Revenge of the Rust Belt

The Republican Party has undergone an intense transformation thanks to former President Donald Trump. I used to argue this would harm the conservative agenda in the long run. I even advocated against the former president during the 2024 GOP primary. But after attending the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, I can’t help but feel that the MAGA movement has been on to something for a long while. 

That “something” certainly includes Trump’s policies, which were far better for the nation’s prosperity than Biden’s, but those policies are ultimately a reflection of the larger divide between the two parties right now. 

One actively disregards the interests of voters in an effort to consolidate its own power, while the other at least doesn’t balk from the issues most normies care about. One stopped trying to recruit and test new candidates and decided to appoint them instead, giving us Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and, more likely than not, Kamala Harris in 2024. The other party held a primary even though Trump, the leader of the party, was planning a comeback.

Like our political parties, the electoral map has changed in recent years, too. Arizona is much more of a toss-up than it was during the Obama years, while former swing states such as Florida and Ohio are now deeply red.

Much of the Midwest, however, remains very much in play—and both parties know it. That’s why the GOP held its convention in Wisconsin and why the Democrats will have theirs in Illinois. It’s why Trump tapped native Ohioan J.D. Vance as his running mate, and why Trump and Vance held their first campaign stop after the RNC in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this past weekend. The path to the White House runs through the Midwest.

Trump has already visited Michigan several times this election cycle, hoping to repeat his 2016 win, when he beat Hillary Clinton in the state by fewer than 11,000 votes. And whoever takes up Biden’s mantle on the Democratic side will likely focus just as much attention on the Mitten. There is, after all, a reason Biden’s advisers told him in 2020 that Michigan would be the key to his victory.  

The problem for Democrats is that many Michiganders have started to realize that the party’s attention span is short. Elect me in November, they say, and we can talk about inflation and interest rates and the roads when I’m up for re-election.

This is a point Michigan’s delegates and speakers made repeatedly at the RNC: Democrats have forgotten the average Midwesterner, even as they leech Michiganders’ political support. 

Democrats don’t care, for example, that the Biden administration’s green energy mandates are threatening tens of thousands of Michigan auto jobs. Former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is running for the state’s open Senate seat, made sure to point this out during his convention address. The Biden administration’s electric vehicle requirements, in particular, he argued, could completely upend the auto industry, since they require 40% less manpower to build than traditional gas-powered vehicles. 

Democrats also don’t seem to care that their divisive messaging on race and gender is at odds with the way most Midwesterners live. Rep. John James (R-MI) told attendees his family’s story: how his father grew up during segregation and went on to start a trucking company that shipped beer between Detroit and Milwaukee. His parents have always been deeply thankful for their midwestern community and this country, James said, and have never once felt that America is “systemically racist” or beyond redemption, as the Left so often claims.

While Democrats bicker among themselves, Trump is trying to speak directly to concerned Michiganders in a way Democrats simply aren’t. 

That’s where J.D. Vance comes in.

Trump’s vice presidential pick understands the Midwest’s challenges because he’s lived them. He was a forgotten Midwesterner, a rural Ohioan living in poverty with a drug-addicted mother and chaotic home life. He went on to join the military, graduate from Yale Law School, and win a seat in the U.S. Senate. If he wins with Trump this November, Vance vowed during the RNC to be “a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”

Vance’s story makes me think of my own family in rural Ohio. My mother-in-law grew up with next to nothing and has worked at the same auto factory since she was 16 years old. Like Vance, she and so many others have come to expect at least one person they know to die of a drug overdose. My husband was in high school when he got the call about one of his buddies who had overdosed.

Back in Michigan, the story is the same. My dad is a pastor and has conducted funerals for a handful of young adults in recent years who shot up and never woke up. They’ve left behind devastated families who desperately want someone to care. 

These are the voters who will determine November’s election. They want a simple answer: Will you care about the Midwest after Nov. 5, after the matter is decided and the cameras aren’t rolling? Will you care about our state the way we Michiganders do? 

Or are we just another pit stop on the way to the White House?

Kaylee McGhee White is the Restoring America editor for the Washington Examiner, a Tony Blankley fellow for the Steamboat Institute, and a senior fellow for the Independent Women’s Forum. She grew up in Detroit and graduated from Hillsdale College. Follow her on X at @KayleeDMcGhee.