Republican candidate Donald Trump won the state of Michigan, after 99 percent of the votes were counted, with a difference of less than two percentage points over his rival, Kamala Harris.
With this victory, Donald Trump expanded the difference in electoral college votes in his favor, as he was able to decide the state of Michigan in his favor by a difference of only 81,000 votes, thus making the state follow the trend of other swing states in these elections.
image source, Getty Images
But what happened to the Democrats there?
Voters there say in interviews conducted by the BBC that there are a number of reasons that tipped the balance in favor of Trump, and they were themselves collected from all over the United States.
First, the economy, with workers in areas affected by Michigan’s auto industry decline and recent layoffs saying they felt better when Trump was president — a term he has used often at his rallies.
Some in the state liked Trump’s desires to transition to a greener economy, electric cars, and his proposed tariffs on international imports.
Voters also cited immigration as a major concern, supporting Trump’s desire to “close the border” to protect the US economy.
On the political level, Democrats in Michigan were shocked by the party’s handling of events in the Middle East, as the state has the largest number of Arab-American residents in the United States, who said they would not vote for Harris in protest of the party’s support for Israel.
Some Arab American activists told us they want to “punish” Kamala Harris, as Vice President Joe Biden, supports Israel’s war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, including children and women.
They noted that any Democratic loss is “blamed” on Muslim voters to show that they have “power.”