US election: what does Michigan's coronavirus experience say about Donald Trump's hopes at the polls?

As the US presidential election campaign nears its conclusion, and Covid-19 infections surge across the nation, interest has intensified in the handful of "battleground" states which, under the electoral college system, will ultimately decide the election's result.

In 2016, Donald Trump won in Michigan by 0.3 per cent, his smallest margin nationally. In 2020, the state has been constantly in the headlines as he feuds with its Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, over her relatively tough and extended pandemic shutdown orders.

In May, when a few hundred protesters, some carrying guns, descended on the state capitol demanding that she lift her state of emergency, he tweeted "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" in support.

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Most recently and dramatically, when 13 men belonging to militia groups were arrested for plotting to kidnap Whitmer and "try" her for being a tyrant, Trump called her Covid-19 restrictions "draconian", said that she "wants to be a dictator" and responded to chants at one of his Michigan rallies of "Lock her up!" - a signature feature of his 2016 campaign, referring to Hillary Clinton - with "Lock them all up!".

So much for headlines. The reality on the ground would seem to vindicate Whitmer. In May, after two months of pandemic restrictions, 86 per cent of Michiganders surveyed said Covid-19 was a threat (not "a hoax"), and 69 per cent approved of her control measures while 22 per cent opposed them.

The governor's own approval ratings jumped from 42 per cent to 64 per cent, as did the ratings of governors of other states who enacted strict lockdowns.

An Imperial College London and Oxford University study found that mobility decreased more in Michigan than in other states, with concomitantly the largest reduction in coronavirus spread.

The infection rate plummeted at one point to the second-lowest in the US, with much-reduced hospitalisations and deaths.

Racial disparities fell dramatically. African-Americans, 14 per cent of the state's population, accounted for 32 per cent of Covid-19 cases and 41 per cent of deaths early on in the pandemic, but by September accounted for just 9 per cent of cases and 12 per cent of deaths.

This resulted from swift state interventions including expanded testing, health care initiatives and education on safety protocols, reduced virus exposure of essential frontline workers due to the shutdown, and increased unemployment compensation and state assistance for food and housing, which reduced poverty rates.

Without the Republican-controlled state legislature's cooperation, Whitmer enacted more pandemic executive orders (nearly 200) than any other governor (except Florida's), encompassing both restrictions and their relaxation under a six-phase reopening plan. Compliance has been good despite limited enforcement and penalties.

Surveys found 81 per cent of state residents wearing masks, including 72 per cent of Republican women (but only 49 per cent of Republican men), with 72 per cent favouring a slow reopening.

Since the summer, however, infection rates have risen as stores and restaurants have reopened, small group gatherings have been allowed, schools and colleges have restarted and holiday travel has resumed.

Remarkably, the state's Upper Peninsula, a popular tourist destination, reported its "best season in over 50 years" over the summer, with low to no coronavirus infections and mobility mostly unrestricted.

Today, infection rates are rising much more there and in other rural, predominantly white (and Trump-voting) counties. Detroit, on the other hand, which is 78 per cent African-American and was once the epicentre of infections, now has one of the state's lowest infection rates.

What has this to do with the coming elections? Since Democrats did well in the 2018 midterm elections, Michigan is considered to be "leaning blue" - meaning that Joe Biden is likely to win the presidential vote here. The pandemic has solidified his current 9 percentage point lead, which was similar to Hillary Clinton's lead at about the same time in the run-up to the 2016 elections.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Photo: Getty Images alt=Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Photo: Getty Images

Voters over the age of 65 (who favoured Trump in 2016) are more likely to cast their ballots and comprise a larger share of the voting population in Michigan and two other swing states - Wisconsin and Pennsylvania - than they do nationally.

Biden has a Michigan lead of 15 to nearly 30 percentage points and a national lead of as much as 20 percentage points among the demographic, who know they are the most vulnerable to Covid-19 and disapprove of Trump's handling of it, including his frequent dismissal of the risk it poses to seniors' health and lives.

Michigan also mirrors Biden's national lead of 13 to 23 percentage points among women voters - who care more about health and security than men, and are most likely to be put off by the violent extremism of the militias who targeted Whitmer, other government officials and law enforcement.

They also care more about the issues of police brutality and racial divisions in society, which Biden is seen as more likely to heal.

Biden's national 4 percentage point deficit among white men is less than half of Clinton's in 2016. In Michigan, he should pick up some of the white working-class male vote that Trump won, based on support among union members in the state's flagship auto industry, which the Obama-Biden administration bailed out in the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and for whom personal safety against the virus has been a major issue in returning to work.

Michigan voters are also not particularly vested in the Trump campaign's negative focus on China, on which the state's heavily globalised auto industry is reliant for a good chunk of its sales, profits and manufacturing supply chain.

The previous two-term Republican governor, Rick Snyder, made attracting Chinese investment a priority, establishing a state-funded Michigan-China Innovation Center in Detroit in 2016.

More than 300 Chinese companies have invested over US$4.2 billion in Michigan - the third-largest total of Chinese investment among US states - and employ more than 6,000 workers.

The 84 Chinese-owned "automotive sites" here account for 43 per cent of the national total, and in 2017 Chinese tourist spending in the state was second only to that of neighbouring Canadians. Chinese investment and tourism have both plunged under Trump.

In contrast to 2016, trade and immigration have not been significant in this year's presidential or other down-ballot campaigns. Surveys suggest that the pandemic, followed by racial protests, are voters' main concerns.

In Michigan's surprisingly competitive Senate race, Republican John James, a well-funded African-American business executive, has campaigned on what he says is Democratic incumbent Gary Peters' failure to do enough at the national level to control the pandemic.

This bipartisan acknowledgement that the pandemic is the major election issue is at odds with the president's insistence that it is secondary to opening the economy, and has already been successfully dealt with. As the virus spreads in the predominantly white, rural and more elderly counties in Michigan, and elsewhere in the Midwest, on which he relied for his 2016 victory, this fiction will be increasingly hard to sustain.

Linda Lim is a professor emerita of corporate strategy and international business at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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