Michigan voters will choose nominees on Tuesday in three races that could help determine control of Congress and the leadership of one of the nation’s most important swing states. The results may hinge on an electorate preoccupied with whether it can afford to live there: young adults.
“Young voters are increasingly becoming a sizable voting bloc in Michigan,” Marty P. Jordan, an assistant professor of political science and director of the Master of Public Policy Program at Michigan State University, tells Realtor.com®.
Michigan’s 7th Congressional District ranks first among all House races for young voters’ potential influence, according to Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE. The state’s U.S. Senate race ranks second nationally, while its gubernatorial contest ranks fourth.
Housing costs, meanwhile, reign as the top political issue among voters aged 18 to 34, ahead of even food costs and protecting democracy, according to CNBC’s latest All-America Economic Survey.
That will make Tuesday’s primary a useful test of whether candidates can effectively funnel young adult frustration into commanding voter turnout.
The result could carry national implications. Nearly 50 million Americans aged 18 to 29 will be eligible to vote in the 2026 midterms, including more than 8 million who became eligible after the 2024 election.
“The question now is how this generation will respond in the upcoming August primary and November general election,” Jordan says. “All indicators point to another high-turnout year for young voters.”
Housing could decide where Michigan’s youth vote lands
Young voters may have unusual leverage in Michigan, but neither party can take their support for granted.
“While this demographic traditionally leans Democratic, the 2024 election challenged that norm, splitting their votes nearly 50-50 as voters expressed concerns over affordability, inflation, and foreign conflicts,” Jordan says. “President [Donald] Trump and Republicans won over many of these younger voters by promising to reverse those trends, but those pressures still exist today.”
The housing gap provides an easy measure of how little those pressures have eased. The country ended 2025 short 4.03 million homes—a gap that has pushed out an estimated 1.82 million Gen Z and millennials from forming their own households, according to research from Realtor.com.
That same year, a record 25.2 million adults under 35 lived with their parents—roughly 1 in 3. Among those aged 25 to 34 who remained at home, approximately 70% were employed, suggesting that having a job alone was not the barrier to independence.
The federal response has also complicated either party’s claim to the issue. On July 11, the landmark 21st Century Road to Housing Act—described by lawmakers in both parties as the most significant federal housing package in decades—became law after Trump declined to sign it.
Michigan’s comparatively low home prices haven’t insulated the state, either.
“Housing affordability is definitely a key concern for voters heading into this election cycle,” Jordan says. “A recent convenience-sample survey revealed that Michiganders, especially in Northern Michigan, identify affordable housing as the top issue.”
The state’s median home listing price was $290,329 in 2025—well below the national median of approximately $430,000, but still more than four times Michigan’s median household income of $70,131.
What affordable properties the state does offer, investors have snapped up.
Although investors accounted for a relatively modest 7.7% of Michigan purchases in the second quarter of 2025, the typical investor-bought home cost $118,000—53.1% below the state’s overall median purchase price and the widest such gap in the country.
And while investors are in direct competition for the lower-priced homes most likely to serve as entry points for younger buyers, the state remains in a structural shortage with little momentum toward closing it.
Local housing officials estimate Michigan needs 119,000 additional units. Yet the state accounted for only 1.64% of residential units permitted nationwide in 2025 despite having 2.96% of the country’s population.
Newly built homes also carried an 89.1% premium over existing listings, helping earn Michigan a C grade in the Realtor.com 2026 Housing Affordability and Homebuilding Report Card.
“Our state’s housing stock is older and in decline, while new developments tend to cater to more affluent families and areas,” Jordan says. “As a result, available housing is hard to come by, squeezing young people just starting out in their careers.”
For young voters, those pressures have reduced a sprawling and existential debate about the state of the country’s economy into one clear question: Can I afford to live here?
Housing takes center stage in 7th Congressional District
How voters answer that question is playing out most directly in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, where one candidate is making an explicit bet that housing can move young voters from concern to political action.
“We are seeing this issue take center stage in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, where the founder of the Mid-Michigan Tenant Resource Center, Will Lawrence, is attracting young voters against more established candidates like former Ambassador Bridget Brink and former U.S. Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam,” Jordan says.
The Lansing-area district includes Michigan State University and other colleges, more than 22% of its population is under 30, and it changed party control in both 2022 and 2024.
Lawrence has made housing part of his political identity rather than one element of a broader affordability platform.
“I’m also going to fight for good-quality, affordable housing for everybody,” Lawrence told Michigan Public in July.
His campaign website is even more direct: “The rent is too damn high! So is the cost of a mortgage. If you aren’t personally dealing with high housing costs, your kids probably are.”
The message is designed to reach across the housing divide—connecting current renters, aspiring buyers, and parents watching their adult children struggle to establish households of their own.
Maasdam, meanwhile, has placed housing within a wider cost-of-living argument.
“Everything is getting more expensive, whether it’s housing or healthcare or energy or gas or groceries. It’s all going up,” he told Michigan Public. His campaign supports reducing regulatory barriers to new construction.
Brink has also emphasized lowering household costs, but her publicly available agenda offers less detail on housing than those of her opponents.
Gubernatorial and Senate races test housing message to reach young voters
In the closely watched Democratic Senate primary, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed frames housing as a basic necessity constrained by inadequate construction, corporate power, and public policy choices.
“I believe you deserve a home. Too many Americans are priced out of the most basic necessity of shelter,” El-Sayed said in a recorded campaign message released in late July.
“I believe we need a building boom,” he continued. “And to make that happen, we need to massively invest in building new housing in communities across the state, and to stand up against all of those unfair regulations that are making it way too hard to build affordable housing in America.”
Rep. Haley Stevens has focused more narrowly on helping prospective buyers overcome the upfront cost of homeownership.
“For too many Michiganders, the American dream of owning a home is slipping away,” Stevens said while introducing the Homeownership Savings Act, which would allow first-time buyers to save as much as $40,000 in tax-advantaged accounts for down payments and closing costs.
The governor’s race presents a similar range of approaches, but with sharper urgency. Unlike members of Congress, Michigan’s governor can influence the state housing agency, budget priorities, financing programs, and administrative policies—direct levers for turning campaign promises into policy.
Democratic voters are choosing between Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson. On the Republican side, Rep. John James faces businessman Perry Johnson.
“Making a home affordable is the job of the next governor,” Benson said while releasing an agenda that includes faster permitting, expanded housing production, homebuyer assistance, and renter protections.
Swanson, meanwhile, has placed greater emphasis on rental affordability and housing stability.
“Every Michigander should have access to safe, healthy, and affordable housing,” Swanson wrote in response to questions from Bridge Michigan. “Strengthening tenant rights, ensuring fair rental costs, fighting exclusionary zoning, and investment in union trades to combat our housing shortage will all be priorities on day one in office.”
The Republican candidates place greater emphasis on government-imposed costs. James has called for faster permitting and land use changes that would “build housing near jobs so Michigan families can live where they work.”
Johnson argues that “housing affordability ultimately comes down to affordability itself,” connecting homeownership to his proposals to eliminate Michigan’s income tax and reduce construction regulations.
Those messages offer young voters competing diagnoses: too little housing, too much corporate power, an unattainable down payment, weak renter protections, burdensome regulation, or insufficient take-home pay.
Whatever platform pulls ahead, this won’t be the last we hear of housing throughout these midterm elections.
“This issue will likely remain a top concern for young voters and much of the electorate leading into the November general election,” Jordan says.
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