2018 Michigan Election Results: What do They Mean for Detroit?

[Lowell]

Michigan saw a blue wave that flipped the Governorship, Attorney General and Secretary of State offices from Republican to Democrat. Meanwhile the Dems retained the federal Senate seat. Additionally two federal congressional seats have flipped blue. Remarkable too is that all the winners were women.

Huge changes impend as well from the passage all three referendums.
1-Recreational Marijuana decriminalized
2-Anti-gerrymandering reform established
3-Ease of voter registration and voting reform passed

I’m interested to hear your take on what this will mean for our metropolitan family of communities and the City of Detroit in particular.

While Lansing and the City of Detroit got along fairly well in spite of a Republican-Democrat divide will that relationship become tighter and more beneficial to Detroit?

[Lowell]

I should add that Republicans, while losing seats, retained solid control of both houses of the Michigan Legislature and seem likely to keep the Supreme Court.

This portends gridlock and could inflame Metro Detroit vs outstate animosities.

[Canadian Visitor]

Michigan saw a blue wave that flipped the Governorship, Attorney General and Secretary of State offices from Republican to Democrat. Meanwhile the Dems retained the federal Senate seat. Additionally two federal congressional seats have flipped blue. Remarkable too is that all the winners were women.

Huge changes impend as well from the passage all three referendums.
1-Recreational Marijuana decriminalized
2-Anti-gerrymandering reform established
3-Ease of voter registration and voting reform passed

I’m interested to hear your take on what this will mean for our metropolitan family of communities and the City of Detroit in particular.

While Lansing and the City of Detroit got along fairly well in spite of a Republican-Democrat divide will that relationship become tighter and more beneficial to Detroit?

I think its difficult to say with any degree of certainty what last night will bring about.

Prop 2 and 3 should likely have the effect of reducing gerrymandering favourable to Republicans, which in turn may shift future electoral results.

But that isn't really knowable, and will certainly be influenced by other political events yet to occur.

****

I think the action or inaction of the lameduck session of the Mich. legislature needs to be closely watched.

Will there be an attempt to rollback or waterdown the minimum wage and sick day proposals passed just a few months ago.

If the answer is yes, then it may be very hard to re-pass these in the incoming legislature.

However, if these are not altered, it will likely be impossible for Republicans to water them down later with a Dem as governor.

I am hopeful for Michiganders that those improved labour standards survive.

****

I'm intrigued by the overall results of ballot initiatives across the country, not just in Michigan.

Other states also passed anti-gerrymander laws.

2 States [[Miss. and Ark) voted for significant minimum wage increases.

Medical marijuana will be legalized in several more states.

Cal. passed a multi-billion dollar plan to house the homeless.

3 States passed Medicaid expansion.

2 more elected Governors likely to pursue same.

All of these portend to me, that in Blue-leaning states in particular, there is a shift further to the left, at least for now.

Cali will be one to watch for interesting developments with what appears to be a Dem super majority in both state houses and a Dem Governor who ran on single-payer.

I actually don't think he'll be able to get that through, but I imagine something will pass that moves the State in that general direction.

[drjeff]

The fact that Michigan went for democrats across the board and yet still have no traction in the state legislature just goes to show how powerful gerrymandering is.

[Hypestyles]

... when will vacant jobs be announced in the Whitmer administration?

[Dexlin]

I think you guys are overstating the GOP control in the legislature. Dems gained more seats in the state Senate [[+5) than they've won since the 70's. And despite being conservative, there were quite a few GOP senators who defected on some major issues over the last 8 years [[RTW among others). The Senate GOP can only afford 3 defections on major bills, and only four in the state house. It is not at all unlikely that that happens on some major legislation. They do not have the overwheliming majorities they once had, and will be under tremendous pressure given that the Dems swept every statewide office save for a Supreme Court seat.

And speaking of the Supreme Court, it's completely possible when rogue-justice Beth Clement winning re-election and who has been trending more liberal in her rulings that the Dems make a deal to make her Chief Justice. In that case, it's completely possible we get a much, much more moderate Supreme Court now that Beth Clement - who the GOP essentially turned on and left for dead, and who was elected with a not-insigificant amont of Dem votes [[personally know a lot of Dems who split their ticket for her) - is no longer who beholden to the party.

