Trump allies think he could give up on winning Michigan 'soon': report

Of the big three traditionally Democratic Midwestern states that President Donald Trump flipped in 2016, none looks worse for him four years later than Michigan.

FiveThirtyEight currently projects that Trump has just a 17 percent chance of winning Michigan again this year, and Politico's Tim Alberta reports that even some of the president's allies believe his campaign could soon end its efforts to keep the state red.

Alberta identifies three major factors that are leading Republicans to believe Michigan is a lost cause: Little hope that Trump can squeeze out higher turnout among white blue-collar voters; the move of traditionally Republican suburbs to the Democrats; and an all-but-inevitable increase in Black voter turnout compared to 2016.

In fact, Alberta notes that even marginal improvements in Black voter turnout compared to 2016 could put the state out of reach for the president.

"Black voters, particularly those in Detroit, are the critical piece of the puzzle," he writes. "Clinton underperformed Obama’s 2012 campaign by more than 76,000 votes in Wayne County alone — seven times her statewide margin of defeat."

Adding all of these factors together, writes Alberta, has led Trump supporters to believe it may soon be time to abandon Michigan and focus instead on holding down Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the two other Midwestern states that powered his upset 2016 win.

"The three dynamics that all broke his way in 2016 now all appear to be breaking against him, and with voters in the state soon receiving their absentee ballots, the president’s allies on the ground expect he could concede Michigan sooner rather than later," he reports.