Suburban shift helped Dems win Michigan. Kamala Harris needs it to hold

• Oakland County residents are mobilizing as Democrats and Republicans alike court their votes
• The southeast Michigan county, once solidly Republican, has trended increasingly blue in recent elections
• Immigration, abortion rights, gun reform and economy among top-of-mind issues for local voters

ROYAL OAK — As spring turned into summer and the election inched closer, Marcie Paul was beginning to fear that the Democratic ticket was “a tough game to sell” in Oakland County.

Then Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race, and everything changed.

“It was almost like a switch went on,” said Paul, a West Bloomfield resident and chair of Fems for Dems, an Oakland County-based group that works to turn out women voters for Democrats. 

But in a county that played a crucial role in the 2020 election and could again help decide the presidency, control of the U.S. Senate and the state House, Paul isn’t ready to breathe a sigh of relief.  

“We do feel like the center of the political world right now, and for good reason,” she said. “We can't just think of Oakland County as safe. It's got to make up for every vote that we might not get elsewhere.”

It’s no secret that one of Michigan’s wealthiest, well-educated and densely populated counties has been steadily shifting from red to blue, particularly in recent cycles as suburban voters rejected then-President Donald Trump.

Related:

• Trump rallies supporters: ‘If we win Michigan, we win the election’
• For Black women in Detroit, mobilizing for Kamala Harris a ‘moment of pride’
• Michigan elections FAQ: Do you need ID to vote or register to vote?

How Harris builds on that shift, or Republicans carve into it, could again help determine who sits in the White House the next four years.

It’s a region where abortion rights, gun safety and pro-democracy messages resonate with voters, who are less likely to feel the stinging pinch of higher costs resulting from steep inflation in 2021 and 2022.

“The trend is clear and showing no signs of abating,” said David Dulio, director of the Center for Civic Engagement and professor of political science at Oakland University. “The statewide prospects for Republicans really lie in mitigating the losses in places like Oakland County.”

But like their Democratic counterparts, many conservative-leaning voters in Oakland County are starting to get more engaged, hoping to turn the tide by urging voters to assess whether they are better off economically than four years prior. 

“I'm very surprised how blue our state is, and it's kind of shocking,” said longtime Lake Orion resident Cheryl Clark, who told Bridge Michigan she decided this year to volunteer for Republican causes for the first time. 

“Our lives have changed in the last four years in a way that we could never imagine. And I decided to show up and try to help, because we can't go on any longer like this.”

Efforts to court voters in the region are ramping up among Democratic and Republican candidates alike.

Trump visited Oakland County’s Waterford Township in February, vowing to protect auto jobs and fight illegal immigration. He also spoke last year at an Oakland County GOP fundraiser, where he argued criminal charges against him were politically motivated. 

Harris, who replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket after he withdrew from the race in July, has so for largely focused Michigan efforts on Detroit and Wayne County, though the campaign has opened six offices in Oakland County and has hosted several events with surrogates,

On Thursday, Harris is expected to return to metro Detroit, where she will join Oprah Winfrey for a "Unite for America" livestream at 8 p.m..

The suburban impact

A majority of Oakland County voters haven’t picked a Republican presidential candidate since 1992, though northern Oakland County remains solidly red. 

In recent cycles, Democrats have made further inroads into traditionally Republican areas, flipping key local seats and making gains in northern Oakland communities. 

Biden’s 2020 victory in Michigan has been credited in part to voters in Oakland County: Even as Trump boosted support in rural and outstate areas, he lost many suburbanites who were wary of a second Trump term. 

“To some extent, it's a Trump effect,” Dulio said. “In 2016, many voters in Oakland County were willing to give Trump a chance, and then in 2018 and 2020, they ran away from him, and he's not been able to get them back.”

Biden won more than 100,000 additional votes in Oakland County compared to Clinton four years prior. He won the state by 154,188 votes. 

Because Trump is no longer the incumbent, Dulio said the race takes on a slightly different dynamic, potentially resulting in him performing slightly better in Oakland County this time around. 

Trump’s support in the Oakland County suburbs eroded between 2016 and 2020, though he saw slight gains in a few heavily Democratic areas like Pontiac, going from 14.9% of the vote in 2016 to 17.9% of the vote in 2020. 

Biden in 2020 expanded on leads in communities like Novi and Bloomfield Township that went to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and brought some conservative areas into closer margins. In Lyon Township, for example, which Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, Biden got 42.1% of the vote compared to Clinton’s 35.4%. 

Some Oakland County communities have proven willing to split the ticket. 

Voters in Rochester Hills backed Biden and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ellisa in 2020, but chose Republicans John James for U.S. Senate (he now represents the city in Congress after redistricting) and Mark Tisdel for state House. 

That was a significant Democratic shift from 2016, when Trump beat Clinton there by nearly six points. 

Biden’s polling was tanking in Michigan before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, in part due to a subpar debate performance against Trump that prompted concerns about his age and ability to serve another four years.

With Harris in the race, the 2024 contest in Michigan is neck-and-neck. 

