Michigan is a key swing state for next year's presidential election, and despite Democrats controlling the state's legislature and holding the governor seat, Donald Trump has pulled ahead of Joe Biden in the latest Bloomberg News Morning Consult poll. Michigan is a competitive state. It might help decide who wins in twenty twenty four, and while the presidential election is still a year away, what voters there have to say right now counts.
Today.
On the show, we'll dive deep into fresh polling data from Michigan to see whether it's the economy, the auto workers strike, or foreign policy that has soured voters on the Biden administration. This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm your host, Seleiah Moson with a special report from Washington, d C. You can find our full polling coverage on Bloomberg dot com. But right now I have two colleagues
with me to talk about mission. Wendy Benjaminson is senior editor in DC overseeing our polling coverage, and Jeff Green is a reporter based in Michigan. Thank you both for joining.
Me, Thanks for having us.
Good to be here, Wendy, I want to come to you first. Donald Trump is pulling ahead of Joe Biden in Michigan. How big of a lead does he have.
Well, it's a tiny lead right now. It's barely outside the margin of error of our poll in Michigan. However, it's the biggest news in our polling this month because for the very first time, Trump has moved ahead of Joe Biden in all seven of the swing states we are polling now in December, after Joe Biden went to the picket lines for the UAW striking workers, after he's made this big pitch on Biden nomics, Trump pulls ahead and that struck us as real news in this poll.
Okay, so forty six percent of Michigan voters said they would vote for Trump and two percent said they would vote for Biden. We have a really tight race.
It's an incredibly tight race. But remember that in twenty twenty Biden won Michigan with fifty point six percent of the vote. Trump won with forty seven point eight So Michigan is always tight. And right now, with eleven months ago, Trump is ahead in Michigan.
So given all of that, I want to give one more qualifier to this poll. One that should come with every pole. This data simply tells us what people are feeling right now, not necessarily how they're going to vote on election day.
That is absolutely right, Wendy.
As you sifted through the data that you got, what did you learn about the mood among voters.
The mood among voters, in one word, is sour. They are not happy with the current administration's foreign policy, They are not happy with domestic policy. They are not yet feeling the effects of the accomplishments of the Biden administration in terms of slowing inflation, in terms of keeping US out of a deep recession, the US out of a deep recession, and they are looking once again to Donald Trump to try to fix things.
Jeff, I want to turn to you. One place where we recently saw Trump and Biden trying to woo Michigan voters was when the auto workers went on strike. The President joined them on the picket line, and Trump visited some non union shops. You live and work in Michigan, Jeff, tell me, how is that key demographic showing up in our polling data.
Well, that's kind of one of the surprises, and I mean it's hard to know for sure, but directionally. It does look like Trump is starting to get more sort of ooped with the autoworkers. And you know, a lot of it's, like Wendy said, dependent on the economy. I talked to Brian Pennevicker, who is part of the group Auto Workers for Trump, and he kind of sums up. He thinks Biden is starting to lose some ground with the autoworkers.
Auto workers are more in tune with Donald Trump's policies in terms of energy and the economy, and that's what they're going to vote on Donald Trump's policies. And they've had a chance now to see Joe Biden in action, and I don't think they like what they see.
And one of the things to keep in mind mentioning energy is ev Electric vehicles is a big, big transition happening in the state. There's a lot of people concerned we're rushing it. Maybe we're going to weaken the auto companies. It's a mandate and not necessarily popular with all the rank and file. However, it does seem like the kind of thing that will work itself out eventually when the union gets more engaged.
That's interesting to me. After all, we have a president right now, who's often referred to as union Joe. He's been a big backer of labor. In September, he became the first US president to ever join the picket line. Here's what he had to say when he was there.
Talking about her, is that you guys, uaw, you've saved the autobile industry. Back at two of how they and the floors made a lot of sacrifices, gave up a lot, and the companies were in trouble. But now they're doing incredibly well. And guess what you should be doing incredibly well too, say.
Biden has his reputation of being the average Joe, the guy who takes trains and supports union workers. But looking at the polling numbers that we've just gotten, that doesn't seem to resonate in Michigan with these auto workers. Jeff, I'm curious, why do you think that is?
Well, I think it comes down to a lot of things. We're looking at inflation. It doesn't matter that inflation is moderating because it doesn't mean prices are going down. Autoworkers are just like everyone else at Michigan. What they want is a better economy with lower prices and they're concerned that maybe Biden isn't bringing them that, and Trump does really well with sort of his populous message, you know,
make it in America. A lot of the things he said, he took away some of the thunder from Joe Biden when he said a lot of the same things. He went after NAFTA, which is the North American Free Trade Agreement, things that the autoworkers didn't like. They are kind of a fickle bunch. I mean, they tend to as an organization at the top go for a Democrat, but the
members can go either way. We talked to the Michigan Democratic Chair, Levora Barnes, and she kind of summed up what she thinks will ultimately happen as this develops.
When the UAW turt that focused, when labor unions all turn their focus on this election, they'll remember that this is the president who has stood with them and stood by them year after year and will continue to and they will come to Democrats.
I'm sure of that, Wendy.
I'm curious about your reaction to that.
