Democrats' path to the White House runs through places like Michigan's Macomb County, where a Republican mayor has ditched Donald Trump for Joe Biden
STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. - Michael Taylor grew up Republican with parents who always have voted Republican and still do.
In college, he took pleasure in drawing the wrath of liberal students while writing a conservative column for his campus newspaper. He later became a tea party darling in his Detroit suburb for fighting a local tax increase during the height of the Great Recession. And in 2016, he dutifully cast his ballot for Republican Donald Trump.
But on Tuesday, Taylor will do something he said he's never done before - vote for a Democrat.
"I think Joe Biden is the candidate who can unify all of the Democrats, and he's the candidate who can appeal to moderates and Republicans like me who don't want to see four more years of President Trump," he said.
Taylor, however, isn't just an average suburban GOP voter turned off by what he called Trump's "deranged" presidency - he's the mayor of Sterling Heights, Michigan's fourth largest city.
His conservative-leaning, working-class suburb is in Macomb County, the epicenter of where blue-collar voters in the industrial Midwest delivered the presidency to Trump in 2016 after twice voting for Barack Obama.
If Democrats are to win the White House in November, political strategists widely agree a big part of the strategy will be reclaiming areas such as Macomb in the crucial swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
