Biden for President

Biden for President Michigan Enters the Fall Strongly Positioned for Victory

FROM:       Eric Hyers, Biden for President Michigan State Director
TO:               Interested Parties
SUBJECTBiden for President Michigan enters the fall strongly positioned for victory
DATE        September 16, 2020

With 7 weeks left until Election Day, Biden for President Michigan is in a strong position to win the Great Lakes State and send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House.
 
As President, Joe Biden will restore the soul of our nation, rebuild the backbone of our economy -- the middle class -- and unite our country.  President Trump has failed Michiganders. From his mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis and its economic fallout, to the loss of auto and manufacturing jobs under his administration, President Trump has made Michiganders’  lives worse.
 
Michigan is ready for a real leader -- and Joe Biden is the right candidate with the right message for voters and the right vision for the future. He cares about issues important to voters, like stopping the spread of COVID, the economy, and health care. 
 
Across the state, our campaign is running a voter contact program focused on quality conversations with voters across Michigan to meet voters where they are and earn every vote.
 
Joe Biden is the leader Michigan needs, and we’re strongly positioned for victory

  • Joe Biden is best suited to lead Michiganders forward. Biden helped rescue the auto industry, while Trump has broken promises to auto workers. Biden’s work on the auto rescue helped save more than 1 million jobs across the country. Trump inherited the Obama-Biden economy and not only has the local industry not progressed, it has seen a net loss in auto jobs since Trump’s first full month in office –– even before the pandemic.
  • In 2016, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. Since then, Democrats have made critical gains and investments in key communities. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats elected Governor Whitmer, Attorney General Nessel, Senator Stabenow; flipped two congressional seats, five State Senate seats, and six State House seats from red to blue; built crucial organizing infrastructure in the suburbs surrounding Detroit; and won key races in critical counties like Oakland, Macomb, and Kent counties.
  • Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic has sent the economy into a tailspin. Even prior to the pandemic, his policies were hurting Michigan communities that were critical to his 2016 success. Over 6,500 Michiganders have lost their lives to the virus. Black Michiganders have been most affected, making up 40% of those who have died from COVID-19, but only 14% of the population of Michigan. Trump’s inability to lead during this pandemic has devastated Michigan.
 
We aren’t taking a single Michigander for granted

  • Michiganders know that Vice President Biden is the right choice. He’s currently +4.2 according to Real Clear Politics. And 538 shows that Joe Biden leads by 7.6 points in MI.
  • Tens of thousands of volunteers have participated in our virtual events, phonebanks, textbanks, trainings, and meetings since the March primary. During the week of the Democratic National Convention and the Weekend of Action that followed it, our campaign hosted over 500 organizing events and reached out to over 1.4 million voters.
  • In the past 6 weeks, Biden for President Michigan has seen a 225% increase in active volunteers.
  • Our grassroots digital organizing program is ramping up as well: in the week of Labor Day, our campaign sent over 617,000 texts to Michiganders -- one text every second.
  • Our organizers continue to build community in the areas they are organizing, despite the physical distance. From virtual coffee chats to a digital field office in Oakland, our organizers are finding innovative ways to stay connected with their communities.
  • Our digital program is empowering our volunteers to share why they’re supporting Biden and Harris with their own neighbors and friends, and ramping this program rapidly in the final stretch of the campaign. We’ve had suburban women submit videos via our Soapboxx platform about how Donald Trump’s failure to address the pandemic is impacting them personally and why they trust Biden and Harris to right the ship, and launched microtargeted digital ads of suburban women from across Michigan speaking directly to camera.
 
We are building a strong and diverse coalition

  • Our coalition groups in Michigan include blue collar workers from Macomb and Oakland counties; Black voters in Detroit, Pontiac and Flint; Arab American voters in Dearborn; Latinx voters in Grand Rapids; AAPI voters in Canton; Suburban Women, especially, but not exclusively, in the Detroit and Grand Rapids metropolitan areas; young adults and Republicans from every part of the state; and more.
  • Our coalitions team is also working to organize targeted phone and text banks and relational organizing trainings for key demographic groups like Labor, LGBTQ+, college students, seniors, Jewish, Latino and faith-based Michigan residents.
  • We have built a team with experience in every region of the state and have brought on vote directors to engage and activate key communities including faith leaders, African American, Arab American, Latino, Tribal, labor, women, rural, and progresive communities, and more. We will continue to meaningfully engage these communities in the weeks ahead.
 
We are meeting the moment with effective organizing

  • Mobilizing and engaging supporters during a global pandemic is an unprecedented situation, but it has also provided us an opportunity to meet voters where they are. Our phone contact rates are higher than they have ever been and we are having more meaningful conversations to both mobilize and persuade voters.This represents a massive shift relative to 2016. In 2016, the Michigan Coordinated Campaign did not use organizers and volunteers for persuasion efforts at all.
  • Our campaign has been running an aggressive paid media program in Michigan since June, including TV and digital ads in every Michigan media market – Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Lansing, Traverse City, Marquette, Alpena, Duluth, Green Bay, South Bend, and Toledo -- and we are running Black radio ads in key markets across the state.
 
Microtargeted ads on school reopening submitted by suburban moms
 
We are helping voters understand how to cast their ballot

  • Our campaign is building the largest, best-resourced voter protection program in state history. More than a dozen voter protection attorneys and full time staff are working with city and township clerk's offices in Michigan to expand access to voting and train hundreds of lawyers and other volunteers to assist voters during Early Voting and on Election Day. Our goal is to ensure that every eligible voter in Michigan can register to vote, access a ballot, vote, and have that vote counted.
  • We are also engaging in a large-scale voter education campaign to ensure that Michiganders know how and when to cast their ballot. IWillVote.com/MI includes new resources to walk voters through the process of casting their ballot.
Where we go from here

  • In the coming weeks, you will see our campaign mobilize our resources to ensure that Michiganders can make their voices heard at the ballot box -- whether that is via mail, in-person early, or in person on Election Day. Our campaign will make a concerted push to educate and encourage voters to begin voting on September 24.
  • We’re actively organizing college campuses, executing weekly relational “friendbankinng” events, texting events, and soon will be driving student voters to drop boxes and clerk offices to cast their vote.
  • And you will see our campaign continue to meet voters where they are. We will use all of the tools at our disposal -- including our surrogate program, local media engagement, paid media, creative organizing tactics and more -- to persuade and mobilize every eligible voter to cast their ballot for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
There are 48 days until November 3rd and Biden for President Michigan is going to use every single one of them to persuade and mobilize Michiganders to cast their ballot for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
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