Oh, you saw me shaking my head. The trouble is that that has been the message for Democrats all along, that at some point everyone will suddenly realize all the great things Biden did for them and they will vote for him. The trouble is, biden messaging is landing flat. He's been to Michigan, he has talked about biden nomics, which actually started off as an insult by Republicans, and now he has adopted it much the way Obama did with Obamacare. But it is not working as well as
it did for Obama. But every time he tries to sell his accomplishments to people, they just don't seem to give him credit for it. He's not getting credit for the student loan cancelation of one hundred and twenty seven billion dollars. He's not getting credit for the Inflation Reduction Act,
or for the economy that is getting better. And if Democrats want to win, I think they will have to try a new message because so far, with plenty of time to rebuild that message, this message isn't working well.
On that note, we're going to take a quick break. Then we'll hear more about what's on the mine of Michigan voters and what this swing state can tell us about how the rest of the country might vote. We're back with my Bloomberg colleagues Wendy Benjaminson in Washington and Jeff Green in Michigan, and we're talking about the latest Bloomberg Morning consult poll. It showed that Trump has pulled
ahead of Biden among prospective voters in the state. Wendy Jeff, you both mentioned how important the economy is in Michigan.
Our poll shows that.
It's the top issue for voters. It also finds that voters trust Trump more than Biden when it comes to the economy, by a fourteen point margin, even as inflation continues to slow and the US keeps adding jobs. What do you think is behind that, Well.
It's maybe nostalgia. There was a couple references to looking at where things were prior to twenty nineteen, prior to COVID, and that's when Trump was president.
And they are thinking about a pre COVID world when Donald Trump was running the country, and that was a time when inflation was low and the economy was humming along. Yes, but Biden was taking the country out of the COVID economy. And even though that is doing well by all the statistics that we hear at Bloomberg follow very closely, voters are not feeling it yet, and that is what is going to affect people when they get to the voting both.
Also, Michigan's inflation rate is a bit above the country and a bit above the Midwest, so I think people are feeling it a little bit more here.
But when it comes to the economy and gender, our poll found that eight out of ten women in Michigan think the economy is on the wrong track.
I did talk to an economist at the University of Michigan, Sarah Miller, and she had some thoughts on why women who are supporting Trump in rural and suburban areas more so than Biden, might be seeing this as a more important issue than in other parts of the country.
Women in particular are saying they're more concerned about prices and inflation prices rising, and in particular, they're more likely than men to say they're concerned about food prices, household supply prices, utility prices, whereas men tend to say they're more worried than women when it comes to gas prices, the prices of restaurants, parsus of entertainment, and so I I think some of this can reflect just a different
division of labor in the household. And just to be clear, you know, it's not that men weren't concerned about food, it was just that women were even more concerned than men. Both groups are very concerned, but it was a bit higher on the women's side.
So it seems like Biden might have lost women in Michigan. But I was at a party last week in Washington and there were a lot of ex Trump officials there. They were giving me a sense that there was the same concern for Trump that he also has not won women, particularly suburban women. Wendy, what do you think about that?
I think Trump has always had trouble gaining the support of suburban women, but this time he has taken what seems to be a very smart self marketing strategy in hitting on one issue that suburban women see as important besides the economy, and that is the importance of abortion. We've seen in one Republican state after another, even Republican voters voting in favor of referenda that allow abortion access
in their state. And so Trump, who has always campaigned as a devotee of the evangelical Christian right, has taken a very moderate or more to the point vague stance on where he stands on abortion rights, and I believe that is a strategy to capture suburban women.
I'm going to dig into the broader picture with you, Wendy. You've covered eight elections. What does Michigan tell us about what's happening in the rest of the country.
Michigan is a good lab for what's happening in the rest of the country because it has such a mix of people. You have, you know, the big city of Detroit, which is a majority minority city in the sense that most people who live there are not white. Then you have the rural areas where Trump has a tremendous amount of support, and you have a sort of solid Midwestern attitude. Michigan is a blue state now, but it swings back and forth and is a must win, as you might call.
In twenty sixteen, Hillary Clinton did not win Michigan, and we see what happened. Trump won the election. In twenty twenty, Biden did win Michigan, and now he's president. Whoever wins Michigan wins the presidency.
Okay, Jeff, the final word goes to you, why do you think that your state, the state of Michigan is so important to our national elections.
I think a lot of people remember we're the home of the Reagan Democrats. I mean, we are the state that swings. We swing, and we tend to have it. Like Wendy said, we tend to have an influence on who wins. And there's also some other unique aspects we talked about. The United Auto Workers labor is a big part of the state and if Biden loses ground there that doesn't bode well. We do have a significant ari ofb American population here in the war between Israel and
Hamas is playing poorly for Biden here among Palestinians. So all those things are factors that could show up in the general election that we have to think about. But I think at the end of the day, Michigan tends to have a big say and who becomes president.
Thank you both so much, Thanks for having us, Thanks for having us, Thanks for listening to the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Seleiah Mosen. This episode was produced by Anamazarakis and Naomi Shaven. It was fact checked by Julia Press. It's part of a special series from our DC newsroom. Blake Maples is our mix engineer. Our story editors are Caitlin Kenney and Mike Shephard. Sage Bauman is our executive producer and head of Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in.