Dingell: Dems didn’t listen when I said Clinton was in trouble in Mich.

In a “Washington Post” Op-Ed column Friday, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said she knew as early as March that Clinton would have trouble winning Michigan in the election.

“I predicted that Hillary Clinton was in trouble in Michigan during the Democratic primary,” she wrote. “I observed that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination for president.”

Dingell represents Michigan’s 12 District, an area that constitutes Detroit’s western suburbs to Ann Arbor — areas that largely vote democratic. On Tuesday, Trump won Maccomb county, part of Dingell’s district, by almost 10 points. 

“Much of the district is Democratic and those voters strongly supported Bernie Sanders in the primary,” Dingell wrote. “From the beginning, I knew the Downrivers would support Trump both in the Republican primary and in the general. I witness the emotions and passions of their residents every day, and I believe they are what elected Trump president.”

Dingell went on to explain that Clinton didn’t reach out enough in Michigan and by the end of the primaries, had lost many of her constituents’ votes, especially those of the blue collar worker. 

“Many of these workers don’t translate what (President Obama) has done to them. They don’t feel better off. Their real wages have not risen in decades, and in fact for many it has dropped. They have less purchasing power; their health insurance costs more; they don’t trust their pensions to be there; and because we are a cyclical industry, they are frightened that something bad could happen at any time,” she wrote. “Add to that, trade deals that they view as shipping jobs overseas and threatening the ones they have here. Top it off with fear about national security and potential threats at workplaces or movie theaters and you have workers who are scared, worried and concerned in their hearts and souls.”

Obama and Clinton, she writes, missed this. 

“One of the biggest challenges we face as a country, not just as a party, is how to make our diversity a strength, not a weakness. We have to come together as Americans first and foremost. After this campaign, that is no easy feat.”