Ione Wells
Reporting from Michigan
I’m in Macomb County in the key swing state of Michigan where Donald Trump is coming later today for a rally.
It has been an area that voted Democrat in the past, with a lot of unionised “blue collar” workers, but shifted to Donald Trump in 2016.
Interestingly, some wealthier areas in the state have shifted Democrat recently despite historically being Republican.
In a coffee shop here, union members – who are voting Democrat still – say Trump has appealed to their colleagues by pushing socially conservative messages around issues like immigration and transgender rights.
William Greene, a member of the Painters Union, told me: “People aren’t voting for what actually matters to their day to day lives.”
“They’re more mad than anything, mad that the system isn’t working for them. So they want change. But he [Trump] doesn’t care about us.”
“I’m voting for the right to organise, to strengthen unions.”
He praised the Democrats for investing federal funds in infrastructure in the state, but said the Democrats could have done a better job at ‘taking credit’ for that.
Greene met Kamala Harris recently when she visited their union and said: “I have a two-year-old daughter. I want her to have the same rights and advantages that my wife, my mum, my grandma got in their lifetime. I don’t want stuff to be taken away from her, or her to worry about healthcare.”
Belgium
