again,” said Roberts. An avid documentarian of local politics, Penny Swan started filming political meetings in Hillsdale county, Michigan, nearly a decade ago. A lifelong resident of the rural county, Swan was once a proud member of the Hillsdale County Republican Party, serving as party treasurer and earning recognition for sharing goings-on in Hillsdale county on her Youtube channel, “PS Political News and Views.” Swan got along with her colleagues, even earning a certificate of recognition from the local GOP, which hangs among paintings and family photos in Swan’s living room.But after the 2020 presidential election, politics in rural and deep red Hillsdale county soured. A faction of hard-right party members within the county GOP took control of the party, renouncing more than 60 local GOP delegates who did not share their political vision and rallying around false claims that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. In December, 2022, Swan logged onto Facebook and announced her hiatus from some political activities, including filming city council meetings in Hillsdale.Her frustrations followed a split within the county GOP into factions: one, that calls itself the “America First” Republican Party of Hillsdale, and another, that largely disavows the election lies.At an 11 August 2022 county GOP convention, members of the so-called America First faction disavowed more than 60 members of the party. Armed guards blocked the members from accessing the meeting. Fourteen days later, members who had been disavowed and their allies elected a new slate of leadership and claimed sole legitimacy as the Hillsdale County Republican Executive Committee.For months, the warring factions have met separately, vying for legal recognition and sending separate slates of delegates to the state Republican party convention in February 2023. On 28 April, a circuit court judge ruled that the disavowals were improper and recognized subsequent meetings held by the Hillsdale County Republican Executive Committee as “valid”.Residents say the split in the Republican party has spilled over into the wider Hillsdale county community, breaking up friendships and sowing mistrust among neighbors.“All of the election fraud screaming and hollering I was behind at first, because I felt the same way,” said Tim Martin, a Hillsdale county resident who supported Trump’s 2020 run for office. “But when you can’t produce proof of what you’re saying, you’re looking like a liar.”Across Michigan, which Trump lost by 2.8 points, voters have overwhelmingly rejected election denialism and embraced measures to expand voting access. Proposition 2, a ballot measure that established early voting and expanded absentee voting passed by 60%. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson won her seat in a definitive race against Kristina Karamo, who spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, and voters in the state elected Dana Nessel as attorney general over Matthew DePerno, who led multiple unsuccessful legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election in Michigan.But in Hillsdale county, as many residents are eager to point out, the opposite was true. Karamo earned 66% of the vote and DePerno swept, nearly earning 70% of Hillsdale county voters in his election.“I don’t have any of the friends I had in the Republican party at all anymore,” Martin said.It was in this fractured environment that Scott’s alleged election improprieties came to light.Janice Roberts, a longtime poll worker in Adams Township, said that false claims of fraud in recent years have whipped up unfounded fears of election tampering and fraud among community members in the county.During a local election on 4 November 2021 Roberts alleged that Scott and members of the rightwing faction in the county GOP hovered uncomfortably close to poll workers, creating an intimidating atmosphere.“They were right up there,” said Roberts, who took a photo of the encounter. “The [poll workers] are just trying to make sure everything counts.” Scott confirmed that she watched the vote count, but said no one had asked her to stand further away and dismissed the claim that the presence of the observers constituted intimidation.Abe Dane, the chief deputy clerk of Hillsdale county who was tasked with taking over elections in Adams Township following Scott’s removal from the process in 2021 is more concerned about the misinformation spreading through the community, eroding fragile trust in the electoral process.“It’s guaranteed to have eroded confidence in elections and that upsets me incredibly,” said Dane. “The misinformation and inability to understand the processes, and checks and balances when we explain them really is taken personally by the clerk community – because we put our heart and soul into each election, and in this community.”Ahead of Tuesday’s recall – and next year’s presidential election – Hillsdale county remains divided.Swan, who caucused with the America First Republicans until recently, said after leaving the rightwing group and criticizing them online, she was met with threats and slurs.In a letter sent to a close personal contact of Swan and shared with the Guardian, someone who identified himself only as “Lance” alleged that Swan had “spread hate, lies and misfortune,” and warned that “this is my only and last chance to save her from herself […] I cannot be held responsible for doing what needs to be done in defending my friends who do not deserve what she is doing to them”.After Swan spoke in defense of childrens’ books featuring LGBTQ+ characters at the library, a meme circulated on Facebook calling Swan a pedophile. Swan calls the note “all talk”, but filed a police report anyway. She takes more stock in security these days, too. “Where I live, the building is secured with cameras,” said Swan. “I always have my gun with me – I’m for the most part carrying all the time.”Randy Johnson, who is running to replace township supervisor Mark Nichols – an ally of Scott – said he had gotten a threatening call in the middle of the night. “I got a phone call Friday at midnight, by someone who would not identify themselves,” said Johnson. “He did tell me he knew where I lived and he called me a lot of dirty words.”For Roberts, who is running to replace Scott as township clerk, the election is as much about community relationships as it is election denialism.“This is a story about tearing a community apart,” she said. More

