… At a time when unemployment is near historic lows and the economy is flourishing, the 2020 election could turn on the question of whether Americans turned off by Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric will give him a pass because they and their loved ones are doing better financially. Places like Macomb County outside Detroit, where CNN will host the second Democratic presidential debates on Tuesday and Wednesday, could serve as a useful barometer for whether Trump can once again sweep Midwestern states like Michigan and Wisconsin, which delivered him a victory in 2016.
Macomb County is ground zero for that test — the spiritual home of the mercurial “Reagan Democrats” and a place where dozens of blue precincts flipped to red in 2016. Despite the mixed economic picture here and across the state, in more than two-dozen interviews with Democrats, Republicans and independents, most expressed optimism about the economy and there was little indication that average people are feeling a slowdown. Some Democrats had concerns about what they view as the far-left agenda of many of the Democratic presidential candidates, compared with the President’s focus on economic policies that he believes will boost growth. CONT.
Maeve Reston, CNN