Kamala Harris will collect votes in Ann Arbor’s Burns Park. This is why it matters.

ANN ARBOR, MI – Kamala Harris does ready to gather a large group of voters at an outdoor event in Ann Arbor’s Burns Park on Monday evening, Oct. 28, continuing her campaign to get out the vote in key battleground states.

And it could be a smart move to stop in Ann Arbor, the heavily Democratic home of the University of Michigan, given what happened during the 2016 presidential election.

Donald Trump won Michigan that year by just over 10,000 votes out of nearly 5 million votes cast.

That was enough for the Republican to gain all 16 electoral college votes in the winner-takes-all state.

More than 40,000 registered voters in Ann Arbor did not participate in the 2016 election. Of the city’s nearly 103,000 registered voters, just under 62,000 voted.

Former Ann Arbor City Attorney Stephen Postema, who served as one of the city’s election commissioners that year, said he’s ashamed to say it because he loves his city, but Ann Arbor voter apathy alone cost Democrat Hillary Clinton wins.

Such situations should not happen again in 2024, he said, calling it shameful.

Voting in Ann Arbor in 2016 was reported as a 60% turnout, though the figure rises to 72% if we don’t count the nearly 17,000 “inactive voters” on the city’s registration lists at the time — people who haven’t voted several times had voted in Ann Arbor. years and possibly moved.

In any case, if even half of the Ann Arborites who sat out the 2016 election had voted, Clinton might have won.

Postema has thoroughly researched the issue and delved into voter turnout data in Ann Arbor. He said 83% of registered voters aged 18 to 21 voted in 2016, but only 48% of voters aged 22 to 30 and 44% of voters aged 31 to 40 did so, the data show .

Although the voting percentages for older age groups are higher, Postema says, they are still embarrassing for a city that prides itself on its civic engagement: 54% for those aged 41-50, 69% for those aged 51-59 and 77% for the over 60s. .

One caveat, Postema said, is that Ann Arbor is a transient city, especially for young people, and that a certain percentage of registered voters simply move away each year, many leaving the state, and it can take several voting cycles to get them and other inactive voters from the registration lists.

Even if registered voter numbers are off by 10% or 20%, Ann Arbor’s voting rate is still low, Postema argues, pointing to Madison, Wisconsin, as an example of another college town with a turnout rate around 85%.

A group called Neighbors for Democracy, led by Ann Arbor resident KP Unnikrishnan and former city councilor Sumi Kailasapathy, took note of the issue and went door-to-door in 2020 to increase Ann Arbor’s turnout in the presidential election between Trump and Joe Biden . .

Their efforts may have worked, as 67,749 Ann Arborites cast their votes for president in 2020 and 59,210 or 87% went to Biden.

That was up from 2016, when 61,410 Ann Arborites cast ballots for president and 51,092, or 83%, went to Clinton.

Unnikrishnan said his group is once again going door to door to talk to voters about the importance of voting this year, while also highlighting the proposed city election reforms.

Fake Trump ads are the latest twist in the ballot proposal debate in Ann Arbor

A particular challenge Harris faces, he said, is that more than 13% of Michigan’s Democratic primary voters in February cast their votes as “uncommitted” because they could not support the Biden-Harris ticket, in many cases because the government’s support for Israel amid the war in Gaza. In Ann Arbor, 19% of Democratic primary voters were uncommitted.

Unnikrishnan said based on conversations he’s having with people on the doorstep, there are still some uncommitted voters who don’t want to support Harris now that she’s at the top and some will vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. . There are several reasons, he said, but “one is loud and clear: the Gaza issue.”

To many liberals in Ann Arbor, it’s an example of genocide or apartheid and a human rights issue, Unnikrishnan said, suggesting Harris should do more to address the issue and appeal to voters, but so far she hasn’t don’t show. policy would be sufficiently different from Biden’s.

Harris has said the US would continue to support Israel’s ability to defend itself, while calling for a ceasefire and an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people, and has suggested that US military aid to Israel would continue if the country wins.

“Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure that Israel has the ability to defend itself,” she said as she accepted the Democratic nomination.

“Because the people of Israel must never again have to face the horrors that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the mass murder of young people at a music festival,” she continued. “At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past ten months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety again and again.”

The extent of the suffering is heartbreaking, Harris said.

Stein has one “Pledge to stop genocide” on its website, calling on the US government to “stop supporting Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”

As for whether Harris can pull off a victory in Michigan, Unnikrishnan, who calls a vote for Stein a wasted vote, said he is concerned. The 13% of uncommitted Democratic primary voters need to be almost entirely on Harris’ side for him to feel comfortable, he said, and he doesn’t think that has happened.

“Sometimes I feel like Kamala is Elmer Fudd. She is shooting herself in the foot with every step she takes on these issues,” he said.

But Harris is now doing one thing that Clinton didn’t do in 2016 in her quest to win Michigan: campaigning in Ann Arbor.

The vice president will appear with running mate Tim Walz in the park within walking distance of the UM campus and there will be a concert performance by musician Maggie Rogers. The campaign said it is part of a “When We Vote We Win” event series featuring artists focused on mobilizing voters in key battleground states.

Postema said he believes Harris can win Michigan, but Democrats need to up their game and get Ann Arborites out to vote. If they don’t, he said, Democrats and others will groan even louder after the 2024 elections than they did in 2016.

But looking at the number of voters in Ann Arbor who registered for this election, Postema sees some bright spots. There were just under 103,000 registered voters in 2016, over 114,000 in 2020 and now over 123,000, counting as of October 27.

Postema said he would like to see Ann Arbor turn blue and have 95,000 votes fill the ballot box.

Voters are making their voices heard as early voting gets underway in Ann Arbor

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