LANSING – House Minority Leader Tim Greimel said Wednesday that Democrats need to spend some time analyzing why their message and presidential candidate in 2016 failed to resonate with a large amount of voters during Tuesday’s election.

Michigan and the rest of the country saw a significant wave for Republicans led by President-elect Donald Trump, who defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in Michigan and other states what were thought to be part of a “blue wall.”

Greimel (D-Auburn Hills) and House Democrats were taken down by that wave in Michigan. Virtually every seat that was expected to be highly competitive came out for the Republicans with larger than expected margins. The 23rd House District Downriver was the exception, and the Democrats were able to win a close race there.

However, Rep. Bill LaVoy (D-Monroe) lost his re-election bid in an upset, so the Democrats broke even and the Republicans kept the 63-47 majority they won in 2014 for the 2017-18 term.

“Obviously there was a huge Republican tidal wave across the country driven largely by the dynamics in the presidential race,” Greimel told reporters Wednesday. “And Donald Trump did extraordinarily well among white voters and virtually every single one of our targeted House seats has an overwhelmingly large white population.”

Greimel said the Democratic message this election cycle was that as the economy improves, it should be working for everyone, not just those at the top. He said he believes the message speaks to the most important issues of recent years, which includes making sure the middle class grows.

“I think Democrats on all levels need to do a lot of introspection to determine why we are not connecting with a sizeable amount of the electorate,” he said.

He also said he believes the Michigan Democratic Party and its chair Brandon Dillon did a great job and everything they could have done leading into the elections.

“I think the broader questions for Democrats are, what is it about the Democratic brand, what is it about the Democratic presidential candidate this election cycle that is failing to connect with large numbers of voters?” Greimel said.

House Speaker Kevin Cotter (R-Mount Pleasant) said Republicans had a better night than expected, and part of that is because of President-elect Donald Trump receiving cross-over support and support from voters who had never participated in elections before 2016.

“I think it was just that desire for change. For a political outsider,” Cotter said. “I think too what ultimately caused the margins we were seeing, we saw huge margins in the 99th District, the 71st District, so many of the places we expected to be very, very competitive. But in the end we saw a decent margin there. I think what a lot of that was and I was hoping this was going to be possible, the polling used did not poll all the people who were going to vote.”

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