{"id":883808,"date":"2026-10-16T01:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T01:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/883808\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T01:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T01:38:18","slug":"why-aoc-was-in-a-deep-red-part-of-michigan-from-the-politics-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/883808\/","title":{"rendered":"Why AOC was in a deep-red part of Michigan: From the Politics Desk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to From the Politics Desk<\/a>, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team\u2019s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s edition, Jonathan Allen digs into Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s campaign trip to Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula. Plus, Allan Smith rounds up the battleground Republican candidates who are distancing themselves from President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs. <\/p>\n

\u2014 Adam Wollner<\/p>\n

Why AOC was in a deep-red part of MichiganAnalysis by Jonathan Allen<\/p>\n

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s campaign swing with Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed today was about much more than boosting him on Election Day in November.<\/p>\n

It was about all the Election Days after that, too.<\/p>\n

As a leader in the socialist-inspired wing of the Democratic Party, and one who is weighing a bid for the presidency, Ocasio-Cortez is eager to find evidence for the case that progressives are as good as centrists at persuading swing voters to pick Democrats \u2014 maybe even better.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a counterintuitive argument and one that is central to the left\u2019s strategy for winning primary fights \u2014 including the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. In higher-turnout elections, party voters often reject more liberal candidates at least in part because they believe those candidates would lose to Republicans in general elections.<\/p>\n

The left hopes an El-Sayed victory would persuade the broader Democratic Party to reverse that behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we do is that we break open the entire political calculus in America \u2014 period,\u201d Ocasio-Cortez said at a New York fundraiser this month. \u201cBecause if you can win, if Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

For AOC and El-Sayed today, anywhere was Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula.<\/p>\n

The 320-mile-wide rural strip, most of which is closer to Duluth, Minnesota, than Detroit, has long been an emblem of rural Republican strength. By campaigning there, El-Sayed and Ocasio-Cortez want to demonstrate that they are reaching out to red-area voters and later that they were successful in winning converts.<\/p>\n

But while the UP votes reliably with Republicans at the national level, there are plenty of progressive voters. In areas dominated by one party, often the people who remain in the other party are committed to ideological orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed did well in the Upper Peninsula in his primary, defeating centrist Democrat Haley Stevens in all three of the counties AOC was set to visit today. Without converting a single Republican, he should be able to expect tens of thousands of votes from the region.<\/p>\n

Kamala Harris even won one of the counties<\/a> AOC traveled to \u2014 Marquette \u2014 20,866 to 17,459. <\/p>\n

Maybe El-Sayed will swipe some swing voters from the UP, but the real value of AOC\u2019s presence is bringing out as many of those Democrats as possible. If she can do that, the left will contend that its candidates are a better bet for the party in general elections. In fact, they\u2019re already starting to make that case before the votes are in.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans in key races break with Trump over tariffsBy Allan Smith<\/p>\n

In a handful of battleground races, Republican candidates are trying to distance themselves from one of President Donald Trump\u2019s signature policy initiatives: tariffs.<\/p>\n

So far, three GOP Senate nominees and two of the party\u2019s picks for governor are trying to cast themselves as seeking a middle ground on what has been Trump\u2019s marquee economic policy, particularly with the cost of living rating as a top voter concern.<\/p>\n

The battleground Senate candidates are Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, former Sen. John Sununu in New Hampshire and former Rep. Mike Rogers in Michigan. Rep. John James of Michigan and Pennsylvania state Treasurer Stacy Garrity have also highlighted their disagreements with Trump\u2019s tariff policies in their gubernatorial contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, of course, nobody, I don\u2019t think, agrees with the president 100% of the time,\u201d Garrity said at a debate last week when she was asked for specific areas of disagreement with Trump. \u201cIn fact, who agrees with anyone 100% of the time? And tariffs would be a perfect example. While some tariffs have helped manufacturers, some have not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The maneuvering is taking place as Republican candidates across the map try to figure out where they can safely distance themselves from Trump without offending him or his dedicated base, which they must turn out to the polls next month.<\/p>\n

Trump has spent years reorienting the Republican Party from a position of supporting mostly unfettered free trade to having a protectionist bent. What makes the splits over tariffs interesting is that they\u2019re taking place mostly in states \u2014 Michigan and Pennsylvania \u2014 that were supposed to reap some of the biggest benefits from those policies through a return of manufacturing jobs.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\uddde\ufe0f Today’s other top stories\ud83d\udd0e Suspicious letters: Federal authorities are investigating letters containing suspicious substances that were mailed to \u201cvarious addresses nationwide, including multiple Congressional offices.\u201d Read more \u2192<\/a>\ud83d\uddf3\ufe0f Vote watch: Election officials across the country this week went out of their way to publicly debunk years-old conspiracy theories that have circulated online about poll workers writing on ballots. Read more \u2192<\/a>\ud83d\udcb2 Flush with cash: Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico\u2019s campaign says it raised $64 million in the third quarter of 2026, a staggering haul that would set a record. Read more \u2192 <\/a>\ud83d\udd35 2028 watch: Leading in the polls for his re-election bid, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is getting presidential buzz. But if Republicans win the governor\u2019s race, they\u2019d hold the power to fill his Senate seat. Read more \u2192<\/a>\u27a1\ufe0f Iowa\u2019s \u2018cancer crisis\u2019: Cancer rates are on the rise in Iowa despite falling elsewhere, and candidates from both parties are talking about agricultural pollutants. Read more \u2192<\/a>\ud83d\udee3\ufe0f Trump on the trail: Trump supporters said the economic resurgence Trump touted at a rally in Montana<\/a> isn\u2019t the reality they are living. At a rally in Arizona<\/a>, he said government officials who leak to the media \u201cshould be shot.\u201d\ud83d\udeab On second thought: Trump said the government won\u2019t livestream the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, canceling a plan Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week. Read more \u2192<\/a>\u2696\ufe0f Technically speaking: White House press secretary Katie Zacharia didn\u2019t pass the California bar exam when she took it after she graduated from law school, according to a senior administration official. The official argued that Zacharia could technically be considered a \u201clawyer,\u201d though not an attorney. Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today\u2019s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Lauren Zola.<\/p>\n

If you have feedback \u2014 likes or dislikes \u2014 email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com<\/a><\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team\u2019s latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-883808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}