MichMash: Jemele Hill on the changing dynamics of the Black vote in Michigan

Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump have been making frequent trips to the battleground state of Michigan in efforts to increase their voter outreach. There has been a hyper focus on the Black vote in both Detroit (one of the Blackest cities in America) and in the country as a whole. But why is the Black vote so focused on?

This week on MichMash, Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben and Zach Gorchow sit done with renowned journalist and Detroit native, Jemele Hill to discuss the dynamics of the Black vote. 

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In this episode:

• Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump making frequent trips to Michigan
• Why there is a hyper focus on the Black vote and not as much of a focus on the white vote
• How Michigan is viewed on a national scale

Hill brought up the hyper focus on the Black vote in media and how it appears unfair because no other voting group is treated the same.

“Nikole Hannah Jones, dynamite writer for the New York Times who brought the 1619 project, said, ‘Why are Black people the only group expected to have 100% loyalty to one party?’ Why don’t we ever have the conversation about how 50% of white voters haven’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon B Johnson,” Hill pointed out.  

She also highlighted how Governor Gretchen Whitmer has grown in popularity on a national scale because of her productivity. Hill, a Detroit native currently living in California, says that people aren’t aware of the trifecta in Michigan that has helped her be so impactful. She also said, from the outside looking in, that the Republican party appears fractured now in a surprising fashion.

Lastly, Hill pointed to the importance of the Senate race that she feels isn’t being focused on as much.

“The Senate races are probably 1A in terms of the importance in this national election,” she said.

Jemele Hill will continue to share her takes on politics and sports on her new political podcast, Spolitics.  

More from WDET:

• MichMash: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shares key points from her State of the State address
• Are Black voters in Detroit embracing Trump?
• Jemele Hill shares her journalistic journey in new memoir, ‘Uphill’