(CNN) President Donald Trump's trip Thursday to Michigan took on symbolic significance as he clashed with three female officials elected there in 2018's backlash over his first two years in office.
Four years after Trump stunned Hillary Clinton there in 2016, Michigan is again a key state against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
But while Trump is aiming to turn back the clock with attacks on the state's leadership, Democrats point to the 2018 victories of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as evidence of a suburban revolt against Trump that they expect to carry into the 2020 election.
How voters react to their clash could be central to the outcome in November in Michigan, which -- along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- could decide the presidential race.
In all three states, Democratic governors have clashed with Trump and Republicans in their states over when and how to reopen businesses that have been closed during the pandemic.
"I want to get our country back to normal. I want to normalize," Trump said Thursday as he left the White House for Michigan.
The battles focus on the larger question of governing competence, which was at the core of Whitmer's 2018 win by 9.5 percentage points with the slogan "fix the damn roads."
Michigan's coronavirus crisis, with more than 53,000 cases and 5,000 deaths, is being compounded by flooding in Central Michigan this week, which has displaced thousands. Questions about coronavirus, the economy, recovery from the floods and how states will conduct elections will continue to loom for months.
"Donald Trump once again showed us who he is -- threatening to pull federal funding and encouraging division. Michigan is in the fight of its life as it battles this pandemic and flooding disaster, and now more than ever, leadership and empathy matter," Biden said in a statement ahead of the President's Michigan trip Thursday.
Trump sparked an uproar in Michigan this week when he threatened to withhold federal funds from the state because, in a response to the pandemic, it sent absentee ballot applications for November's election to registered voters.
The President for years has spread lies about voter fraud in the US and has recently ratcheted up his attacks against mail-in ballots. He falsely insisted Wednesday that there is "tremendous fraud involved and tremendous illegality," even though Trump himself has voted by mail in Florida.
Whitmer, who spoke on the phone with Trump Wednesday, told CBS on Thursday: "Threatening to take money away from a state that is hurting as bad as we are right now is just scary, and I think something that is unacceptable."
Benson, the state's top elections official, has also lambasted Trump's comments about voter fraud, noting that Republican elections officials in states like Georgia, Iowa and Nevada have also made moves to expand mail in voting in their states.
"To me, it is also a reflection of what will be happening in our state in the months ahead, which is an effort to misinform and confuse voters about their rights in the state," Benson said on MSNBC Wednesday night. "We see it happening nationally, we've seen it happening in various different forms. We anticipate this is just going to escalate in the months ahead."
Trump has attacked also Whitmer, a first-term governor who is expected to be in consideration for the Democratic vice presidential nomination, in personal terms over her criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
This week, in addition to battling with Benson over mail-in ballots, Trump also faced criticism from Nessel ahead of his visit Thursday to a Ford production plant in Ypsilanti.
Nessel wrote Trump an open letter urging him to wear a mask during his visit, noting that state law requires one.
"If we've learned nothing over the last several years of President Trump in the White House, it's that he doesn't have the same level of legal accountability as everybody else," Nessel said Thursday on CNN. "Honestly, if he fails to wear a mask, he's going to be asked not to return to any enclosed facilities inside our state."
"I think we're going to take action against any company or any facility that allows him inside those facilities and puts our workers at risk," she added. "We simply can't afford it here in our state."
Asked earlier in the week whether he would wear a mask while touring the Ypsilanti factory, Trump said he hadn't considered it yet.
"I don't know. I haven't even thought of it," he said. "It depends. In certain areas I would, in certain areas I don't. But I will certainly look at it."
Trump did not wear a mask as he spoke with a group of African-American leaders before touring the plant, but did wear one during the tour, a source familiar with the matter said.