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      Michigan students sue after school bans ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sweatshirts

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      Two students in Michigan have filed a lawsuit against their school district after they were banned from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts.The slogan is widely understood as a coded euphemism for a profane curse towards Joe Biden and is popular with conservatives.The lawsuit, filed by the two middle-school students through their mother, accuses Michigan’s Tri County Area school district of “censoring the students’ peaceful, non-disruptive political expression in school”.According to the lawsuit, one of the brothers wore a “Let’s Go Brandon sweatshirt” to Tri County middle school last February. The sixth-grader was stopped in the hallway by the school’s assistant principal who asked that he remove the sweatshirt, saying that it was equivalent to “the F-word”.The boy, fearing further punishment, took off the sweatshirt, the lawsuit said.The boy then wore the sweatshirt again a few weeks later “to express his opposition to President Biden”. to which a teacher responded, “Take the sweatshirt off. I’ve told you before and won’t tell you again.”The lawsuit states that the slogan “conveys the same opposition to President Biden, sanitized to express the sentiment without using profanity or vulgarity”, adding that the sweatshirt “did not disrupt class, cause disturbance among students, or invade the rights of others”.A few months later, the boy’s older brother also wore the sweatshirt to the same school. The eighth-grader was removed from class and was asked to remove his sweatshirt, which he did.“Despite prohibiting ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ apparel, the school district permits students to wear apparel expressing other political and social messages, including but not limited to apparel expressing support for LGBTQ+ rights,” the lawsuit said.The school district has defended its decision to prohibit the slogan. Its attorney Kara T Rozin said: “The commonly known meaning of the slogan ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ is intended to ridicule the president with profanity. At least one of the students … has acknowledged knowing what this slogan means, and a simple Google search confirms the slogan means ‘Fuck Joe Biden’.”She added that although the school district “does not prohibit students from the right to express their political views or from wearing clothing with political slogans”, its student code prohibits “language or clothing containing language that is offensive, vulgar or profane”. More

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      Testimony Suggests Trump Was at Meeting About Accessing Voting Software in 2020

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      In a letter to federal officials, a liberal-leaning group highlighted testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee that described then-President Trump attending a meeting about the plan in December 2020.ATLANTA — Former President Donald J. Trump took part in a discussion about plans to access voting system software in Michigan and Georgia as part of the effort to challenge his 2020 election loss, according to testimony from former Trump advisers. The testimony, delivered to the House Jan. 6 committee, was highlighted on Friday in a letter to federal officials from a liberal-leaning legal advocacy group.Allies of Mr. Trump ultimately succeeded in copying the elections software in those two states, and the breach of voting data in Georgia is being examined by prosecutors as part of a broader criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the presidential election there. The former president’s participation in the discussion of the Georgia plan could increase his risk of possible legal exposure there.A number of Trump aides and allies have recounted a lengthy and acrimonious meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, which one member of the House Jan. 6 committee would later call “the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency.” During the meeting, then-President Trump presided as his advisers argued about whether they should seek to have federal agents seize voting machines to analyze them for fraud.Testimony to the Jan. 6 committee from one aide who attended the meeting, Derek Lyons, a former White House staff secretary and counselor, was highlighted on Friday in a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Free Speech for People, a liberal nonprofit legal advocacy group. Mr. Lyons recounted that during the meeting, Rudolph W. Giuliani, then Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, opposed seizing voting machines and spoke of how the Trump campaign was instead “going to be able to secure access to voting machines in Georgia through means other than seizure,” and that the access would be “voluntary.”Other attendees offered similar testimony to the committee, which released its final report on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in late December. Among those involved in the Oval Office discussion were two prominent pro-Trump conspiracy theorists: Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, and Sidney Powell, a lawyer who spread numerous falsehoods after the 2020 election and who also discussed Mr. Giuliani’s comments in her testimony.