Q&A: Northern Michigan’s last Democrat in Lansing has a warning for her party

• In Q&A, state Rep. Betsy Coffia explains what she thinks Democrats can learn from her reelection and how the party can move on after losses
• Coffia won a tough race in northern Michigan, a region that is otherwise now without any representation in the state Legislature
• Coffia says she had to battle ‘powers that be’ to shape her own message and be ‘real’ with people about the challenges they face

In January, Rep. Betsy Coffia will become the last Democrat representing northern Michigan in the state Legislature. Her next northernmost colleague is Rep. Amos O’Neal, with a district 120 miles away in Saginaw.

Coffia won a tough campaign in the Nov. 5 election in which Republicans won the White House and flipped the state House — and she's now pleading with her party to take a long, hard look at their losses. 

In an interview with Bridge, Coffia made clear she doesn’t have all the answers, but has been deeply frustrated by what she described as rigidity and a lack of reflection by Democratic party leaders

“It is much easier to do a generic, one-size-fits-all campaign and just throw a lot of money at something,” Coffia said. “I think that was part of what went wrong here. This is not about my fellow candidates. … I'm talking about the people above them who are controlling the money and controlling the strategy.”

With President-elect Donald Trump’s win in Michigan, Republicans flipped four state House districts and won control of the chamber, despite a significant financial disadvantage against Democrats, who raised much more money.

“The narrative of, like, ‘We just have to outraise them and we'll win.’ Well, clearly, that didn't play out,” Coffia said. “That's where I'm saying, ‘How are we spending this money? Are we listening to the candidates who are actually in the trenches telling us how to how we should be spending it?’”

Coffia credited her reelection to her emphasis on a strong base of motivated volunteers and a campaign tailored to her constituents. While eschewing corporate PAC contributions, she was one of Democrats’ top fundraisers and used the cash to get her message out to voters.

“We needed the community to see itself and see who I am and the work I've done for them and will continue to do,” Coffia said.

Related: 

• Michigan House flips to Republicans: Here’s how they did it
• Once solidly red, northwest Michigan offers fighting chance for Democrats
• Tensions, absences threaten Democratic agenda in Michigan lame-duck Legislature

As the rest of the state shifted red in this month’s presidential election, the northwestern lower peninsula was the only region of the state that moved toward Democrats.

Coffia’s district includes Traverse City, Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas, along with a corner of Benzie County. After flipping the district by less than 800 votes in 2022, Coffia won by a slightly more comfortable margin this year, about 2,700 votes, even as her Republican opponent, Lisa Trombley, received more votes than President-elect Donald Trump in the district.

The shift was the culmination of a political realignment more than a decade in the making. As recently as 2008 Democrats represented the entire Upper Peninsula, but their political base has become largely concentrated near Michigan’s major cities and the suburbs surrounding them in lower Michigan.

Coffia spoke with Bridge about her own campaign, the difficulties she faced and where she thinks her party needs to head next. Here are some excerpts from that conversation: Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Bridge Michigan: Describe how you tailored your message to voters on the campaign trail?

Coffia: We made sure that the voters saw their community in our messaging, and they saw me as their candidate.

We kind of had to battle, frankly, some of the powers that be to control messaging, and I spent a significant amount of the money I raised on being able to control my own messaging so that it could be actually about the local community and about my story as a member of that community. 

It was surprising how much of a battle that had to be for narrative control. I think that that was really important and I know that that was not necessarily the approach that was taken in a lot of other marginal swing seats. 

I did not shy away from Dem values. I was very open with my voters, and they respect that I am a Democrat and that I voted for abortion access and gun safety and survived a recall over it (and) did just, just fine, right? LGBTQ rights expansion, climate action, workers rights — I'm a Democrat, and I never hid from that. 

There was a set of scripts that I realized existed when I got to Lansing where, as a marginal seat, I was supposed to be afraid to be fully a Democrat, and I just didn't, because I made a bet the voters actually respect honesty and courage.

