The road to the White House runs through the Rust Belt and the state of Michigan may have the final say in the 2024 presidential election.
During the 2016 election, Resonate’s AI-driven voter models accurately predicted the election results by capturing seismic sentiment shifts amongst white working class voters in key swing states in the final days, including Michigan. Shifts that static research from previous weeks completely missed.
With the Michigan primary approaching in February, we put our models to work to identify critical primary voter segments that campaigns can analyze and immediately target – at scale – before the Wolverine State opens its polls.
Michigan Republican Primary Voters
Resonate models have identified an audience of 1.4M self-identified Republicans in Michigan who vote in presidential primaries at least half of the time.
When compared to the average Republican voter nationally who frequently votes in presidential primaries, the Michigan audience is:
- 90% more likely to vote for a candidate based on their education policy and 46% more likely to vote based on military / defense policies.
- 20-30% more likely to support policies that toughen law enforcement and better control illegal immigration
- 41% more likely to vote for a candidate based on social issues like abortion policy.
The Michigan Republican primary voter is likely an older voter and when compared to Republican primary voters nationally, they are more personally driven by being polite, accepting those who are different, and caring for friends and family. Psychologically, this is an audience that maintains an optimistic outlook and is motivated to prove competencies and skills.
A key insight to consider for Michigan Republican primary voters is that almost the entire audience blames Biden for inflation and they’re over 20x more likely to hold this position than frequent Republican primary voters nationally. They’re also much more likely to believe Biden has done a poor job on foreign policy. Republican candidates should be hammering these issues in the final days.
Michigan Democratic Primary Voters
Resonate models have identified an audience of 1.7M self-identified Democrats in Michigan who vote in presidential primaries at least half of the time.
When compared to the average Democrat voter nationally who frequently votes in presidential primaries, the Michigan audience is:
- 56% more likely to vote for candidates based on their entitlement policy (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.).
- 43% more likely to vote for a candidate based on their healthcare policy.
- 67% more likely to believe election fraud is the biggest threat to the United States.
- 27% more likely to believe MAGA Republicans are a threat.
Demographically, 63% of all frequent Democrat Michigan primary voters are female and they are more educated than the average Democrat primary voter nationally (41% have a college degree).
A key insight to consider for Michigan Democratic primary voters is they can be heavily influenced by candidate endorsements. Compared to the average frequent Democratic primary voter nationally, this Michigan audience is over 150x more likely to have their vote be influenced by the candidate endorsements.
Additionally, we see that nearly 70% of this entire audience believes that democracy is under threat in America.
The above audiences referenced are just a few of hundreds of voter audiences that campaigns can build, analyze and immediately activate with Resonate. Let us know what voter segments you absolutely need to win in 2024 and we’ll devise the targeting strategy that’s built to engage and persuade!
