P&J reporter Lindsay Razaq, in Detroit, Michigan
Michigan is traditionally a blue state. It hadn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988.
But on Tuesday, its voters backed Donald Trump.
The billionaire businessman won the Great Lakes state with 47.59% of the vote, compared to Hillary Clinton’s 47.34%.
Urban Detroit came through for the Democrat candidate, but the rural areas overwhelmingly supported the Republican nominee.
Why did he get their vote, given the state’s voting history? What’s behind the change?
On the streets of Detroit, many people are concerned about the racism they say Mr Trump’s campaign has unleashed.
This was also the main theme at the protests in the city the day after the election.
But Kevin Hardy, deputy news editor of the Detroit News, insists that is not the whole picture.
He says that for a lot of Trump supporters, it was not about wanting to “reset the clock on social progress”.
Instead, it came down to three key things – farming regulations, jobs and mining and energy.
“It’s not necessarily about that for a lot of people. A lot of people don’t get socially involved from middle America,” he says.
“The only time folks here deal with the government is when it comes to farming regulations.
“They basically feel like the Democratic party is too aggressive regulating their industry and they become frustrated.
“The other big issue especially for Michigan and the rustbelt is manufacturing.
“It has changed tremendously in the last 15 years. A lot of the jobs went to China. A lot of the factories closed here, automotive jobs went to Mexico.
“This is where you get that feeling of ‘we are losing our jobs’, that they are being outsourced and you want a candidate that comes in and says we will fight.”
He said manufacturing peaked in 2001, but then crashed until 2009.
“We are seeing some jobs coming back but not to where they were in early 2000,” he adds.
Of the three, he suggests mining hurt Mrs Clinton the most in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Mr Trump also managed to flip.
“You have got people here that want to mine coal still, they want coal to be a dominant energy source in America,” he says.
“You have got a Democratic party that has been trying to move past coal and to have cleaner emissions.”