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is trying to clarify Mr. Trump’s role in a number of efforts to overturn his November 2020 election loss in Georgia — including the plan to gain access to voting machine data and software — and determine whether to recommend indictments for Mr. Trump or any of his allies for violating state laws.A spokesman for Ms. Willis’s office declined to comment Friday on Mr. Lyons’s testimony. Marissa Goldberg, an Atlanta-area lawyer representing Mr. Trump in Georgia, did not respond to a request for comment.In its letter, Free Speech for People argued that the testimony and other details that have been made public prove that Mr. Trump “was, at a minimum, aware” of an “unlawful, multistate plot” to access and copy voting system software. The group urged the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to conduct “a vigorous and swift investigation.”On Jan. 7, 2021, a small group working on behalf of Mr. Trump traveled to rural Coffee County, Ga., some 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, and gained access to sensitive election data; subsequent visits by pro-Trump figures were captured on video surveillance cameras.The group’s first visit to Coffee County occurred on the same day that Congress certified President Biden’s victory; the certification had been delayed by the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. The visitors to Coffee County apparently saw it as an ideal place to gather intelligence on what they viewed as voting irregularities: At one point, video footage shows the then-chair of the Coffee County Republican Party, Cathy Latham, appearing to welcome into the building the members of a forensics company hired by Ms. Powell.Ms. Latham was also one of the 16 pro-Trump fake electors whom Georgia Republicans had assembled in an effort to reverse the election results there.Text messages from that period indicate that some Trump allies seeking evidence of election fraud had considered other uses for the Coffee County election data and their analyses of it. One cybersecurity consultant aiding in the effort even raised the possibility, in a text message to other Trump allies in mid-January 2021, of using a report on Coffee County election data “to try to decertify” a highly consequential United States Senate runoff election that Democrats had just won in Georgia. CNN reported on the existence of that text message on Friday.The Trump allies who traveled to Coffee County copied elections software used across the state and uploaded it on the internet, creating the potential for future election manipulation, according to David Cross, a lawyer involved in civil litigation over election security in Georgia filed by the Coalition for Good Governance. The Coffee County data was also used earlier this year in a presentation to conservative activists that included unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, The Los Angeles Times has reported.Some of those involved with the Coffee County effort came to regret it. A law firm hired by SullivanStrickler, the consulting firm hired by Ms. Powell to help gain access to the county’s voting machines, would later release a statement saying that, “With the benefit of hindsight, and knowing everything they know now, they would not take on any further work of this kind.” More

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      The ‘Diploma Divide’ Is the New Fault Line in American Politics

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      The legal imbroglios of Donald Trump have lately dominated conversation about the 2024 election. As primary season grinds on, campaign activity will ebb and wane, and issues of the moment — like the first Trump indictment and potentially others to come — will blaze into focus and then disappear.Yet certain fundamentals will shape the races as candidates strategize about how to win the White House. To do this, they will have to account for at least one major political realignment: educational attainment is the new fault line in American politics.Educational attainment has not replaced race in that respect, but it is increasingly the best predictor of how Americans will vote, and for whom. It has shaped the political landscape and where the 2024 presidential election almost certainly will be decided. To understand American politics, candidates and voters alike will need to understand this new fundamental.Americans have always viewed education as a key to opportunity, but few predicted the critical role it has come to play in our politics. What makes the “diploma divide,” as it is often called, so fundamental to our politics is how it has been sorting Americans into the Democratic and Republican Parties by educational attainment. College-educated voters are now more likely to identify as Democrats, while those without college degrees — especially white Americans, but increasingly others as well — are now more likely to support Republicans.It’s both economics and cultureThe impact of education on voting has an economic as well as a cultural component. The confluence of rising globalization, technological developments and the offshoring of many working-class jobs led to a sorting of economic fortunes, a widening gap in the average real wealth between households led by college graduates compared with the rest of the population, whose levels are near all-time lows.According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, since 1989, families headed by college graduates have increased their wealth by 83 percent. For households headed by someone without a college degree, there was relatively little or no increase in wealth.Culturally, a person’s educational