The difference between similar Michigan's 1986 and 2022 governor campaigns
LANSING, Mich. — The 2022 Michigan governor’s race suddenly resembles the state’s 1986 gubernatorial campaign. Or does it?
Then and now, a first-term well-known, heavily financed Democrat first-term governor was making national news. Then and now, the incumbent faced a nationally recognized African American Republican law enforcement official from Detroit loved by state and national GOP leaders.
“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user,” Theodore Roosevelt once said.
Has the character of Michigan’s electorate changed over 35 years?
The 1986 campaign was the first governor’s race, covered by this then-21-year-old journalism student covering Michigan for the Chicago Tribune as a “Midwest stringer,” aka freelance writer. Both then — and now — 35 years later, similar patterns were apparent:
- This year, the heavily financed Democrat is Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, 49, facing a challenge from the nationally recognized Detroit Police Chief James Craig, 64.
- In 1986, Wayne County Executive Bill Lucas, then 57 (a previous sheriff and FBI agent), was encouraged by Ronald Reagan to become the first Wayne County executive (like a mayor for Michigan’s largest county). He challenged then-Michigan Gov. James Blanchard, who was 44 in 1986.
- Twenty-two years before Barack Obama won the White House, Lucas was only the second African American to win a major party nomination for governor (after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley became the Democratic nominee for governor of California in 1982 and again in 1986).
- Lucas was the first African American Republican to become a gubernatorial nominee (in 1986). Both Bradley and Lucas lost.
- Today the nationally recognized Republican is Detroit Police Chief James Craig, whose “tough on crime” reorganization of police during the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy made national news over the past decade. He especially made news during the 2020 rioting nationwide. Craig and Detroit served as national role models for how to keep protests peaceful. Few knew until last month that he was a Republican.
- The 1986 campaign got national attention, and Craig has already been on Fox News multiple times in the past month without even yet announcing he’s running. Craig is expected to do so this summer.
The Lucas strategy (and the dream of Washington and Lansing Republicans) was for Lucas to carry the Democrat stronghold of Wayne County (including Detroit) by convincing large numbers of Detroit African Americans (Detroit was the nation’s largest majority African American city) to vote Republican for the first time.
“Everyone should be aware of my support in Detroit,” Lucas said at the time (he had won big there when he ran as a Democrat). “There is no doubt in my mind that Detroit and Wayne County are going to be Lucas country.”
In the 1986 primary, Lucas was outspent 3–1 by Brighton auto-entrepreneur Dick Chrysler but still managed to win in a multi-candidate field that included state Rep. Colleen Engler, the then-wife of Republican Senate Leader John Engler (who would take the governorship from Blanchard in 1990).
Ultimately, despite the massive attention focused on his “historic” campaign, Lucas was crushed in 1986, winning just 31 percent of the vote while incumbent Jim Blanchard won 68 percent, more than two-thirds of the vote, including normally Republican Kent County.
Lucas won just one of Michigan’s 83 counties. Three years later, President George H.W. Bush nominated Lucas to be assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, but the NAACP and a Democrat-controlled Senate blocked the appointment.
Did party realignment begin in 1986?
What’s changed in 35 years? Plenty, it seems. Primarily, the makeup and strategies of the major parties.
1986: Country Club Republican vs. Working Class Democrats
In 1986, Republicans were primarily portrayed as “the party of the rich,” with the senior Bush (then vice president preparing his 1988 run for president) seen as the face of the party’s future while Bruce Springsteen seemed to best symbolize working-class Democrats.
Working-class Macomb County (home of “the Reagan Democrats” who gave Ronald Reagan 1980 and 1988 landslides) was a bellwether, flipping decisively for Democrat Blanchard in 1982 and 1986. Blanchard helped Chrysler Corp. receive its 1979 bailout and made his mantra, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”
Democrats like Dick Gephardt (whose 1988 presidential ads sounded a lot like Trump trade policies) complained about the Japanese heavily taxing U.S. cars while flooding U.S. markets with their products. Gephardt demanded “fair trade,” while Republicans wanted free trade.
Blanchard began a push for “diversifying Michigan’s economy,” easing its reliance on manufacturing and the auto industry, and established the Michigan Education Trust to encourage parents to save to send children to college.
Democrats, dominated by unions, stressed that they were “the party of the working class.” Springsteen's songs captured working-class alienation as factories and mills began closing down nationwide, sending jobs overseas.
The 1990s: The rise of NAFTA, identity politics
Like his friend Bill Clinton, Blanchard was one of the “New Democrats,” calling themselves more moderate, friendly with business, expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s. Blanchard became Clinton’s ambassador to Canada.
Engler’s 1990 win and boom years for the auto industry (thanks to cheap gas and rising SUV and truck sales) gave Republicans control throughout the 1990s. Increasingly, Democrats turned to identity politics, mobilizing voters around issues like affirmative action and expanding LGBT rights.
2000–2010: Michigan’s “winter that never ends.”
The first decade of the 21st century brought what University of Michigan economist Don Grimes called a 10-year economic “winter that never ends” as more automotive jobs moved overseas.
During this “Lost Decade,” Michigan was the only state in the nation to see its population shrink between 2000 and 2010 while simultaneously losing more than 800,000 jobs — more than any other state.
Democrat Gov. Jennifer Granholm (now U.S. Energy Secretary) brought the Democrats back to power from 2002–2010. Her Cherry Commission set the goal of half of Michigan residents going to college, repeatedly pushing a future away from manufacturing and automotive jobs.
She sought state investments in new industries like alternative energy and producing films in Michigan.
At the presidential level, Democrats won Michigan from 1992 through 2012 when Michigan native Mitt Romney lost to incumbent Barack Obama.
Working-Class Trump Republicans?
Republicans took back the governor’s mansion from 2010–2018, and Donald Trump won Michigan in 2016 (the first Republican presidential winner since 1988).
But in 2018, Democrats swept the statewide offices, and Joe Biden won Michigan in 2020, but the state’s political map looked quite different:
- While Democrats pushed for more people to obtain college degrees (Whitmer now pushes for free tuition for some colleges), a growing number of workers with less than a four-year degree have moved into the GOP column.
- Traditionally Republican highly educated suburbs like the Grosse Pointe communities have become more Democrat. Reliably Republican Kent County also shifted to Biden in 2020.
- Traditionally Democrat working-class suburban communities like Macomb County shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans.
- John James, an African American Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2018 and 2020, narrowly lost both races. Still, he won more than 2.7 million votes, more votes than Trump, carrying 74 of Michigan’s 83 counties (Lucas won just one county 35 years earlier).
So Michigan Republicans call Craig, with a long record and high profile, their best chance at unseating Whitmer, and top party officials are steering support toward him and discouraging other announced candidates.
“We don’t retreat, the city doesn’t retreat, and we’re a model for the country,” Craig said when he announced his retirement from the police department last month.