EM: The Repubs have a difficult time blocking national and state wide elections for Pres and Senators in Michigan. It is only when they pack a district or parcel a majority into several districts are they able to achieve a win in places where a fair election will contest who does win. In any case, the 11,000 difference between Trump and Clinton was due to record turnout in voting for “others” in 2016 as compared to 2012. I would attribute this to lies about Clinton on things disproven (Benghazi, security breaches, etc.) multiple times, “what-was-I-thinking” Comey’s two announcements so near to election day, and a failure of the Democratic National Committee paying attention to Michigan. This last go around (2018), we were able to pick up congressional
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EM:
The Repubs have a difficult time blocking national and state wide elections for Pres and Senators in Michigan. It is only when they pack a district or parcel a majority into several districts are they able to achieve a win in places where a fair election will contest who does win. In any case, the 11,000 difference between Trump and Clinton was due to record turnout in voting for “others” in 2016 as compared to 2012. I would attribute this to lies about Clinton on things disproven (Benghazi, security breaches, etc.) multiple times, “what-was-I-thinking” Comey’s two announcements so near to election day, and a failure of the Democratic National Committee paying attention to Michigan. This last go around (2018), we were able to pick up congressional reps. Biden for sure cost us another. If people turn out and vote for other than Libertarians or Communists, we will win in spite of Repubs.
With regard to the civilian redistricting, it will be a battle to get a fair and impartial one. You can rest assured, I will not be on it for reasons such as pointing out the flaws in our state government which has been controlled since 1992 (Ballotpedia) and before according to others by Republicans using districting as a means of achieving their win.
Michigan is not a red state and will return to its former self unless Democrats get stupid or are fooled again by lies.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Past the leap, how Republicans destroyed Michigan.
The Michigan Senate has been controlled by Republicans since 1992. The Republicans have had control of the Michigan House 2/3rds of the time since 1992. The Governor’s office up till 2018 has been Republicans 2 (Engler and Snyder) of 3 times since 1992. The Republicans have had control of all three twice since 1992. Today’s issues in Michigan with auto insurance, roads, schools, funding, Michigan State, etc. can be laid at the feet of Republican malfeasance.
Run,
Amazes me how the GOP has destroyed Michigan. Seems like a wave of problems keep hitting them.
Could Betsy DeVos Cost Trump the Election?
“The president needs to win Michigan again, but many of his supporters there hate the education secretary.
In 2016, Darrin Camilleri was 24 and teaching at a Detroit charter school 20 miles from where he grew up, when Michigan lawmakers took up a measure to implement more rigorous oversight of the city’s charter schools. Seemingly anyone could open a charter in Detroit, and the schools closed just as suddenly as they opened. From his classroom on the city’s southwest side, Camilleri watched the reform effort fail.
‘Watching that play out really showed me the downside of deregulation,’ he told me. “No one is holding anyone accountable.’
That year, he decided to run for state representative in southern Wayne County, a largely blue-collar area that shades rural at its edges. Rather than hewing to standard Democratic talking points — health care, for instance, or Donald Trump’s erratic comments — Camilleri made charter school oversight and school funding his central issues, and in 2016, he became the only Democrat to flip a Republican state house seat in Michigan.
Trump would win the state by the slimmest of margins—just 10,704 votes. Today, his political advisers are determined to court the same coalition of suburban, rural, and blue-collar voters that sent him to the White House three years ago, but the president will have a serious liability during this cycle: Betsy DeVos. When Camilleri ran for reelection in 2018, he lost count of the number of people he met who still supported Trump but had come to loathe DeVos. ‘She is the most polarizing figure in Michigan,’ Camilleri told me. ‘People can’t stomach the fact that Trump picked her. They care about good schools.’
In the three years since Trump turned Michigan red, education has emerged as a potent political issue in the state, thanks to a steady stream of grim studies and embarrassing news stories. Between 2003 and 2015, the state ranked last out of all 50 for improvement in math and reading. According to a recent study, Michigan now spends less on its schools than it did in 1994. Republicans have slashed funding to give tax cuts to big businesses. And the number of people who choose to become teachers has fallen dramatically.
Voters might not have blamed Michigan’s education woes on the GOP four years ago, but they do now. This summer, I spoke to business leaders and lawmakers who told me that a gulf is opening up between the state GOP and a handful of key constituencies—suburbanites, rural voters, and business leaders. It’s a shift that could endanger not just the state GOP, which has long controlled Michigan’s legislature, but Trump himself . . . .
In July, when CNBC released its annual list of the ‘best states for doing business,’ Michigan had dropped 13 places. The state’s schools are now so underfunded that they are no longer churning out the qualified graduates that investors look for when starting a new business. ‘We’re like the frog in the water that’s getting warmer and warmer,’ said Rob Fowler, the CEO of the trade group representing 27,000 of Michigan’s small businesses. Last year, he and Business Leaders for Michigan convened an ambitious effort called Launch Michigan to bring together key stakeholders, in its parlance—businesses, philanthropic organizations, and teachers’ unions—and fix what ails the state’s schools. But beneath its buzzwords and hopeful calls for unity is sharper stuff. The business community has been a reliable cheerleader for the GOP and its legislative priorities; now, that alliance is fraying. In the coming months, Launch Michigan will present specific recommendations to the state legislature, urging policymakers to change course on such controversial topics as school funding and charter school oversight, keeping the GOP’s dismal track record on education in the news as the 2020 balloting nears.”
“Could Betsy DeVos Cost Trump the Election?,” Jennifer C. Berkshire, October 22, 2019