attainment increasingly correlates with their views on a wide range of issues like abortion, attitudes about L.G.B.T.Q. rights and the relationship between government and organized religion. It also extends to cultural consumption (movies, TV, books), social media choices and the sources of information that shape voters’ understanding of facts.This is not unique to the United States; the pattern has developed across nearly all Western democracies. Going back to the 2016 Brexit vote and the most recent national elections in Britain and France, education level was the best predictor of how people voted.This new class-based politics oriented around the education divide could turn out to be just as toxic as race-based politics. It has facilitated a sorting of America into enclaves of like-minded people who look at members of the other enclave with increasing contempt.The road to political realignmentThe diploma divide really started to emerge in voting in the early 1990s, and Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 solidified this political realignment. Since then, the trends have deepened.In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump by assembling a coalition different from the one that elected and re-elected Barack Obama. Of the 206 counties that Mr. Obama carried in 2008 and 2012 that were won by Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Biden won back only 25 of these areas, which generally had a higher percentage of non-college-educated voters. But overall Mr. Biden carried college-educated voters by 15 points.In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats carried white voters with a college degree by three points, while Republicans won white non-college voters by 34 points (a 10-point improvement from 2018).This has helped establish a new political geography. There are now 42 states firmly controlled by one party or the other. And with 45 out of 50 states voting for the same party in the last two presidential elections, the only states that voted for the winning presidential candidates in both 2016 and 2020 rank roughly in the middle on educational levels — Pennsylvania (23rd in education attainment), Georgia (24th), Wisconsin (26th), Arizona (30th) and Michigan (32nd).In 2020, Mr. Biden received 306 electoral votes, Mr. Trump, 232. In the reapportionment process — which readjusts the Electoral College counts based on the most current census data — the new presidential electoral map is more favorable to Republicans by a net six points.In 2024, Democrats are likely to enter the general election with 222 electoral votes, compared with 219 for Republicans. That leaves only eight states, with 97 electoral votes — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — up for grabs. And for these states, education levels are near the national average — not proportionately highly educated nor toward the bottom of attainment.The 2024 mapA presidential candidate will need a three-track strategy to carry these states in 2024. The first goal is to further exploit the trend of education levels driving how people vote. Democrats have been making significant inroads with disaffected Republicans, given much of the party base’s continued embrace of Mr. Trump and his backward-looking grievances, as well as a shift to the hard right on social issues — foremost on abortion. This is particularly true with college-educated Republican women.In this era of straight-party voting, it is notable that Democrats racked up double-digit percentages from Republicans in the 2022 Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania governors’ races. They also made significant inroads with these voters in the Senate races in Arizona (13 percent), Pennsylvania (8 percent), Nevada (7 percent) and Georgia (6 percent).This represents a large and growing pool of voters. In a recent NBC poll, over 30 percent of self-identified Republicans said that they were not supporters of MAGA.At the same time, Republicans have continued to increase their support with non-college-educated voters of color. Between 2012 and 2020, support for Democrats from nonwhite-working-class voters dropped 18 points. The 2022 Associated Press VoteCast exit polls indicated that support for Democrats dropped an additional 14 points compared with the 2020 results.However, since these battleground states largely fall in the middle of education levels in our country, they haven’t followed the same trends as the other 42 states. So there are limits to relying on the education profile of voters to carry these states.This is where the second group of voters comes in: political independents, who were carried by the winning party in the last four election cycles. Following Mr. Trump’s narrow victory with independent voters in 2016, Mr. Biden carried them by nine points in 2020. In 2018, when Democrats took back the House, they carried them by 15 points, and their narrow two-point margin in 2022 enabled them to hold the Senate.The importance of the independent voting bloc continues to rise. This is particularly significant since the margin of victory in these battleground states has been very narrow in recent elections. The 2022 exit polls showed that over 30 percent of voters were independents, the highest percentage since 1980. In Arizona, 40 percent of voters in 2022 considered themselves political independents.These independent voters tend to live disproportionately in suburbs, which are now the most diverse socioeconomic areas in our country. These suburban voters are the third component of a winning strategy. With cities increasingly controlled by Democrats — because of the high level of educated voters there — and Republicans maintaining their dominance in rural areas with large numbers of non-college voters, the suburbs are the last battleground in American politics.Voting in the suburbs has been decisive in