Trump tears down the ‘blue wall’ with sweep of battleground states Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin
Donald Trump absolutely destroyed the Midwestern “blue wall” that Democrats hoped would hold in the 2024 elections and deliver a victory for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The race was called overnight for the new president-elect after he won the battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Wisconsin.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press called the Michigan race as Trump prepared to sweep all seven swing states.
Harris’ campaign had hoped the VP could take over at least some of the rust belt, but Trump’s blue-collar base showed up and gave him a win in all three states.
According to calls from the Associated Press, Trump won Pennsylvania by 2.2 percent, Wisconsin by 0.9 percent and Michigan by 1.4 percent.
Donald Trump has swept all three of the “blue wall” swing states in the Midwest, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The former president held his final rally before Election Day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, continuing a tradition dating back to his 2016 campaign.
Pete Hoekstra, Michigan’s GOP chairman, told DailyMail.com: ‘We won’t have put a crack in the wall. We will have wiped out the wall.”
Trump’s victory in Michigan was finally declared Wednesday afternoon, after he managed to gain votes in the populous counties of Oakland and Kent, and improve his numbers in almost the entire state.
Michigan played a major role in the primaries and again in the general election as one of the most competitive battleground states.
It has 15 electoral votes, but looms large in the national consciousness as the heart of the American auto industry.
The state is a key plank in the “blue wall” that Trump cracked in 2016 — after Hillary Clinton famously visited the state just days before Election Day.
But the real nail in the coffin for Harris’ campaign occurred when the vital blue wall state of Pennsylvania was called for Trump overnight.
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all voted red in the 2016 election, by narrow margins, and then voted blue for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump and Harris have been on a mission throughout their campaign to win over voters in the Rust Belt Swing States.
Voters celebrate in Madison, Wisconsin in the early hours of November 6 after hearing that the former Blue Wall state of Pennsylvania was being called for former President Trump
Vice President Kamala Harris also held her final campaign rally of the 2024 election cycle in Michigan
Republicans applaud at an election night watch party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Green Party candidate Jill Stein addresses supporters in Dearborn, Michigan on Election Day, November 5, 2024, as she encouraged her supporters in the vital swing state to “abandon Harris” and rely on her instead to vote
The first sign that Michigan would pose problems for Democrats came during the primaries, where Israel’s war in Gaza proved increasingly unpopular.
That was the beginning of an attempt at a protest vote for “uncommitted” in the primaries. There are about half a million Arab-American voters in Michigan, and Detroit has the largest concentration of Arab and Muslim voters.
Although Biden won the state with 618,000 votes, more than 100,000 voted ‘voluntarily’ in the Democratic primaries.
Both parties poured money into the race and showered it with candidate attention.
Not all attention went as planned.
Trump warned at the Detroit Economic Club that “our entire country will eventually become like Detroit if (Harris) is your president” — prompting an immediate response and backlash from the Harris camp.
Trump doubled down on the comments despite new growth and construction in the Motor City. The state also saw a top-level Senate race between Mike Rogers and Elissa Slotkin.
“We’re winning now in Michigan,” Trump said during his victory speech before the race was called
Trump held his final rally in Grand Rapids – the site of his final rallies of 2016 and 2020.
He also visited Traverse City in the final week of the campaign, forcing his audience to wait three hours when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast. His supporters poured out of the venue after word of his long delay spread.
But the ploy may have worked: Rogan threw his support behind him on election night Monday.
And he tried to peel away Arab-American and Muslim voters by saying October 7 would not have happened on his watch and blaming Biden and Harris for the disasters in the Middle East.
Trump brought an imam and local Muslim officials who supported him on stage at a rally outside Detroit.
A pro-Trump PAC took out ads across the state featuring older women at a Philly diner talking about Israel and the race, in a play to get Jewish voters “permission” to support him. One of the women says she “never cared about Trump,” “but at least he’ll keep us safe.”
Trump also repeatedly appealed to black men in a race in which Democrats are counting on large margins of African-American supporters in Detroit.
President Joe Biden called himself the most pro-union president in history, and is believed to be the first to walk a picket line when he joined UAW workers.
Harris tried to ease pressure from Trump by meeting with Arab American groups and discussing the administration’s union support.
She tried to boost the score among younger voters by planning a large rally in the college towns of Ann Arbor and East Lansing.
But there was another factor that made the race competitive: Some prominent unions failed to issue a statement of support. Trump introduced Teamsters head Sean O’Brien at the Republican convention in nearby Milwaukee, and the national union ultimately did not approve.
That prompted locals, including in Detroit, to break away and support Harris.
Trump and Harris have both spent much of their time in Wisconsin and the other “blue wall” states in recent months.
His win in Wisconsin puts him over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to capture the presidency.
The “Badger State” was considered a toss-up in 2024, with neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris expected to get the ten Electoral College votes up for grabs.
According to polling averages, Trump was ahead of Harris by nearly three points in the week leading up to the election.
And the now president-elect’s victory in Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state prize of 2024.
Harris performed worse than expected in the Commonwealth.
Supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, react as the results are shown
Meanwhile, during Trump’s watch in Florida, Tucker Carlson took photos with supporters and the crowd was lively
Trump supporters were excited when they heard early Wednesday morning that the race had been called
Her decision not to choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate may have hurt her in her latest effort, despite criticism from Democrats who thought it would help her win the state.
Harris made her final push in Pennsylvania on election night, holding three rallies across the Commonwealth and wrapping up her campaign in Philadelphia with Oprah, Lady Gaga and a host of celebrities.
Republicans also aggressively pursued problematic voting issues at polling places and filed legal challenges to keep the vote fair.
The Republican National Committee has taken legal action in Cambria County after voting machines malfunctioned.
In other counties, Republicans worked with local polling places to ensure Republican poll watchers had access to the counting process.