Rep. Debbie Dingell believes her state will remain competitive until the last vote is counted on Election Day.
“I don’t think we know who’s going to win Michigan yet,” the Michigan Democrat told chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett on “The Takeout” podcast.
Dingell said in 2016, she had a sense that Donald Trump would win her state, but that’s not the case this year.
“I don’t think either of the candidates has won Michigan yet,” Dingell said. She noted that during his first run for president, Trump connected with auto workers and union workers.
“He understood their fear and anxiety that their jobs had been shipped overseas,” she recalled. “Our supply chain had totally been shipped overseas.”
Much as it was in 2016, “this election is going to be about the economy,” Dingell said. She added the issues that people discuss around their kitchen table — like grocery prices, mortgage and rent payments, and college affordability — “all of those are the kinds of issues…we’ve got to be addressing.”
Dingell has some advice for Vice President Kamala Harris about how to win over Michiganders.
“Let her be herself. Get out there,” Dingell said. “Get out to union halls. Talk to the people.” Dingell added that while she has a strong relationship with the Clintons, they did not take her advice in 2016. “I loved Bill and Hillary. You know that. They were friends,” she said. “They said they should have listened to me later,” particularly on talking to union members.
This isn’t the case with the Harris campaign. “They listen to me,” Dingell said, noting that Harris traveled to Michigan on Labor Day.
While the congresswoman feels Michigan could go either way in the presidential race, she predicts Democrats will win the House back from Republicans in November.
“There are a lot of close seats, but I think we’re doing a very good job of defining what’s at stake,” Dingell said. “I think it’s going to be close…But I think quite frankly, the Republicans’ inability to get a lot of work done in the last two years has a lot of people willing to look and say what’s at stake.”
Dingell told Garrett that Harris has come to her on a regular basis to hear about the concerns of her constituents, not just since Harris became the candidate, but she also sought Dingell out when she was a senator. “She wanted to understand the auto industry. She wanted to understand the union workers. And quite frankly, one of the other subjects she has talked to me about frequently…is the different ethnic backgrounds, the cultural issues of a state like Michigan, which has a rich cultural diversity.”
One of the most pressing issues for Dingell is the Middle East conflict. She says the communities in her district and her state have large Jewish and Muslim populations, particularly of Palestinian and Lebanese descent. Dearborn, Michigan, became the first Arab-majority city in the United States in 2023.
“We need peace,” Dingell said. “And we’re seeing an escalation. It’s getting worse. The Jewish community is so worried about anti-Semitism and hate, but so is the Muslim community about [Islamophobia]. It’s real for both of them.”
Dingell said she’s had many conversations with both President Biden and Harris about what people in her communities who have lost family members and loved ones are saying about the conflict in the Middle East, and the need for a ceasefire.
“People need to understand how hurting people are, how this war in the Mideast, which has been going on for centuries, is very real in our own communities,” Dingell said. “We need peace. We need a ceasefire. We need no one else to die. And somehow, as elected officials, we need to somehow find a way to bring people together, not keep putting kerosene on a fire that is very dangerous to world peace.”
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