Election anxiety: Voters are no better off now than they were in 2020

But Detroit poll workers, most of them black, had finished counting the ballots. In the end, 95% of voters in Detroit, Michigan's largest city and the city with the most African Americans – 78% of residents – voted for Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate.

We are professors of political science and sociology at Wayne State University in Detroit, where we teach about the relationship between race, religion, and politics. Our research has identified two groups of African-American voters in Detroit — one that will clearly support Kamala Harris and another that will be critical to her if she wants to win Michigan.

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Feast in Kamala's camp

The African Americans most likely to vote for Harris in November 2024 are strong Democratic supporters who feel Trump is threatening Black political progress toward democracy.

Harris can also rely on members of Detroit nonprofits like the NAACP, black Greek organizations and religious congregations affiliated with advocacy groups like MOSES, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and the Fannie Lou Hamer Political Action Committee.

But what about Detroit's working class and poor black residents, who tend to be less aligned with the Democratic Party and less involved in grassroots organizations that advocate for them? These are the people who vote inconsistently in presidential elections, but recent history has shown that they could be the key to victory in Michigan, a crucial swing state.

Small swings in voter turnout matter

While Detroit voters helped Biden win the state and the White House in 2020, the same was not the case for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The difference was partly due to lower voter turnout.

In 2016, 95% of Detroiters who voted in the presidential election chose Democratic candidate Clinton. Still, she lost Michigan by 0.2% – less than 11,000 votes.

One factor contributing to the different presidential election results in Michigan between 2016 and 2020 was lower voter turnout in Detroit in 2016 compared to 2020.

In 2016, voter turnout in Detroit was 48.6% – compared to 50.88% in 2020. The higher turnout in Detroit in 2020 helped Biden carry Michigan by a margin of less than 3% in 2020 won.

Let's assume that 2016 and 2020 are indicators of 2024. In this case, Harris' ability to win Michigan in November is less about losing black voters to Trump and more about her ability to motivate black voters in Detroit and across the state to turn out in the polls. This is critical because African Americans, who make up about 13% of the U.S. electorate, overwhelmingly vote Democratic when elected.

In many ways, 2020 served as a referendum on Trump's handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, which had an outsized impact on Black Americans, who were nearly twice as likely to die from the virus as white Americans.

This election also served as a referendum on Trump's racial policies. In the summer of 2020, as the country was embroiled in protests against police violence against Black people, Trump called the protesters anti-American and criminal.

It makes sense, then, that in 2020, the vast majority — over 90% — of African Americans across the country said concerns about racism and COVID-19 motivated their vote.

Looking ahead to the 2024 election, the question at the forefront is: Will Black voter turnout in Detroit be closer to 2016 or 2020?

Quality of life issues are of central importance in 2024

According to the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study, as of early 2024, quality of life concerns related to crime, vacant buildings, and affordable housing were the top three issues Detroit residents wanted their city and the U.S. government to address.

Similarly, a Suffolk University and USA Today poll in August 2024 found that about 6 in 10 black voters in Michigan cited the rising cost of living, crime and health care as motivating them to vote.

The same issues concern black voters across the country. A February 2024 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that over 90% of Black Americans believe presidential candidates should discuss the rising cost of living and health care, and three-quarters believe they should discuss protecting Affordable Care Act should speak.

The 2024 election is a crucial moment for addressing these issues.

Detroit's ongoing water problems

When it comes to working class and low-income people in Detroit, the cost of water is a key cost of living issue.

As Detroit's city government tried to repair its finances after bankruptcy in 2013, it began cracking down more aggressively on residents who were behind on their water bills. Between 2013 and 2020, the city shut off water to more than 141,000 residents.

In 2023, 27% of Detroit households – about 170,000 people – are at risk of having their water turned off due to unpaid water bills. The 60,000 people behind on unpaid water bills owe an average of $700.

In response to this crisis, local grassroots organizations, including many faith-based organizations such as the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, organized community members to push for legislation that would tie water bill rates to residents' income.

In October 2023, Michigan Democratic State Senator Stephanie Chang introduced a series of bills to do just that, but the bills fell by the wayside in the Senate Housing and Human Services Committee.

A metro Detroit poll we conducted in April 2024 found that 87% of Black Detroiters support these water affordability bills.

Harris' ability to achieve similar black turnout in Michigan as in 2020, particularly in Detroit, may depend on her ability to articulate the federal government's plans to address cost of living concerns. That includes securing federal grants for cities like Detroit to subsidize water rates for working-class and low-income residents.

While Harris did not specifically address the issue of water affordability during her Labor Day visit to Detroit, she told the audience that, unlike Trump, she would not impose a national sales tax on everyday items. She also promised to keep prescription drug prices affordable and strengthen the Affordable Care Act.

Will Harris' message that Detroiters' cost of living will go down under a Trump administration be enough to motivate black Detroiters to vote for her?

This is a crucial question for her 2024 campaign in Michigan, where she and Trump are statistically tied among likely voters.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.