What are the issues that resonated with voters?

It was about rural transportation equity for our schools, which is not a very sexy topic, but it resonated.

When I got to Lansing, in my first six months, my first standalone bill was to address equity for school districts, because my school district had opened with no bussing in a 400 square mile district, and we have a lot of those huge districts up here that have never gotten the kind of funding that they need, and that means money that should be going into the classroom … is instead going into the gas tank.

People do want to know that you get it and that you’re fighting like hell for them. They want to see receipts.

We have other marginal frontline districts that had projects similar to that, that were really responsive to their regions, like Jen Hill (a Marquette Democrat, who lost her reelection bid) with the prison guard issue. She really needed to be able to show results. And despite all best efforts, those things did not get prioritized.

Do you think Democrats did an adequate job of meeting voters where they’re at, in terms of issues?

We did over 40,000 doors. We listen to people and we talk to them and respect their lived experience.

This is where I diverge from what I would call, sort of the inside the bubble consultant class who thinks that because their portfolio is doing well, and they have some charts that show that the economy is great, that they can just inform people that they're doing better than what they're experiencing. 

When I knock on doors and talk to people in my area who can't afford a single-wide mobile home because prices are up to $1,500 a month in some of my mobile home parks, I don't try to tell them that the economy is doing fine and they're fine. I actually listen to them and I show them legislation that I'm working on that are addressing those very issues.

Being real with people, being respectful of who they are and that they work hard and they want a good life for their family goes a long way. This is where, again, I unfortunately had to battle with some of the powers that be in the political apparatus that makes decisions about (campaign) resources and messaging for frontline races.

You’ve talked a lot about your own working class background. Did Democrats spend these last two years working on policies that are responsive to the concerns of working class people in your district?

Think we did some important work, and there's significantly more we can and need to do to bring real relief in a state where 41% of families are paycheck-to-paycheck or at or below the poverty line. 

I think we should not overstate what we have done, because there are very serious trends that we need to be addressing in a systemic way, and that's harder. 

It doesn't make for flashy headlines, but (Democrats) haven't had a trifecta for 40 years, so it wouldn't be reasonable to say in two years we would fix where the systems have been either aggressively broken or just neglected. But there's a lot of work to do to elevate and lift people and make sure that Michiganders really can thrive.

I think we did some important work around the breakfast and lunch, my rural transportation win, some of the work on housing. 

We're just scratching the surface, and we have a lot more work to do, and it's just got that much harder, because we've now lost a majority to do it.

Michigan now has a Democratic legislative base that's concentrated around the largest cities in Michigan, mostly downstate. How can Democrats win back outstate Michiganders in rural areas?

You lose every fight you don't show up for.

(State Rep.) Joey Andrews (of St. Joseph), his entire region is rural, we've been doing similar things in our regions for years, building power at the local level, building the infrastructure, and we did it largely with the Democratic Party and the infrastructure of the state patting us on the head and saying, ‘That's cute, have fun kids,’ not really us taking seriously. But we've built really strong, localized, grassroots operations.

(After the 2016 election) we decided to recruit candidates to run for all seven seats on our county commission, none of which were held by Democrats, not a single one. 

We recruited seven people. We had a full slate for the first time ever, and two of us won. They talked me into running, and I flipped a seat from an incumbent, a Republican incumbent. So in 2018 we ran a slate of seven for the first time ever. We won two. We held them, and then in 2022, we ran a large slate and got three, and now we got four. It's the slow, long, patient build.

If you don't invest, you lose every battle you don't fight, and you have to be smart about it, yes, but support local parties, support local candidates that are actually putting in the work.

It is noteworthy that the new additions to the Democratic alliance that got us the trifecta (in 2022) came from Joey's district and mine, completely new to the Democratic ecosystem, our regions, and we're doing some things that are worth learning from.

That’s where I'm looking for. Not throwing stones, but let's be real about what's working and what isn't, and what can we learn from what's working? I'm waiting for those calls.