I think some of you are underestimating what happened last night. The GOP has two more years, that's it. And then the gerrymandering is undone for the elections after 2020 and we get automatic voter registration, no-reason absentee, etc...which will make the electorate even more Democratic.

[Meddle]

Speaking of changes, what I'd really like to see [[I think) is non-partisan Electors. They should be elected by the people, not party insiders. That would more likely guarantee that the Electoral College votes the will of the voters instead of the parties.

Of course, then we have to make sure the Primaries can't be manipulated so that they reflect the will of the Party instead of the voters.

[Johnnny5]

The fact that Michigan went for democrats across the board and yet still have no traction in the state legislature just goes to show how powerful gerrymandering is.

The fact that Democrats have spent the last few decades self-segregating themselves is responsible for much of their disproportionate lack of representation in Lansing. Outside of urban areas and some inner suburbs this state is almost entirely red, and it's nearly impossible to draw up a normal looking congressional map to fairly account for this. That said, I guess we'll soon find out what a "non-gerrymandered"[[As if such a thing exists) map actually looks like.

[aj3647]

The fact that Democrats have spent the last few decades self-segregating themselves is responsible for much of their disproportionate lack of representation in Lansing. Outside of urban areas and some inner suburbs this state is almost entirely red, and it's nearly impossible to draw up a normal looking congressional map to fairly account for this. That said, I guess we'll soon find out what a "non-gerrymandered"[[As if such a thing exists) map actually looks like.

Land doesn't vote. People do. One person, one vote. It shouldn't matter where they live. The state looks "almost entirely red" on a map specifically because of Republican gerrymandering. But even then, you'll still see lots of red on the map because there are massive swathes of this state where very few people live. An electoral map can look deceiving, they just show land, not population or population density.

It's easy enough to spot a gerrymandered vs non-gerrymandered map. A non-gerrymandered, fairly drawn map will see the proportion of Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature closely approximate the percentage of votes that those two parties received statewide. There you go. It's literally that simple.

If 55% of Michiganders go to the polls and vote for Democrats for the legislature, and only 45% of elected legislators are Democrat, then your map is intentionally drawn in a way to dilute the Democratic vote in favor of the Republican vote.

[Bham1982]

Outside of urban areas and some inner suburbs this state is almost entirely red,

LOL. You mean outside of where people actually live, the state is almost entirely red?

Nearly 80% of the state's population lives in metropolitan areas. Michigan is a blue-leaning state because metro areas are blue-leaning. Yes, rural areas are like 90% red but they have small, declining populations.

[Johnnny5]

Laugh if you want, but the problem is someone actually has to create a congressional map to account for this [[Not just say what one should do). The fact that Democrats are moving into denser areas that they already control makes this an increasingly difficult problem. It may continue to cost them in congressional races, same as it did in the 2016 election.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

All I can say is women ruled the day in these midterms. They've made significant inroads.

[Worldsgreatest]

Everyone is relieved by Gretchen winning but would Schuette have been so bad? I'm mostly indifferent but the Republicans did have their turn.

[BankruptcyGuy]

Speaking of changes, what I'd really like to see [[I think) is non-partisan Electors. They should be elected by the people, not party insiders. That would more likely guarantee that the Electoral College votes the will of the voters instead of the parties.

Of course, then we have to make sure the Primaries can't be manipulated so that they reflect the will of the Party instead of the voters.

In Michigan, electors are first-vote-bound. Whether their identity is partisan or non-partisan wouldn't matter, legally, unless there was a 2nd vote at convention. The last time was Reagan-Ford 76?

[BankruptcyGuy]

Land doesn't vote. People do. One person, one vote. It shouldn't matter where they live. The state looks "almost entirely red" on a map specifically because of Republican gerrymandering. But even then, you'll still see lots of red on the map because there are massive swathes of this state where very few people live. An electoral map can look deceiving, they just show land, not population or population density.

