The sidewalk in downtown Grand Rapids was packed for blocks with Donald Trump’s supporters on Thursday afternoon, all smiles and laughs and MAGA hats as they waited for the president to touch down in Michigan. Trump's remarks to an arena full of fans were still hours away, but it was clear that, in one of the most coveted battleground states of the 2020 election, the campaign was well underway.
A man stood wearing a Trump banner like a cape on a street corner, not far from where Trump hats, Trump pins, and Trump bobbleheads with massive middle fingers were on sale. The line to hear the president speak snaked around the corner, around another corner, past a tower of pro-Trump and right-wing flags, and out of sight. One supporter, a Navy veteran, said he would salute Trump proudly when he walked on stage later that night. Another, a who owns a painting business upstate, beamed at a lower tax bill. Among those waiting to see the president, there was little to no reservation about him or his policies.
“I actually did not vote until he ran,” said Salena Waller, standing in line just down the street. “He can’t be bought, and he sticks to what he says he’s going to do—unless it’s completely un-doable. But everything in his campaign that he’s promised, he’s trying to do. And that’s what makes a difference.”
Michigan contains plenty of enthusiasm for Donald Trump. But a central question of the 2020 campaign is how broad that support is—and exactly how far that enthusiasm will carry him. Trump barely won the state in 2016, eking out victory by little more than 10,000 votes out of more than 4.5 million cast. That margin is all but sure to make Michigan one of the most bitterly fought battlegrounds of 2020.
That division was on display in Grand Rapids, where a counter-rally a few blocks from where Trump was set to speak featured a giant balloon of the president dressed in a diaper. There were also protesters across the street from the venue itself, placards in hand.
Shanise Armes was standing among them. She said she moved to Grand Rapids in 2016, and she’s worried about an uptick in hate across the country since Trump came to the political scene—something she’s endured personally. She remembers a child, about ten or 11 years old, calling her the N-word when she was a bus driver in a nearby school district—and, when she wore a head wrap, “towelhead.” She connects the experience directly to Trump, she said, and a growing attitude of permissiveness around hate.
Trump’s appearance in Grand Rapids marked his first rally following the Sunday release of a summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. That summary document, written by Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, briefly quotes the report to say the special counsel did not “establish” collusion by the Trump campaign, and that while it “does not conclude that the President committed (obstruction of justice), it also does not exonerate him.”
Recent reports also indicate the Mueller report itself is longer than 300 pages, buttressing calls from Democrats for access to the full document. But despite the debate and uncertainty surrounding the report, Trump insisted that its conclusions were an unqualified victory for him.
“The special counsel completed its report and found no collusion and no obstruction,” Trump falsely claimed during his speech in Grand Rapids. “I could have told you that two and a half years ago very easily. Total exoneration, complete vindication.”
The rest of Trump’s rally covered a freewheeling tour of a range of topics, from his professed support for the health of the Great Lakes to promises that his trade policies would help bring more auto manufacturing back to the United States to assurances that his administration would wall off the US southern border.
“As we’re pursuing all these policies for the common good... Democrats are pursuing policies of radicalism, resistance and revenge,” he said, before launching into criticisms of the Green New Deal.
The recent midterm elections weren’t a good sign for Trump in Michigan. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, topped her Republican challenger by nearly 10 points, as three other Democratic women swept Michigan’s statewide races. But Corwin Smidt, an associate professor in MSU’s political science department, pointed out that Trump still has a very real chance to win in 2020, notably because the state’s demographics are shifting power away from minority strongholds that provide dependable Democratic votes.
“Just in the last 20 years, Wayne County, which includes Detroit, has gone from about 18 to 20 percent of the electorate to now 12 to 14 (percent),” he said.
What’s more, some of Michigan Republicans’ key losses can’t be explained away by an embrace of Trump. Smidt said last year’s GOP nominee for governor might have had a Trump endorsement—but he also had to work against an affluent background and a “split in the party.”
“There’s certainly I think a lot more energy to take over, to beat Trump in the state among the Democrats,” Smidt said. “However, there was a lot of that energy among Republicans in 2016, and they had 16 candidates in the field and they all ate each other apart.”
There are more than a dozen candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president, ranging from left-wing progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to moderates like Joe Biden (who appears all but certain to announce his bid). Matt Grossmann, director of MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, pointed out that Michigan’s deep manufacturing roots will help make economic, working-class concerns a key part of that race.
“It’s worth watching one of Gretchen Whitmer’s ads (from the campaign),” he said. “They were so stereotypical—hard hats, walking through factories kind of stuff. The state kind of accepts that image, even among people who are not affiliated with the industry. The Detroit area obviously knows its fate is quite tied to the auto industry. Even people who are quite far from the auto industry are still invested in its success.”
Trump’s visit also came days after the revelation that the Department of Justice argued in court the Affordable Care Act should be invalidated, creating consternation among Republicans that the move could anger a large base that depends on the law for healthcare.
Mary Minnick, chairwoman of the Lake County Democratic Party, was across the street from the arena hours before Trump was set to speak, holding a sign demanding the “repair,” not the repeal, of the Affordable Care Act. Healthcare was one of her party’s winning messages in 2018, she said—but she acknowledged that, without hard work, Trump could roll through Michigan.
“It could easily (happen),” she said. “If we’re not strong and supportive of whoever wins our primary, as Democrats, Donald Trump will win again.”
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