Why Kamala Harris Lost Michigan — And Another Democrat Won

It's not hard to spot some important clues for why Harris lost a few extra votes that a candidate like Elissa Slotkin didn’t.

EASTPOINTE, Mich. ― Election Day was less than a week away when I joined Edwin Woodson for some canvassing through a working-class neighborhood just north of the Detroit city line. It was unusually warm and sunny that afternoon, and so was Woodson. “I know we’re making progress, we’re hitting our marks,” Woodson, 65, told me as he started working his way down the block. “I really think this is going to make a difference.”

Woodson works for the Michigan Liberation Action Fund, an independent organization focused on criminal justice issues that partnered with a national group, Community Change Action, to promote progressive candidates in the election. His team’s focus on the day I observed was to boost turnout in a traditionally Democratic-leaning neighborhood, which, like most canvassing operations, meant knocking on a lot of doors with nobody home.

But a few residents answered. One woman said she hadn’t decided whether to vote. Woodson spent about eight minutes speaking with her, complimenting her smile and teasing out bits of her life story, eventually telling her to think about the importance of the election for her children’s future. “If I get a chance to drop a bug in their ear, I really think I can change their minds,” he said.

On the porch of another house, Woodson found a 3-year-old girl, her mother and grandmother. The mother had voted early by mail, but the grandmother hadn’t. Woodson, in between cooing at the 3-year-old, learned that she wasn’t sure of her polling place, which had changed. Woodson looked it up on his tablet computer and gave her the correct location.

The seriousness and joy Woodson brought to his effort were particularly striking given reports that the conservative counterpart to these efforts was a disorganized, poorly targeted fiasco, operated by out-of-state workers in it solely for the paycheck. It was one more reason to think he was right when he predicted Democrats would win their races, up and down the ticket.