DETROIT – When Election Day began, Michigan Democrats were hopeful they could avoid what they feared what would be a national “red wave,” featuring huge victories for Republicans.
But as the votes came in, they were stunned to discover that not only was there no red wave nationally, what happened in Michigan was in fact a blue flood. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer romped to virtually the same 54 to 45 percent victory she scored four years ago, in the big national “blue wave” year of 2018.
Michigan’s Secretary of State, Democrat Jocelyn Benson, won by an even larger margin, and the state’s often controversial attorney general, Dana Nessel, nearly tripled her margin from four years ago.
Democrats picked up one seat in Congress, and another was in doubt. And in the most stunning development, they won majorities in both houses of the legislature. They haven’t controlled the state senate, or both branches of government, since 1983.
Now, Michigan Republicans are in the worst shape they’ve been in decades. How did this happen – especially in a midterm election when inflation is at frightening levels and Democratic President Joe Biden is widely unpopular?
There were a number of reasons. But the biggest of them may be a single word: Abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade galvanized women and pro-choice forces in the state. Those favoring abortion rights quickly collected a massive number of signatures to get Proposal 3, a state constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on the ballot.
Despite massive spending by the Roman Catholic Church and its Michigan Right to Life allies, Proposal 3 passed by a landslide, getting more votes than any of the winning candidates, and seems to have sparked turnout by angry voters, who also voted for Democrats.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, on the other hand, opposed abortion, even if a pregnancy resulted from rape or incest and the victim was a child herself. Dixon, who had no prior experience in government, was in many ways an articulate and appealing candidate. But lack of money and lack of experience meant she allowed Democrats to run endless TV commercials skewering her stand on the issue, commercials she never answered.
There were other factors; Michiganders traditionally give governors of both parties second terms; the last time they didn’t was when George Romney was elected in 1962.
But along with abortion, the biggest reason Democrats lost all the statewide races in Michigan was likely Republicans. The former president intervened to cause Republicans to nominate Kristina Karamo for secretary of state and Matt DePerno for attorney general, who conservative columnist Nolan Finley described as “abysmal candidates who had no business on a respectable ballot.’
Indeed, DePerno is under criminal investigation, and Karamo spent much of her campaign making bizarre statements about pregnancy and Satan and gay and transgender people. They raised little money and got few endorsements.
But the former president backed them because they insisted the election had been stolen from him, and urged their nomination.
Democrats did so well in Congress and the legislature for a different reason: For decades, redistricting was done by a Republican-controlled legislature, which was heavily gerrymandered to produce GOP majorities even when Democrats got more votes.
But Michigan voters enacted another amendment in 2018 turning redistricting over to a non-partisan redistricting commission, and these are the new districts they drew last year.
Democrats didn’t do everything perfectly. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent hundreds of thousands of dollars meddling in a Republican congressional primary and helping a Libertarian in the general election, but refused to help Carl Marlinga, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Macomb County.
Preliminary final returns show Marlinga trailing perennial GOP candidate John James by only 1,601 votes.
But overall, the results indicate that Michigan is becoming a largely blue state, one in which Republicans squandered some real opportunities this year. Can they do better next time?
Well, that may be harder. Michigan voters this week enacted another state constitutional amendment, Proposal 2, which most Republicans opposed. It is designed to make it easier to vote and establishes nine days of early in-person voting, including a full week and two weekends, drop-off ballot boxes in nearly every community and free postage for absentee ballots.
Attention will now turn to Lansing, however, where for the first time in 40 years, Democrats will control the executive and legislative branches of government and have a majority on the state supreme court. Expect the next two years to be very interesting.
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