determining the outcome of the last two presidential elections: Voters in the suburbs of Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Phoenix determined the winner in the last two presidential elections and are likely to play the same pivotal role in 2024.These voters moved to the suburbs for a higher quality of life: affordable housing, safe streets and good schools. These are the issues that animate these voters, who have a negative view of both parties. They do not embrace a MAGA-driven Republican Party, but they also do not trust Mr. Biden and Democrats, and consider them to be culturally extreme big spenders who aren’t focused enough on issues like immigration and crime.So in addition to education levels, these other factors will have a big impact on the election. The party that can capture the pivotal group of voters in the suburbs of battleground states is likely to prevail. Democrats’ success in the suburbs in recent elections suggests an advantage, but it is not necessarily enduring. Based on post-midterm exit polls from these areas, voters have often voted against a party or candidate — especially Mr. Trump — rather than for one.But in part because of the emergence of the diploma divide, there is an opening for both political parties in 2024 if they are willing to gear their agenda and policies beyond their political base. The party that does that is likely to win the White House.Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and is a senior adviser to the Brunswick Group.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Michigan Democrats Rise, and Try to Turn a Battleground Blue

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      With a strong governor, a Legislature passing a raft of liberal measures and a looming early presidential primary, Democrats are testing the promise and pitfalls of complete control of the state.The governor of Michigan is considered one of her party’s brightest stars. Her state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature is rapidly approving a raft of ambitious priorities. The Democratic Party is planning to host one of its earliest presidential primaries in Michigan, while the state’s Republican Party is in chaos.Seven years after Michigan helped cement Donald J. Trump’s presidential victory, the state has transformed into a new — if fragile — focal point of Democratic power, testing the promise and pitfalls of complete Democratic governance in one of the nation’s pre-eminent political battlegrounds.Michigan’s Democratic leaders, however, recoil at the idea that their state — once a reliable stronghold for the party in presidential years — is turning blue once more.“No! Michigan’s not a blue state,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insisted in an interview last week in Bay City, nestled in a windy, working-class county near Saginaw Bay that Mr. Trump won twice. Ms. Whitmer captured it too, prevailing there and across the state in Democrats’ November sweep.“It would be a mistake for anyone to look at that and think Michigan is not still a tossup, very competitive, very diverse state that’s going to decide the outcome of the next national election again,” she said.“Everybody thinks, Oh, Michigan’s done, it’s a blue state,” added Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat. “Tenuous is the operative word.”Against that backdrop — significant victories last fall, in a state that is still closely divided — state Democrats are pursuing a flood of liberal legislation, while measuring the durability of an unwieldy coalition that defeated Republicans in the last three elections.Democratic triumphs were fueled by both moderate suburbanites and liberal city dwellers, left-wing college students and even some onetime Trump voters who thought their party had gone too far.“The state Republican Party is not reflective of the average Republican in Michigan,” Ms. Whitmer said, nodding to the hard-right turn of the Michigan G.O.P. “I don’t think that everyone’s all of a sudden become Democrats.”In November, Michigan voters decided to enshrine abortion protections in the State Constitution. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMs. Whitmer has cautioned against claiming political “mandates.”But Democrats have moved assertively to act on their power, which includes full control of the Legislature and governor’s mansion for the first time in 40 years, focusing on both pocketbook priorities and cultural issues.They have shepherded through a major tax package, and, to the consternation of some in the business community, made Michigan the first state in nearly 60 years to repeal right-to-work rules, which had weakened organized labor. They have expanded L.G.B.T.Q. protections and pursued anti-gun violence measures, and have moved to repeal a now-unenforceable abortion ban from 1931.Ms. Whitmer has also signed a measure moving up Michigan’s presidential primary, a move blessed by national Democrats, though it is unclear how Republicans will proceed.If that calendar change takes hold, voters around the country who were once made intimately familiar with the Iowa State Fair may soon become acquainted with the Posen Potato Festival and a Michigan cheeseburger festival, as the state moves into a position of greater prominence in the Democratic nominating process.Ms. Whitmer’s victory margin of nearly 11 percentage points — on par or ahead of governors in several more liberal states — has only encouraged a perception among many Democrats that she is possible presidential material.But she insisted she would not run for president in 2024, regardless of President Biden’s re-election plans. He is expected to run and would have strong support from party leaders including Ms. Whitmer, but has not yet announced a bid.Ms. Whitmer holding a discussion with students and faculty members at a career center in Bay City, Mich., this