Michigan voters helped swing the Electoral College to Donald Trump in 2016 and then to Joe Biden in 2020. The votes were close in each election, with the winner decided by 0.2 percent in 2016 and 2.8 percent in 2020.
The state’s major cities, including Detroit, Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Grand Rapids, are Democratic strongholds, while the smaller cities and rural areas tend to vote Republican in national elections.
From the shores of the Port of Detroit to the sandy beaches of Grand Haven, The Epoch Times traveled Michigan from coast to coast to find out how this year’s political messaging is landing with voters.
One common theme among these all-important voters was a jadedness with national politics. Many in the battleground state said they discard mailers and tune out video ads but would like to hear more candid talk from the candidates.
Javon Shivers, 28, of Saginaw, Michigan, said he had received mail from the Harris–Walz campaign but did not pay much attention to it.
“I’m really not into politics,” he said. “I’m my own president. That’s how I look at it.”
The clothing entrepreneur said he sees a disconnect between politics and the lives of ordinary people.
“It really doesn’t change anything for me,” he said. “You still have to live your day-to-day life outside of what they’re doing.”
Green said he'd like to hear candidates talk more about illegal immigration and its effect on working people.
“They’re giving all this money to immigrants, like food stamps. The average American wants to see money in their paycheck.”
Several expressed frustration or apathy toward the flood of ads in the state.
“Yeah, I’ve seen some ads,” Germaine Green, 51, of Grand Rapids, said. “I’m probably not going to vote for either one of them.”
Sam Bayle, 33, of Grand Rapids, was also unimpressed by the ads.
“I’m sick of seeing all of them, to be completely honest,” he said.
Larena Singleton, 50, of Detroit, said she has received mail from both the Harris and Trump campaigns.
“We’re being bombarded with it,” she said. “At least five days a week, we get mail from both.”
Singleton said she dislikes the tone she hears from both campaigns.
“I don’t like the bickering back and forth,” she said. “Debating is one thing, but then when you’re trying to … throw dirt on each other, that’s something different.
“Both campaigns should be talking more about helping the homeless and about education.”
Jeff Gardner, a resident of Grand Blanc in his 50s, has received mail from both parties.
“I think their messages are all on track,” he said of the Republican campaigns. After a pause, he added, “The others, I don’t.”
The issue that gets too little attention, in his view, is the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Democratic candidates and the news media “ought to be saying what a problem it is that President Trump was nearly assassinated,” he said. “They ought to be exposing it ... and never allowing anything to ever happen to any former president.”
—Lawrence Wilson and Joseph Lord
U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell speaks during a news conference at the South Korean Presidential Office in Seoul on July 18, 2023. Kim Hong-ji/ Pool/AFP via Getty Images
CHINA'S EXPANDING DRUG NETWORK
China’s expanding networks of illicit drug trafficking are creating headaches for lawmakers in Washington as they seek to balance cooperation with the communist regime with combatting fentanyl and other drugs that originate in the nation.
This challenge was put on full display in August.
That month, President Joe Biden signed a proclamation in August commemorating Overdose Awareness Week, a solemn moment for a nation that has witnessed more than half a million deaths from drug overdose in the last decade.
The president hailed his administration’s “re-launch of counternarcotics cooperation” with communist China as a vital tool in combating the flow of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into the United States.
It was partly this cooperation on counternarcotics that brought White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to China.
“We’re going to look for further progress on counternarcotics and reducing the flow of illicit synthetic drugs into the United States,” Sullivan said on Aug. 29 following a three-day meeting with top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials on efforts to collaborate on countering synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Meanwhile, another senior administration official was delivering a different message 5,000 miles to the southeast.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell was in the island nation of Vanuatu, promising locals that the United States would crack down on the growing networks of Chinese drug traffickers.
Those networks, he said, were positioning themselves to increase the flow of fentanyl into the United States and elsewhere by expanding new shipping lanes throughout the Indo-Pacific.
Campbell reassured those present that the United States would work with foreign nations to rein in drug trafficking by criminal networks from China.
But his admission of a growing Chinese drug trade raises questions as to the efficacy of the Biden administration’s counternarcotics engagements with China.
It is between these two priorities, managing diplomatic relations with China’s authoritarian regime and putting an end to the United States’s opioid crisis, that U.S. government officials now frequently find themselves.
The administration has had some wins on drug policy in China, including convincing the CCP to schedule several precursor chemicals—including those used in fentanyl’s creation.
What remains unclear is whether these legalistic successes will result in any decrease in the amount of Chinese drugs that are currently flooding the United States and other nations.
The State Department spokesperson said that China-based companies remained “the largest source of precursor chemicals used to manufacture illicit fentanyl that affects the United States,” indicating that continued dissonance over the issue seems likely to continue into the near future.
—Andrew Thornbrooke and Joseph Lord
BOOKMARKS
The first ballots of the 2024 election will officially go out this week, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported. Voters in the Trump-leaning battleground state of North Carolina will be the first in the nation to receive their ballots later this week. All early ballots must be available at least 45 days before the election, which falls on Sept. 21 this year.
Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to leave the race and back Trump shook up the race with just weeks remaining until Election Day. An article by The New York Times explores how that alliance, which seemed unlikely as recently as June, came about.
Trump will vote against a Florida ballot measure that would declare abortion a right in the state, The Epoch Times’ Caden Pearson reported. Trump has been critical of the state’s current six-week ban but said that the proposed amendment goes too far by clearing the way for abortions as late as nine months.
Mongolia could face prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) should it fail to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin, Politico reported. As a member state of the ICC, Mongolia is supposed to execute ICC warrants, including a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crime charges. Mongolia has given no indication it plans to enforce the warrant.
