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

by Brooke Seipel - 11/11/16 10:59 AM ET

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) says she sounded alarms about Hillary Clinton’s chances in Michigan only to be ignored by party leaders.

{mosads}”I predicted that Hillary Clinton was in trouble in Michigan during the Democratic primary. I observed that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination for president,” Dingell wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Thursday.

Dingell represents Michigan’s 12th District, which includes Detroit’s western suburbs to Ann Arbor — areas that largely vote Democratic. President-elect Donald Trump won Macomb county, part of Dingell’s district, by almost 10 points in Tuesday’s election.

“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.”

But, Dingell said, the reaction she got from Democrats was: “That’s Debbie, it’s hyperbole, she is nuts.”

She slammed Clinton for not reaching out enough to Michigan’s blue-collar workers.

“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.

Obama and Clinton missed this, Dingell said.

“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.”

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