month. Many Democrats see her as a potential presidential candidate one day, but she has insisted she will not run in 2024.Emily Elconin for The New York Times“I have made a commitment to the people of Michigan, I’m going to do this job till the end of this term,” Ms. Whitmer said. Pressed on whether there was anything about the presidency that appealed down the road, she first demurred — “no, not at the moment” — before allowing, “I think that this country is long overdue for a strong female chief executive.”Republicans, for their part, who as recently as 2018 controlled the state levers of power, are now adrift and divided. Ahead of what should be a marquee Senate race to succeed Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who is retiring, the challenge of nominating someone who would both survive a primary contest and thrive in a general election is growing more apparent by the week.The state Republican Party is now helmed by an election denier, Kristina Karamo, who lost her November race for secretary of state by 14 points and has stoked doubts about her ability to run a serious operation.“People have concerns that the incumbent will have trouble raising money when she openly maligns the same donors she needs to bring in to help win the Senate race,” said Gustavo Portela, a former spokesman for the Michigan Republican Party. “She’ll have a challenge being able to balance the grass roots and donors.”Former President Donald J. Trump endorsing Kristina Karamo, left, who would go on to lose Michigan’s race for secretary of state in November. She is now the leader of the state Republican Party. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMs. Karamo did not respond to requests for comment.Just last week, the Michigan G.O.P. promoted an image on social media that compared efforts to curb gun violence with the Nazis’ theft of wedding rings from Holocaust victims, then defended the posts amid a backlash.“The Republican Party in Michigan is dead for the foreseeable future,” said former Representative Dave Trott, who represented a suburban Detroit district as a Republican but now considers himself an independent, supporting Mr. Biden in 2020. “Even if the right people were in charge, the MAGA movement is such that any candidate that would be more acceptable to a general electorate can’t win the primary.”“If I’m Elissa Slotkin,” he added, “I’m already trying to figure out which Senate building I want my office in.”The primary and the general elections for Senate are political lifetimes away, but Ms. Slotkin, a Democratic congresswoman from a competitive district, is currently in a commanding position in the race.Several of the state’s highest-profile Democrats have passed on a Senate run, giving her running room in the primary, though a number of other Democrats — hoping to see more representation of Black voters, Detroit voters, or both in the race — could still get in. Among Republicans, former Representative Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, is perhaps the best-known potential candidate. Kevin Rinke, who ran a largely self-funded Republican primary campaign for governor, has also been seen as a possible contender, among others. Both men lost primaries last year to far-right candidates who were then defeated in general elections.Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, joined Michigan State students at the State Capitol who were protesting gun violence two days after a deadly shooting on the university’s campus. Nick Hagen for The New York TimesMaggie Abboud, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the committee had seen “a number of strong potential candidates reach out.”Certainly, it is difficult to predict how the Democratic strength on display last fall will translate in 2024. The contests were defined in part by an extraordinary backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and a major, successful initiative to enshrine abortion protections in the State Constitution — and it is far too early to say what issues will be galvanizing next year.Democrats benefited from a redistricting process. And party leaders freely acknowledge how quickly the political environment in the state can shift.“We were looking into the brink and decided to work our backsides off,” Ms. Slotkin said. “The minute you sleep on Michigan, it can go the other direction.”There were also warning signs in Wayne County, which is home to Detroit and the state’s largest population of Black Americans. Turnout was lower in 2022 than it was in the 2018 midterms.“We have an opportunity to do more,” said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, himself a Detroiter. “I certainly spent a lot of time with Black voters and particularly our younger voters and our Black male voters who we’ve got to make sure are deeply engaged, and that we invest in that engagement.”Still, the party’s gains were significant, including signs of new inroads in white working-class territory that has become exceedingly difficult for Democrats around the country.“In my district, folks were outraged by Jan. 6, but if that’s all you talk to them about, you’re not going to win their vote,” said State Senator Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat whose seat includes parts of Bay County, and who emphasized both kitchen-table economic issues and abortion rights in her race.Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democratic state senator, said her party was mobilized “in a way that I haven’t seen in a really long time.”Emily Elconin for The New York Times“By demonstrating that we are moving on real issues that people care about and doing it very aggressively with Democratic power,” she said, she hoped Michiganders would believe that “voting for a Democrat means things are going to get better.”Democrats “were really demoralized after the Trump victory, and suddenly we are seeing people coming to party meetings again,” she added. “The Democratic trifecta in Michigan has mobilized Democrats in a way that I haven’t seen in a really long time.”But Ms. Dingell, the Democratic congresswoman, remains keenly focused on pro-Trump sentiment in the state, and she is already warning of another challenging election cycle, arguing that races up and down the ballot will be highly competitive.“We will be ground zero for every race,” she said. 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      Elissa Slotkin Announces Senate Run in Michigan

