Michigan has had a back-and-forth history with parties for a century. From the 1930s to the ’60s, the state alternated parties before voting red from 1972 to 1988. It was then that the Great Lakes State became a part of the “blue wall” from 1992 to 2012. In 2016, Donald Trump had the majority vote by 0.2 percentage points, but President Joe Biden won the state by 2.8 points in 2020, securing 15 electoral votes.
The Washington Examiner is following the key issues people care about as they prepare to vote for the next president of the United States. The specific issues being tracked are Social Security, crime, abortion, the economy, and immigration.
The issues were chosen with the help of the Associated Press issues tracker. The Washington Examiner subsequently compared five of the key issues in Google Trends on a state-by-state basis, revealing which issues are most important to voters in swing-state contests.
Here, you can track the importance of these various concerns to Michigan voters over a rolling 30-day period.
Social Security
Social Security was the No. 1 issue in the Wolverine State. Outside of the general concerns that Social Security will no longer be fully dependable by 2035, Michigan’s issues with the government program seem to hit a little closer to home. The state’s government website even has a page specifically for consumer protection from Social Security scammers.
The webpage is full of warnings against fake calls, stating that over 1 billion Social Security scam calls have been made to Michigan residents in the last year. The state Department of Attorney General created the Michigan Robocall Crackdown Team to fight the calls and protect residents.
Crime
Crime ranked second in importance for Michigan voters, yet, throughout the last four years, data show violent crime is decreasing. Crime peaked in 2020 before dropping throughout 2021 and 2022 with robbery and rape showing consistent downward trends since 2018. In 2024, Detroit’s violent crime rate was 20.5 per 1,000 residents, and the city was ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world.
Property crimes occur at a rate of 45.5 per 1,000 residents, and the likelihood of motor theft is 1 in 22. Violent crime rates were the same in 2018 as they were in 2022 with 452.9 crimes happening per 100,000 residents.
Economy
Voter concerns over the economy came in third, and with Detroit being the heart of the nation’s auto industry, the top four spots on Michigan’s annual revenue belonged to auto industry sales. Automobile manufacturing alone brought in $113.3 billion in 2024, but the top four revenues combined equaled $292.6 billion for the state this year.
After the unemployment rate fell back down from 2020 to 2023, the trend has slightly begun to tick back up, increasing to 4.2% this year which is the same as the national unemployment as of September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The gross domestic product growth rate was 2.9%, amounting to a GDP of $674.8 billion. The growth rate is the fifth-least prosperous economy in the nation, yet Michigan still has the 14th-largest economy in the U.S. and contributes 2.4% to the economy — a rate that has been slowly declining since the pandemic in 2020.
The GDP for manufacturing in Michigan grew by 3.9%, and real estate increased by 1.5%. Educational services dropped 5.8% in the state, and wholesale trade was down 3.2%.
Abortion
Michigan voters are not too worried about abortion, as the issue came in second-to-last. The state was quick to enshrine abortion protections with the Right to Reproductive Freedom Act, which was passed on Nov. 8, 2022, just five months after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. As of June 25, 2024, the Michigan Court of Claims granted an injunction that removed a patient’s 24-hour waiting period, leaving only mandatory parental or guardian written consent.
However, there was a massive spike in search trends that moved the issue to No. 1 on Sept. 11, which may be attributed to its border state. An Indiana judge ruled against Planned Parenthood’s attempt to weaken that state’s near-total abortion ban, keeping the strict ban that prevents abortions beyond 10 weeks, even in cases of rape or incest, in place.
Immigration
Immigration concerns were the last of the five issues compared, which is not surprising as Michigan’s economy greatly benefits from immigration, helping the state meet labor force demands.
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New reports from the American Immigration Council show that immigrants accounted for 57.7% of Michigan’s growth over the last decade. In 2022, immigrants accounted for 18.6% of STEM workers while only being 6.9% of the state’s population. Immigrants also made up 24.3% of mechanical engineers and 28.2% of software developers in Michigan. Immigrant businesses have played a huge role in revenue, too. In 2022, 46,200 immigrant-owned businesses generated $1.4 billion in business income.
In that same year, immigrants paid $5.5 billion in federal taxes and $2.6 billion in state and local taxes and held $23.1 billion in spending power. Of Michigan’s immigrants, 54.7% are naturalized, 122,700 are eligible for naturalization, and 12.9% remain undocumented.