August polling by Glengariff Group showed Trump trailing Harris in metro Detroit and more generally among women and likely voters with a college education, though he holds the lead outstate and among likely male voters and those without college degrees. 

Some observers have also pointed to former Republican primary candidate Nikki Haley’s performance in Oakland County and other pockets of Michigan as an indicator Trump could still be in trouble among suburban voters. She garnered 33.4% of the primary vote in Oakland County. 

In other key races, the fight for Oakland County hits a little closer to home. Both of Michigan’s U.S. Senate candidates, Mike Rogers and Elissa Slotkin, have deep ties to the region. 

Rogers, a Livingston County native, represented a wide swath of Oakland County voters in Congress from 2001-2014 and purchased a home in White Lake Township after moving back to Michigan to run for U.S. Senate. 

In 2018, Slotkin — who lives on family property in Holly, in northern Oakland County— successfully challenged Rogers’ successor, former Republican Rep. Mike Bishop, and represented the region for two terms in Congress before districts were redrawn. 

Last week, Rogers brought U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to southeast Michigan for a series of events, and on Friday, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., will campaign with Slotkin in Oakland County. 

‘Putting in the hours’

Bright and early on a recent September Saturday, a group of Oakland County Republicans met in Lake Orion, rallying around vulnerable state House candidates and preparing to knock doors to stem the Democratic tide. 

Among them was Anna Muzzy, a Clarkston resident who until recently was afraid to hang the Trump flag her husband purchased out of fear of possible judgment or retaliation from neighbors.

After one of Trump’s indictments, she told her husband to put the flag up. Now, she’s working to convince her neighbors that Trump and down-ballot Republicans are better suited to tackle issues like lowering crime, keeping costs of living down and addressing immigration reform. 

“I want America to be a good place for my kids,” she said. “Let's just stop paying for all these crazy wars that we have no business paying for, stop paying for people's college loans…stop paying for the illegal immigrants. All this money is the reason why everything is so high, right?”

“So let's stop doing all that and get things back to where they should be.”

At the local level, Republicans’ biggest battle in Oakland County might be holding onto state House Districts 54 and 55, currently held by Reps. Donni Steele, R-Lake Orion, and Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills. 

Both are well known from previous roles in local government and as incumbent lawmakers, but both are serving in districts made more politically competitive by redistricting and are facing spirited challenges from Democrats, Shadia Martini in the 54th and Trevis Harrold in the 55th. 

What happens in those districts could contribute to the future of the Michigan House, where Democrats currently hold a two-seat majority. If Republicans are able to hang on to incumbents’ current seats and pick up any others, they could bring the House to a tie or win a majority, ending full Democratic control of state government. 

Vance Patrick, chair of the Oakland County GOP, said he’s been encouraged by enthusiasm he’s noticed for Republican candidates up and down the ticket, chalking part of that up to party faithful having a more visible presence at major local events, like Arts, Beats and Eats in Royal Oak and the annual Woodward Dream Cruise. 

Calling Oakland a “really unique county” with a slew of diverse political opinions, Patrick said his goal is to make clear that voters are well aware of the alternatives that Republican candidates offer, because “the way we’re going right now, it’s just not working.” 

“When I was a kid, you used to pull the red handle in November and then you went back to work…you can't do that anymore,” Patrick told Bridge. “We're putting in the hours.”  

‘We can’t count on anything’

In Pleasant Ridge, a small but wealthy Oakland County suburb,  resident Jordan Weisman said she felt like she didn’t do enough in 2016 to prevent Clinton’s loss in Michigan. Ever since, she’s felt a duty to connect with as many prospective voters as possible about Democratic candidates.  

During a pro-Harris presidential debate watch party in Royal Oak earlier this month, Weisman said she was encouraged by local excitement over Harris’ campaign — but wishes more of it were coming from people who are still undecided.

“We can't count on anything,” Weisman said. “I think it's really a toss up, like it is nationally, like it is in the battleground polls. That's how it feels.”

Harris campaign officials say more than 7,000 Oakland County residents have signed up to volunteer since Harris launched her campaign.

The Harris campaign and other down-ballot Democrats in the county have campaigned heavily on reproductive rights, arguing that Republicans could undermine state-level abortion protections like what Michigan voters approved in 2022. 

For Royal Oak resident Lauren Jasinksi, a former Oxford High School teacher who was in the building during the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting, Democrats’ commitment to meaningful gun reform is also encouraging.

“It's one of the promises that she's making to people, that this is actually going to be a ticket that finally does something about gun violence at the national level,”Jasinksi said. 

“Having gone through what I did, seeing people acknowledge that and seeing things that people are going to try and make a difference about it, and not just send you prayers, is really huge.”

Paul, the Fems for Dems chair, said “everything is at stake” in the 2024 election for Oakland County voters and beyond, calling the prospect of Trump returning to the White House “devastating.” 

She also cited the importance of Democrats holding the state House majority, keeping the U.S. Senate seat blue and paying attention to local government and school board races that could have major implications for county politics. 

“There's just so much to work on — there kind of isn't enough time in the day,” she said.