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      Ms. Slotkin, a former C.I.A. analyst who represents a divided district, is expected to focus heavily on economic matters.Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat and former C.I.A. analyst who has notched several high-profile victories in a challenging district, said Monday that she would run for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat.Ms. Slotkin is the first Democrat running in what could be a hotly contested primary followed by a marquee fight in the general election, held during a presidential year in a major battleground state.“We need a new generation of leaders that thinks differently, works harder and never forgets that we are public servants,” Ms. Slotkin said in an announcement video released Monday morning.In Michigan, an industrial Midwestern state that helped propel Donald J. Trump to the White House in 2016 before narrowly flipping back to the Democrats in 2020, Ms. Slotkin is planning a pitch heavily focused on jobs and economic matters. An adviser, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said to expect a campaign message that emphasized American manufacturing, “jobs with dignity” and labor protections.“We seem to be living crisis to crisis,” Ms. Slotkin said in the video. “But there are certain things that should be really simple, like living a middle-class life in the state that invented the middle class.”She also stressed the importance of “preserving our rights and our democracy so that our kids can live their version of the American dream.”There have been two school shootings in Ms. Slotkin’s district over the last 15 months, including one at Michigan State University this month. She is expected to focus on issues of safety, especially combating gun violence, the adviser said.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.In New York: The state almost single-handedly cost Democrats their House majority in the midterms. Now, a leading Democratic group is hoping New York can deliver the party back to power.Blue-Collar Struggles: A new report from Democratic strategists found that the economy was a bigger problem than cultural issues for the party in the industrial Midwest. It also found hopeful signs for Democrats.Black Mayors: The Black mayors of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston have banded together as they confront violent crime, homelessness and other similar challenges.Wisconsin Supreme Court: Democratic turnout was high in the primary for the swing seat on the court, ahead of a general election that will decide the future of abortion rights and gerrymandered maps in the state.Ms. Slotkin, an experienced fund-raiser who represents a Lansing-area district that includes plenty of Republican voters, has impressed state and national Democrats with her electoral track record. She flipped a Republican-held district in 2018, held it in 2020 and was widely seen as endangered last fall, but ultimately won by five percentage points.And in a nod to her focus on bipartisanship, she featured images of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in her biography-heavy announcement video as she noted that she had worked “in the White House under two presidents, one Republican and one Democrat.”Her relatively moderate politics, a boon in her House district, may be viewed skeptically by more progressive voters and activists across the state who could mobilize in a primary. There is already public and private clamoring in some quarters for a more robust and diverse primary field, even as a number of the state’s most high-profile Democrats have passed on runs themselves.Ms. Slotkin, for her part, emphasized in a tweet on Monday that “I’ve never taken corporate PAC money, and I’m not starting now.”Ms. Slotkin will also need to introduce herself to Black communities in a number of the state’s bigger cities. She is planning to visit cities including Detroit, Grand Rapids and Flint soon, the adviser said on Friday.The state primary is not expected to be until August of next year, and it is not yet clear what the final field may look like, or how competitive it may ultimately be.A number of the state’s most prominent politicians — including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Mayor Mike Duggan of Detroit and Representative Haley Stevens — have indicated they do not intend to run. Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary whose official residence is now in Michigan, has said the same.On Friday, State Senator Mallory McMorrow, a prominent lawmaker who went viral last year defending L.G.B.T.Q. rights, also said she would not run.Many elected officials and other power players in the state had been waiting to see whether Garlin Gilchrist II, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, would jump into the race, and some had wanted to support him. But on Sunday, he wrote on Twitter: “Serving our state in Washington, D.C. would be a great opportunity, but instead I will keep standing tall for Michigan, right here at home, as Lieutenant Governor. The Governor & I have more work to do. I look forward to working with our next US Senator to get it done.”Some Michigan Democrats have emphasized the importance of Black representation in the primary.