It's easy enough to spot a gerrymandered vs non-gerrymandered map. A non-gerrymandered, fairly drawn map will see the proportion of Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature closely approximate the percentage of votes that those two parties received statewide. There you go. It's literally that simple.

If 55% of Michiganders go to the polls and vote for Democrats for the legislature, and only 45% of elected legislators are Democrat, then your map is intentionally drawn in a way to dilute the Democratic vote in favor of the Republican vote.

Well, actually, the task is somewhat more complicated. Under Michigan law [[pre-Prop 2) "communities of interest" were an important criteria. They continue as such under Prop 2.

The text is:

"Proposal 2 required commissioners to prioritize the following criteria, in the order as listed, for proposing and adopting redistricting plans:[1]
[[a) districts shall be of equal population and comply with federal laws;
[[b) districts shall be geographically contiguous;
[[c) districts shall reflect the state's demographic population and communities of similar historical, cultural, or economic interests;
[[d) districts shall not provide an advantage to any political party;
[[e) districts shall not favor or disfavor an incumbent official;
[[f) districts shall reflect consideration for county, township, and municipal boundaries; and
[[g) districts shall be reasonably compact."

So, if Detroit is a reasonably compact group of people with similar historical, cultural and economic interests, wouldn't the map makers be REQUIRED to jam them into one district?

When you look at the problem mathematically, there are a whole range of possible outcomes. Let's take the example that the state is 55% D and 45% R, because the math is easy. Let's say, to keep the math easy, there are 20 districts. That would mean that people would expect 11 D and 9 R districts. That is not, however, at all likely, and it becomes more likely as the districts are packed. If there are 20 districts that are all 100% their party members [[close to today's map 10 years ago), then the chances of 11-9 would be 100%. Those would be what I would call perfectly noncompetitive districts. If each district were divided with 55% Ds and 45% Rs, then the districts would be perfectly competitive, but the most likely outcome would be 20 Ds and no Rs. So the concept really isn't simple at all. Do you value competitive districts [["hey, you won't get the far-right and far-left people!') or a result that matches the demographics? The latter requires packing, and you get what you have today.

[O3H]

Plan on more pain - because little will change anytime soon.
Infrastructure will continue to deteriorate from bridges, to roads, to sewers.
Gerrymandering chaos is still in full effect, whacko representation.
SNAFU, FUBAR, SUSFU and TARFU reign supreme for quite a while.

[archfan]

The fact that Democrats have spent the last few decades self-segregating themselves is responsible for much of their disproportionate lack of representation in Lansing. Outside of urban areas and some inner suburbs this state is almost entirely red, and it's nearly impossible to draw up a normal looking congressional map to fairly account for this. That said, I guess we'll soon find out what a "non-gerrymandered"[[As if such a thing exists) map actually looks like.

Well, here's what one gerrymandered map looks like - Michigan's 13th district. So, for non-gerrymandered, make it look nothing like this.

[Johnnny5]

Well, here's what one gerrymandered map looks like - Michigan's 13th district. So, for non-gerrymandered, make it look nothing like this.

The blame for the ridiculousness of the boundary lines surrounding District 13 & 14 lies in Washington, not in Lansing [[And it definitely is not set that way for the benefit of Republicans). Unfortunately, crazy map boundaries such as this are likely to become more common with the new commission based system, not less.

[Meddle]

I need to be on those commissions.

As I explained my plan before, based solely on population [[which should meet all of the requirements posted above):

Outstate, one or more entire counties would be a district. The whole UP for example. There's a line across the state lined up with the bottom of Roscommon County. Maybe everything in the LP north of there. Maybe a split along I-75 if needed.

Urban areas, maybe a single county like Oakland would be one district. Macomb and St. Clair could be another. Monroe and Jackson, another. Then Washtenaw and Eaton.

Wayne would be split into 2, 3 or 4 as needed. East of Woodward to the river. West of Woodward to Telegraph and down to the river. Then west of Telegraph to the county line. Maybe a 4th break downriver somewhere if the population count worked out, perhaps south of I-94 and the Rouge River.

Yes, that would put the GPs in with the east half of Detroit, but so what?

[Towne Cluber]

I need to be on those commissions.

