In the battleground state’s 100-mile I-75 corridor, ‘all politics is local,’ especially when it comes to the race for the Oval Office.
It’s no surprise Democratic Party presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned Oct. 4 in Flint, Michigan, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump rallied Oct. 3 in Saginaw, less than 40 miles north.
Nor will it be a head-scratcher when they stump across central Michigan again and again before Election Day.
Both cities are within a 100-mile corridor along Interstate 75 between Detroit and Saginaw Bay, where election results from six counties will determine who wins the state’s 15 electoral votes and perhaps cast the clinching Nov. 5 tally that seats the next president.
Finding those winning voters in Michigan’s battleground counties, among the nation’s most hotly contested constituencies, will mean ferreting out the undiscovered undecided. Campaigns know where they are, just not who they are.
Both parties’ county and district committees are searching for the uncommitted with intense ground games—street-by-street grid grinds, platoons of canvassing door-knockers, affirming the adage, “All politics is local,” especially presidential elections.
And the clock is ticking: Michiganders have been casting absentee mail-in ballots since Sept. 26.
“We need all hands on deck,” said Wayne County Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch, who chairs the Democrats’ Congressional District 13 committee.
“Yesterday, there were 5,000 ballots returned [in Wayne County] in just one day. We’re getting the message out, ‘Vote early, return your ballots now, and Kamala Harris will win,’” Kinloch told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2.
Wayne County includes Detroit and Dearborn—Democratic bastions, along with neighboring Oakland County, and Genesee County north on I-75.
Wayne County hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1928, Oakland since 1992, Genesee, which includes Flint, since 1964.
Collectively, President Joe Biden won the three counties by more than 470,000 votes to spearhead his 155,000-vote Michigan win in 2020, four years after Trump became the first Republican to win the state since 1988.
The GOP aims to shave into this blue bulge, especially in Genesee County. If so, that may help Trump take the White House, help former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) flip a blue Senate seat red, and help Republicans win two “toss-up” House races.
By John Haughey
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