GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The stakes couldn’t be higher for both parties in West Michigan.
“It's overwhelming because we actually have more democratic elections now, where Republicans have to care, and Democrats want to care,” Kent County Democratic Chair Bill Saxton said.
Redistricting has changed the political landscape in our area for our congressional races.
“West Michigan is as clean a clean slate that you're going to find in politics,” Koopman said.
Dr. Doug Koopman, a political scientist with Calvin University says nearly every congressional race in West Michigan is a tossup.
As it stands, the U.S House is expected to gain 15 Republican seats this midterm, giving the GOP majority Koopman says. West Michigan could have a role in slowing the red wave. The area has four house seats on the ballot.
Koopman says redistricting has now made these races much closer, especially in District 3 and District 7, possibly flipping those districts.
Furthermore, what voters decide Tuesday in our area could influence how both parties move forward on the national scale.
“It's a good place to test a message and to announce a message that connects to a lot of people who are far away from Grand Rapids,” Koopman said.
A real test of not only messaging, but the type of candidate that could inspire more votes for each party. Here in West Michigan there’s been a distinct shift in the type of candidate running.
“You see candidates, more from the outside and the extremes of both parties and fewer candidates from the middle,” Koopman said.
“I think voters in the middle tend to get a little frustrated with that.”
We’ll find out Tuesday which party’s political strategy plays out in their favor this election cycle in our area.
Political trends in West Michigan, Koopman said, are proving to be increasingly indicative of what we’ll see on the national landscape.
It’s why we see major political figures spending more and more time in greater Grand Rapids.
“It has the shift in demographics across the two parties that are a microcosm of the nation, or at least of the Upper Midwest,” Koopman said.
“It's certainly the same thing. Everything that's going on in Grand Rapids goes on in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, places like that.”
A sliver of the nation’s population proving to have a big impact on what’s to come in Washington D.C.
