Now that the primary election is done, many people will be digging into the data of who voted for which candidate to try to understand what that says about our state’s electorate.
WKAR's Sophia Saliby spoke with Dante Chinni, a political journalist and the director of the American Communities Project at Michigan State University, about demographics and voter turnout.
He wrote about what he would be watching for on election night and the counties he would be keeping an eye on.
Interview Highlights
On the impact of young voters
The other big takeaway for me, looking at the results, was we noted before this election at the American Communities Project that El-Sayed's strength with college students was going to be big. And if you look, they don't do exit polls for primaries, so it's hard to do things beyond looking at the county level, but if you look at the county level, there are seven counties that we call "college towns" in the state of Michigan. Six of them went for El-Sayed by double digits. In fact, I think you could really argue, looking at the results, considering how close everything turned out to be, that the college towns, the young vote in the state, proved to be decisive for El-Sayed and probably pushed them over the top.
On why Democrats might encounter difficulties after a close Senate primary
I think if you're a Democrat, this result was probably the worst possible result you could have, in that it is so close. And look, this is a pretty contentious campaign to begin with. Contentious campaigns, it can be hard to get everybody to remember, they're all supposed to be Democrats. They're all supposed to be on the same page, but there were some hard feelings in this campaign, and from both sides, some strong words. And a close race, a race that ends up being this close, sometimes it's harder to get over those those tough feelings. If one side blows the other side out, there tends to be like, well, that was that, but we've got all rally now. When it's this close, you wonder what it means going forward.
On why he cautions about deriving too many conclusions about just one race
I kept telling everybody that yes, there is this very hard-fought Senate race, but on the Democratic side, but on the gubernatorial side, Jocelyn Benson's going to walk, and indeed she did. She walked to victory, and I would say that Jocelyn Benson is not, I would say, a real leftist candidate or an insurgent candidate. She's pretty much establishment, and the fact that she won by the margin she did tells you that maybe what we were seeing in this Senate race was about these two candidates and about this particular race and the idea of trying to draw something bigger about the state of the Democratic Party of Michigan might have been a mistake. I still think it is if you try to do too much of that.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: Now that the primary election is done, many people will be digging into the data of who voted for which candidate to try to understand what that says about our state’s electorate.
Dante Chinni is a political journalist and the director of the American Communities Project at Michigan State University. He joins us now to talk about demographics and voter turnout. Thank you for being here.
Dante Chinni: Well, thank you for having me.
Saliby: What were your maybe one or two big takeaways from election night?
Chinni: Well, I guess the first one for most people is I guess we can't trust polls because the polls show this is going to be a blowout for El-Sayed. It was not. It turned out to be excruciatingly close. The other big takeaway for me, looking at the results, was we noted before this election at the American Communities Project that El-Sayed's strength with college students was going to be big.
And if you look, they don't do exit polls for primaries, so it's hard to do things beyond looking at the county level, but if you look at the county level, there are seven counties that we call "college towns" in the state of Michigan. Six of them went for El-Sayed by double digits.
In fact, I think you could really argue, looking at the results, considering how close everything turned out to be, that the college towns, the young vote in the state, proved to be decisive for El-Sayed and probably pushed them over the top.
Saliby: You were keeping an eye on four main communities last night, and those were Ingham, Kent, Macomb, and Wayne counties. Why were those the places you wanted to watch?
Chinni: Well, I think for different reasons, right? I mean, you always have to watch Wayne because it's the biggest county in the state and home of Detroit. But I think a lot of people think Wayne is just Detroit, and it's not. Dearborn's in Wayne, and Livonia's in Wayne, and Wayne's a pretty complicated county. So, I wanted to see kind of how the vote shook out.
Macomb is interesting because it's kind of blue-collar, Trumpy kind of county, county where Trump does very well when he's on the ballot. Also, we've been to those, reporting in that community in the past, and there are some concerns about Muslim Americans and people worried about things like Sharia law in the county of Macomb.
Ingham was interesting because of first of all, obviously we're based at Michigan State, but it's a big college town and an important college town.
And then Kent, western side of the state, it has become a Democratic county in really the last decade now, really since the arrival of Donald Trump, maybe a little before, and I was kind of curious to see how it shook out. I mean, we talked to people in these different places. The people in Kent told us it was going to go heavily for El-Sayed, and indeed it did. And I think that tells us something about where the electorate is as of August. I mean, the question is, what does all this mean going forward into the fall now?
Saliby: So, what does it all mean?
Chinni: So, I'll just say I think if you're a Democrat, this result was probably the worst possible result you could have, in that it is so close. And look, this is a pretty contentious campaign to begin with. Contentious campaigns, it can be hard to get everybody to remember, they're all supposed to be Democrats. They're all supposed to be on the same page, but there were some hard feelings in this campaign, and from both sides, some strong words.
And a close race, a race that ends up being this close, sometimes it's harder to get over those those tough feelings. If one side blows the other side out, there tends to be like, well, that was that, but we've got all rally now. When it's this close, you wonder what it means going forward. El-Sayed's going to win. Obviously, he's won.
The question is, can they kind of patch the party back together? Can Haley Stevens bring her people on board and kind of say we got to put this behind us and move forward? Well, we'll find out. And if she does that, will her voters follow? We'll see.
Saliby: Ahead of the primary, you cautioned about pulling any one narrative from election results because there are so many factors at play that we can't necessarily pin down. Now that the primary is over, do you feel the same?
Chinni: Yeah, I mean the one thing I said going into this was there was all this talk. I mean, this became a national election; like there were national reporters here all over. It was the subject of the New York Times podcast, The Daily, on Tuesday morning. So, it was a big deal, and everybody was saying, "What's it mean? What's it mean?"
You know, I kept telling everybody that yes, there is this very hard-fought Senate race, but on the Democratic side, but on the gubernatorial side, Jocelyn Benson's going to walk, and indeed she did. She walked to victory, and I would say that Jocelyn Benson is not, I would say, a real leftist candidate or an insurgent candidate.
She's pretty much establishment, and the fact that she won by the margin she did tells you that maybe what we were seeing in this Senate race was about these two candidates and about this particular race and the idea of trying to draw something bigger about the state of the Democratic Party of Michigan might have been a mistake. I still think it is if you try to do too much of that.
Saliby: Well, maybe we'll get some of those answers in November, or maybe get a little bit closer to understanding Michigan's voters. Dante Chinni is a political journalist and the director of the American Communities Project at MSU. Thank you for joining us.
Chinni: Thank you for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
