Former Congressman: Trump Will Win Michigan ‘If the Voters Come Out’

Former Republican Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra said that Donald Trump definitely has an opportunity to win the state of Michigan on Tuesday.

Doing so would effectively collapse longstanding party-line divisions in Michigan and other Rust Belt states, creating a populism vs. establishmentarianism dynamic at the polls.

“We’re going to win Michigan if the voters come out,” Hoekstra said in an interview on Breitbart News Saturday on Sirius/XM Channel 125. Hoekstra called in to the show from his hometown of Hollande, Michigan, noting Mike Pence’s workhorse campaigning in Michigan in recent days.

“He’s going to fight for jobs, he’s going to re-negotiate these trade deals. So he’s really connecting with these blue-collar voters,” Hoekstra said of Trump. “Michigan, we’ve been hurt in the last twenty years.”

Hoekstra said blue-collar voters are taking a dim view of establishment Republicans:

Four years ago we had Mitt Romney, a native son of Michigan, and he came in and said, you know, I wouldn’t have bailed out the auto industries. And philosophically, at thirty thousand feet, you can maybe justify that argument. But if you’re a worker for Ford or GM and you’re hearing a presidential candidate saying, hey I would have been fine letting you lose your job, hey you’re not going to get their vote…

…Our governor hasn’t endorsed him. Most of our congressional delegation has been sitting on the sidelines. So they know that he’s not owned by the establishment and that this is their movement.