The State of Michigan may be going a little crazy lately.
Today, Ryan Kelly, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state, was arrested at his home by FBI agents for his alleged role in the January 6 Capitol riot. He is believed to have climbed atop scaffolding near one of the Capitol entrances and summoned crowds to charge in. Earlier this week, Capitol Police arrested a man from Flint who allegedly brought a BB gun to the building and claimed to be part of the “Department of the INTERPOL,” for which he carried a fake badge.
There have been other controversies surrounding the state’s politics lately as well, though of a different — and less-worrying — character. A few weeks ago, for example, former Detroit police chief James Craig, the presumptive Republican nominee for governor, was disqualified from running because of a massive number of fraudulent signatures on his ballot petition. At this rate, could Michigan take the place of Florida as the state with the kookiest reputation? Instead of headlines like, “Florida man wrestles alligator,” will we soon see, “Michigan man catches red-breasted robin with bare hands”?
Maybe that’s an exaggeration. But there is still a great deal of tumult in and around the state’s politics. We can attribute this, to a considerable extent, to three elections: the 2016 and 2020 presidential and the 2018 gubernatorial. Michigan is serving as a microcosm of the political events in the country, unexpectedly electing Republicans, turning back to Democratic governance and experiencing the excesses of left-wing policies, and then perhaps turning back to Republicans.
Former president Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was a surprise to most people who followed the election. Part of the surprise was his winning Michigan, becoming the first Republican to do so since George H. W. Bush in 1988. This victory was a shock, but it did not seem to represent an irreversible political realignment. After all, two years later, Gretchen Whitmer defeated the state’s Republican attorney general, Bill Schuette, in the race for governor.
But Whitmer’s victory, though decisive, was not an ironclad affirmation of her politics, either. Although she beat Schuette by ten points, Republicans retained control of the state’s house and senate. Although the GOP lost some seats, its majorities were not critically weakened. The election appeared to be more a rejection of Schuette than an embrace of Whitmer. In much the same way, two years later, voters rejected Trump, but did not embrace Joe Biden, given Biden’s victory and the simultaneous severe losses the Democrats endured in the House.
Michigan voters may have assumed that divided government would result in something of a stalemate. It might force the two parties to create a bipartisan plan to “Fix the Damn Roads,” as Whitmer said in her 2018 campaign slogan. Instead, they received tyrannical and ill-advised Covid-19 policies that locked them in their homes for months on end and killed the state’s economy, all of which Whitmer instituted by executive fiat. Now, the country sees, after electing Joe Biden, record-high gas prices and inflation.
There is one major difference between the responses to the failed policies in Michigan and those in the country at large, however. At the height of the pandemic, Whitmer’s approval rating soared to the high 50s. 2021 saw her approval dip a little, but it seldom went below 47 percent. Biden’s, on the other hand, seems to be hitting new lows every week.
Still, Michigan’s electoral history mimics the country’s pretty well. What Michigan sees in one election the country may see in another two years later. For this reason, the 2022 governor’s race should be one to watch closely. It could predict the outcome of the presidential election in 2024. That may be one reason why Michiganders seem so unsettled now. Being a bellwether state is difficult; our political turmoil could just reflect the country’s.
Predicting elections and looking like a state of weirdos: That’s Pure Michigan.