As I explained my plan before, based solely on population [[which should meet all of the requirements posted above):

Outstate, one or more entire counties would be a district. The whole UP for example. There's a line across the state lined up with the bottom of Roscommon County. Maybe everything in the LP north of there. Maybe a split along I-75 if needed.

Urban areas, maybe a single county like Oakland would be one district. Macomb and St. Clair could be another. Monroe and Jackson, another. Then Washtenaw and Eaton.

Wayne would be split into 2, 3 or 4 as needed. East of Woodward to the river. West of Woodward to Telegraph and down to the river. Then west of Telegraph to the county line. Maybe a 4th break downriver somewhere if the population count worked out, perhaps south of I-94 and the Rouge River.

Yes, that would put the GPs in with the east half of Detroit, but so what?

Yikes! You might want to look up population numbers and a map before you take your commission seat!

[Meddle]

^^ Which I don't have available, so those are just examples of grouping areas instead of using squiggly lines to target certain voters.

[aj3647]

So, if Detroit is a reasonably compact group of people with similar historical, cultural and economic interests, wouldn't the map makers be REQUIRED to jam them into one district?

In short: No. For many reasons.

Explain to me how the historical, cultural, and economic interests of Detroit residents magically stop at the borders of Detroit. Does Detroit not share numerous historical and economic interests with many of the inner-ring suburbs, for example, many of which have diverse populations and have struggled economically in the exact same ways Detroit has? For example, what makes Ecorse or River Rouge so vastly different from Detroit?

Secondly, there's this:

[[d) districts shall not provide an advantage to any political party;

One could argue that packing nearly all of Detroit into one Congressional district would do exactly that. It would be like 95% Democratic. Right now the most partisan district in Michigan is MI-13 [[Rashida Tlaib's district). It has a Cook PVI of D+33, meaning that on average you can expect a Democrat to outperform a Republican in this district by a whopping 33 points. It was intentionally drawn that way during re-districting to pack as many Democrats as possible into one district, thus making other surrounding districts more favorable to the GOP. An all-Detroit district would put MI-13 to shame. It'd be something like D+60, it would be hands-down by far the most extremely skewed partisan district in the entire nation. No Republican could ever be competitive there.

Plus there's the optics of cramming most of the state's black people into one district. There's a reason why the MI GOP hasn't just lumped most of Detroit into one district to get rid of all the Democrats, and that's it.

But honestly look at the way MI-14 or MI-11 are drawn and tell me that makes sense.

[Lowell]

Now for some pure speculation...

My first take for SE Michigan would envision districts radiating out from downtown ala the Woodward Plan, something like the map below. I think this is decently 'communal' and generally represents how residents of those areas interact in terms of city / suburb work, shopping and entertainment patterns.

The 14th would become a Woodward-centric [Dreamcruise?] district, the 9th would become a Gratiot-centric [Gratiot Cruise?] district going NE into Macomb until it fills is population, and the 13th Grand River-centric. The Downriver 12th "Dingell" district is a decently natural district and would remain largely the same. The 11th would wrap the northern eastside, the 8th northern westside.

There is a good chance that this we be negotiated using Maptitude, the leading redistricting software. This allows for sophisticated layering of data like income and demographics along with voting dispositions.

The political outlook of every household can now be detected with a very high degree of accuracy. This is available from data aggregators. "They" know who you are and who I am.

...and that and a couple of bucks will buy you a cup of coffee.

[aj3647]

The blame for the ridiculousness of the boundary lines surrounding District 13 & 14 lies in Washington, not in Lansing [[And it definitely is not set that way for the benefit of Republicans). Unfortunately, crazy map boundaries such as this are likely to become more common with the new commission based system, not less.

I would love to hear how Washington is responsible for those districts looking that way and not Lansing. Specifically.

Also, how is it NOT to the benefit of Republicans to pack Democrats into two districts [[MI-13 and MI-14) that are D+30 and D+31 respectively? That's exactly how Republicans were able to maintain edges in MI-8 and MI-11 [[both R+4 districts) until two days ago.

[Meddle]

Now for some pure speculation...

My first take for SE Michigan would envision districts radiating out from downtown ...

Disagree..