Will Biden or Trump win Michigan? Swing state prepares for close election

July 8, 2024

I sat down with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to talk about the presidential election, democracy, and Donald Trump.

On July 4th we celebrated America’s 248th birthday and many of us also thought about what the future holds for our great country.

I know I have that.

The stakes are particularly high this election year – and there is a particularly high level of tension as President Joe Biden’s health is visibly deteriorating and his opponent, former President Donald Trump, is now a convicted felon.

Michigan, where I live, will again play a crucial role in this election as it is a swing state that could well influence the outcome in November. Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton here in 2016, and Biden won the state by a more significant margin of over 154,000 votes in 2020.

However, this did not stop Trump and other Republicans from doubting the result and challenging it in every way possible.

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Democrat and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was the state’s top election official in 2020 and will oversee this election as well.

I met with her a few weeks ago during the Detroit Regional Chamber’s annual policy conference on Mackinac Island to talk about the presidential election and democracy, as well as Trump.

My following interview with Benson has been edited for clarity and length.

We are facing a very important election. Is Michigan ready?

We know that the path of the presidency runs right through our state, and I think citizens on both sides are very aware of that. And so we’re seeing a lot of attention, a lot of visits to our state, which will continue to increase because we also have a contentious Senate race. So we’re aware of that, and our citizens are being inundated with it.

In my world, I’m focused on the fact that we have nine days of early voting for the first time, and that’s an opportunity for us to make sure everyone knows.

What about postal voting? Do you think voters are becoming more accustomed to it?

It seems to be less of a point of attack than in 2020. Here, too, the familiarity and trust in it is greater than before.

We have also implemented a statewide mail-in ballot tracking system on our website, which we hope will give citizens more confidence than before.

What are your biggest concerns ahead of this election? You have already had a contentious presidential election. What concerns you most?

I think two things.

First, how do we cut through the noise and protect people’s trust in the process? You’ve seen a lot of statistics from both sides of the aisle, but because of that noise over the last few years, people are continually losing faith in our democracy. And for me, a cornerstone of my job is to make sure that no matter who people vote for or where they live, they can at least have faith in the process. Even if they’re not happy with the results, they can believe in the process and trust that it’s safe. So one of our top priorities this year is to restore and ensure voter trust in our process. But also to protect voters from attempts to deceive them with misinformation.

The Detroit Regional Chamber just commissioned a poll of voters in Michigan. It shows that a surprising number of people are losing faith in our democracy. And what really stood out to me was that 5% said violence or threats would be justified if their presidential candidate loses the 2024 election “after all the votes are fairly counted.” You’re getting to the heart of the matter. How do you deal with people going into this election not planning to accept what happens?

For me, democracy means accepting outcomes and allowing a non-violent transfer of power. The idea that some citizens are simply turning away from that is really disturbing because it is the result of years of attempts by politicians to sow doubts about these institutions in order to, you might say, undermine people’s trust in them. This shows that this is working, at least with this small part of our population.

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I worry that no matter who wins, there will be tremendous resistance.

It’s going to be up to our elected officials on both sides of the aisle and our leaders of other institutions like business leaders, educational leaders, and others with influence and a platform to remind us who we are meant to be as Americans, right? And to realize that if we allow division to bring us down, we all fall.

And we’ve lost a lot of those voices. I think we need to make more room for that so we can reclaim the beauty of what our democracy is supposed to be: a bipartisan collaboration where disagreement is OK. And even a little bit of chaos is OK, but we have some guardrails that we all respect and rules that we play by.

It’s just disturbing when people lose faith in something as basic as voting.

And this effect is spreading. We are losing faith in our justice system. We are losing faith in Congress. We are losing faith in elected politicians who can solve problems. It is all connected, and we as politicians must take responsibility to contain this snowball effect if we are to survive as a superpower with a thriving economy and everything that defines us as Americans.

I think that anyone who spreads lies that lead to threats against election officials and our system and causes people to falsely lose faith in a process they are supposed to believe in is a threat to the basic foundations of who we are supposed to be as Americans.

However, I also believe that the discussion about who should lead our country in the future needs to be more comprehensive.

I really appreciated your article for the Washington Post last fall about how secretaries of state shouldn’t decide whether Trump should be on the ballot. Was there much pushback from other secretaries of state, like those in Colorado and Maine?

Yes, I did. But I pushed them back.

I was really disappointed in my colleagues who, in my view, failed to abide by the law and our responsibilities as the states’ top election officials and basically fell for the bait in a way that was really detrimental to the bigger picture of restoring and ensuring people’s faith in our democracy.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.