We examine the role of manufacturing in presidential primary and general elections from 2000 throurgh 2016. We use a multi-method approach including county level data from the 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections and micro level data from those same elections using the Cooperative Congressional Election Studies (CCES). We find strong evidence in the macro level data that a decline in the manufacturing sector had a significant positive effect on support for Trump in the general election, support for Sanders in the primary, and support for then Senator Obama in the 2008 primary. We include in our models alternative economic explanations including change in unemployement and change in median income as well as standard controls for education, age and ethnicity. We corroborate the robustness of these findings with individual level vote choice analyses of data from the CCES, which finds consistent evidence for micro level economic voting as well. We discuss the implications for understanding the effects of the economy on vote choice, and how elite rhetoric and voter sensitivity to the local economic environment influences vote decisions.