Nicolai Haugsted
Republicans are knocking on millions of doors but some Trump voters are proving surprisingly difficult to win over.
Republicans have a straightforward argument they hope can carry them through a difficult midterm election.
GOP candidates are practical conservatives, the pitch goes, while Democrats have drifted toward the ideological left.
Michigan offers a useful test.
Republican Mike Rogers is fighting Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for a Senate seat, and conservative groups are targeting voters who backed Donald Trump but might otherwise stay home on November 3.
Doorstep conversations around Detroit suggest those voters are not always easy to predict.
A Trump voter refuses to follow the script
Nick Delise appeared to be promising territory for Republican canvassers.
An American flag hung outside his Livonia home, two pickup trucks sat in the driveway and a Thin Blue Line banner was visible in his garage.
Delise has also voted for Trump three times.
Americans for Prosperity Action presented Rogers as a common-sense conservative and El-Sayed as a big-government socialist aligned with the Democratic left.
Delise was not completely convinced.
“I’m not hardcore like I have to vote Republican,” the 32-year-old told Reuters.
“I’d be open. I’m not saying there’s not a chance.”
His more immediate complaint involved the cost of filling up his trucks.
Republicans try to steer around Trump
Canvassers found plenty of voters already supporting Rogers, including one man who said he wanted to stop what he considered a Democratic shift toward socialism.
Trump himself proved more complicated.
A Republican couple in their 80s illustrated the problem. The wife planned to support Rogers, while her husband said dissatisfaction with Trump had made him uncertain about voting for the Republican candidate.
The canvasser redirected the discussion toward policy.
“People aren’t super happy with the situation in the world right now,” Tim Golding, a senior adviser to Americans for Prosperity Action in Michigan, told Reuters.
“But we try to pivot off that conversation and go back to the policies and the agenda that our candidates have, and not have a conversation about Trump as best we can.”
Trump wants Republicans to put him at the center of their midterm campaign to energize his supporters. Some organizers knocking on doors are finding that avoiding the subject can occasionally be easier.
Republicans bet on the socialist attack
El-Sayed’s nomination has given Republicans another strategy.
Trump and his allies have seized on victories by progressive Democrats to argue that the party is moving toward socialism.
Democratic leaders reject that characterization, while El-Sayed has described himself as a capitalist.
His campaign says more than 21,000 volunteers have joined its grassroots operation.
Republicans also need occasional Trump voters to participate without Trump on the ballot.
Reuters/Ipsos polling found 42 percent of Democrats were “very enthusiastic” about voting, compared with 28 percent of Republicans.
Concern about enthusiasm recently spilled into public view.
“The vibes on the ground are the worst I’ve seen in my life,” Republican organizer Jackson Karki wrote on X.
“No one wants to promote candidates, no one wants to knock doors, no one wants to do shit.”
Other Michigan Republicans dispute that assessment.
The ground war gets bigger
Rogers and allied groups plan to knock on between six million and eight million doors before Election Day, roughly twice the 2024 effort.
That year, Rogers lost his Senate race by approximately 19,000 votes.
Democrats are stepping up their own operation. The Michigan Democratic Party says its active volunteer ranks have increased 267 percent since the primary and plans to knock on 1.4 million doors during the final four weeks.
Michigan ultimately presents Republicans with a deceptively simple challenge: persuading voters to support Trump during a presidential election is one thing.
Getting those same voters to show up for another Republican during a midterm is another.
Delise remains open to either party.
An elderly Republican expressed doubts because of Trump.
One younger Livonia resident was considerably more decisive when canvassers asked about his Senate choice.
“Not Mike Rogers,” he replied.
Then he closed the door.