“Michigan has this rich pool of qualified African American candidates, and we have so few that represent us in the Senate,” former Representative Brenda L. Lawrence, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview on Friday. “We have an opportunity to send a qualified public servant to the Senate, so I just really think it’s important. And I think Michigan has the opportunity to fulfill that.”She pointed at the time to Mr. Gilchrist and Hill Harper, an actor in the TV series “The Good Doctor,” as potentially strong candidates. She also said she had not “shut the door yet” on her own potential bid.And there is renewed attention to the intentions of Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson. She has not ruled out a bid, but previously signaled she was more focused on her current job.Representative Debbie Dingell has not categorically ruled out a run, either.Republicans haven’t yet landed their own high-profile candidate. Nikki Snyder, a Republican member of the state board of education, was the first to jump in. But Representative John James, Michigan’s first Black Republican member of Congress, indicated on Friday that he would not seek the seat.Former Representative Peter Meijer, who lost his primary after voting to impeach Mr. Trump, is perhaps the most prominent potential Republican contender, although he would have clear difficulties navigating another primary.Others who either have indicated interest in running or are often mentioned in Republican circles include Representative Lisa McClain; State Senator Ruth Johnson; Kevin Rinke, who lost a largely self-funded Republican primary campaign for governor last year; and former Representative Mike Rogers.The National Republican Senatorial Committee has previously pledged to “aggressively target this seat.” In a statement on Monday, Maggie Abboud, a committee spokeswoman, called Ms. Slotkin a “liberal politician.”Democrats are betting that, as the Michigan Republican Party moves further to the right — it is now helmed by an election-denying Trump acolyte — the strongest potential general election contenders, like Mr. Meijer, would struggle to make it through a primary, paving the way for a far-right nominee who would face significant challenges in a general election.But many have warned that the strong Democratic showing in the midterms in Michigan — against a number of right-wing Republicans — should not be mistaken for a tidal shift in the state’s highly competitive politics.“I don’t know that the state itself has swung more Democratic,” Mr. Duggan said. “I think it has more to do with the caliber of leaders that we’ve had in recent years.”“This state,” he added, “is very closely divided.” More

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      Election denier Kristina Karamo chosen to lead Michigan Republican party

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      Election denier Kristina Karamo chosen to lead Michigan Republican partyKaramo lost secretary of state race in 2022 after mounting a campaign in support of Trump’s lie about electoral fraud The election conspiracist Kristina Karamo, overwhelmingly defeated last year in her bid to become Michigan secretary of state, was chosen on Saturday to lead the state Republican party for the next two years.Karamo defeated a 10-candidate field dominated by far-right candidates to win the position after a party convention that lasted nearly 11 hours.The latest threat to democracy? A Trump-backed candidate willing to ‘find extra votes’Read moreIn 2022, the former community college professor lost her secretary of state race by 14 points after mounting a campaign in support of Donald Trump’s lie that his 2020 election defeat was the result of electoral fraud.Karamo inherits a state party torn by infighting and millions in debt. She will be tasked with helping win back the legislature and flipping one of the most competitive US Senate seats, while helping a presidential candidate win the battleground state.Addressing delegates, Karamo said “our party is dying” and needs to be rebuilt into “a political machine that strikes fear in the heart of Democrats”.Karamo rose to prominence following the 2020 election when she began appearing on conservative talk shows claiming that as a poll challenger in Detroit, she saw “ballots being dropped off in the middle of the night, thousands of them”.The decision to elect Karamo, who will lead through the 2024 elections, solidifies the hold far-right activists have on the state party after sweeping losses last year.It took three rounds of voting at the convention in Lansing for delegates to pick Karamo over the former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, who was endorsed by Trump.Contemplating a field dominated by grassroots activists running on far-right messaging, the former Republican congressman Fred Upton said: “We lost the entire statehouse for the first time in 40 years, in large part, because of the top of the ticket. All deniers. It turned off a lot of voters.”The party may take “a cycle or two to correct itself and to get out of the ditch that we’ve been in for the last couple of years”, Upton said.The Michigan Republican party has been led by figures including the former education secretary Betsy DeVos and the current national Republican chair, Ronna McDaniel.Trump won Michigan in 2016 but Democrats now control all levels of power for the first time since the 1980s. In 2022 they won both houses of the legislature and defeated Republicans by significant margins for governor, attorney general and secretary of state.Longtime donors withheld millions as Republicans grew increasingly loyal to Trump. Tudor Dixon, a Trump loyalist who lost for governor to Gretchen Whitmer, said her campaign was hurt by the state party not having as much money as in the past.TopicsMichiganRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More