Bellwether County Michigan in the spotlight as parties battle for votes

SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Lillian Bandy is the kind of voter both parties would like to have on their side. And any of them still can.

Bandy, 60, is truant in the Saginaw public school system, a Democratic stronghold that is home to outgoing Republican Dan Kildee. She’ll likely vote for the Democrat vying to succeed Kildee in the 8th Congressional District, state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet said, citing ads she’s seen about “millionaire” GOP opponent Paul Junge.

Problem for Democrats: Bandy, who is black, is not a regular voter.

She is undecided on the Senate race between Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin and former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers. She voted for former President Donald Trump four years ago and may do so again, although she was discouraged by his actions before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“If you lose, lose gracefully,” Bandy said in an interview outside a home goods store north of the city. “To do what he did, if he did it, I know he was a part of it.”

But Vice President Kamala Harris was unable to convince disaffected Trump voters. Bandy said Democrats have focused too much on LGBTQ rights and not enough on wallet issues.

“We can’t even get good health care, and yet we give (taxpayer dollars) to people who want gender reassignment?” she said.

Bandy also disagreed with Harris’ recent remark that she It didn’t occur to her that she would do otherwise than President Joe Biden, including on inflation.

“Why haven’t you lowered food prices?” Bandy said. “I know her hands were tied when she made many important decisions, but she never spoke up.”

Saginaw is perhaps the most contested county in one of the tightest swing states heading into Election Day. If Harris fails to replicate Biden’s narrow 2020 victory here, her chances of winning will diminish significantly. That’s why Harris was in Hemlock, Michigan, on Monday touting a grant for semiconductor production granted under the 2022 bill signed by Biden.

Harris is still considered likely to dominate the black vote in Michigan and across the country. But Trump’s strength compared to past GOP results, which some attribute to culture war arguments, is troubling for Democrats.

A 70-year-old black man who gave only his first name, speaking outside a Lowe’s at another mall north of the city, provides some evidence of that.

While “Louis” won’t be voting for Trump, he would rather wait out this election than vote for Democrats like he has always done in the past. He cited Harris’s stance on “gay marriage and stuff like that” as the reason he won’t support the vice president.

Louis has seen the same TV ads as Bandy about Harris supporting gender-affirming surgery for prisoners, and like Bandy, he doesn’t like it. In these ads, Harris “talks about giving gays money to change their gender in prison and the like. I’m completely against it,” Louis said. “It’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Media fact checkers do he noticed the policy is required under federal law as interpreted by the courts, something even the Trump administration has acknowledged. However, ads for transgender prisoners clearly reach a certain group of voters, which is not good news for Harris.

Up for grabs

Saginaw County follows recent voting patterns. The City of Saginaw Votes Democratic; less populated areas continue to vote Republican; and suburbs like Saginaw Township, where Bandy was shopping Monday, are up for grabs.

(Central Michigan plays a key role in the election)

It wasn’t always this way: Trump changed the game in an area that had historically been part of the Democrats’ famous “blue wall.” In 2016, he defeated Hillary Clinton in Saginaw County by 1.2 points and narrowly won the state; Biden reversed that result in 2020 with a narrow 0.3% lead in Saginaw County. It was the worst in a Michigan county four years ago and the second-worst eight years ago.

There was more nuance in the opposing vote. House Democrats — mainly Kildee, a veteran lawmaker with a recognizable name whose uncle Dale also represented the area — outperformed Clinton in Saginaw County and underperformed Biden four years ago.

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan did better than Biden in 2020, while Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Kildee — who was running against Junge at the time — easily won the county two years ago when a constitutional amendment providing for right to abortion.

In Michigan, abortion policy continues to be a motivating factor, especially among Harris supporters, who said they blame Trump’s Supreme Court nominees for overturning Roe v. Wade and support passing a federal law allowing abortion in every state.

Julie Gittins, 65, said her biggest problem was “choice”. The Saginaw Township resident voted for Biden four years ago and this time he had the regular Democratic ticket.

Cultural issues drive both sides. Harris’s supporters identified LGBTQ and women’s rights, as well as threats to democracy, as their main concerns.

Kristine Sparks, 47, a Harris voter who lives in Saginaw, said she voted for Trump in 2016 and was disappointed. “I really wanted the change he was promoting.” Instead, all he did was “divide the country,” she said.

Sparks, who works in customer service at Dow Inc., said she changed her party affiliation from Republicans to Democrats in recent years because of LGBTQ and women’s rights.

Becky Anaman, a former supporter of Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, is delighted with Harris, calling her “amazing.”

What about Trump? “He’s a convicted felon,” said the Saginaw Township resident who retired from retail. “He’s lying. I think he can handle himself. He wants to stay out of prison, that’s obvious.”

“All Down”

Interviews with more than two dozen voters from Saginaw’s northern suburbs reveal why the county is changing so much. Neither side had a clear advantage among residents interviewed for this report, although a trend emerged for voters to have less information about the House and Senate elections and focus primarily on the presidential elections.

Although Sparks clearly remembered her vote for Harris, she needed a little hint to remember the name of Slotkin, whom she voted for for the Senate. As for the House race, however, Sparks didn’t remember his name. “I’m pretty sure it was a Democrat,” she said.

Quite the opposite is the case with Joanne McCallum, a retired teacher in her 80s who continues to substitute teach. “I have completely gone over to the Republican side,” she said. McCallum previously voted for Trump because of his stance on abortion and her belief that Democrats have “abandoned the middle class.”

Brian Brown, 56, who drives a Zamboni to clean the ice at hockey games, said he will vote Republican because it is a “bad versus good” issue.

“We can’t take another four years of all this negativity and this economy that has collapsed because of the Democrats and their way of thinking,” said Brown, a resident of Bridgeport, Michigan, southeast of the city of Saginaw.

Adam Coggan, a 56-year-old former Marine sniper, voted prematurely for Trump, arguing that he “has done better for our country than Biden ever could.” He also cited the current president’s sloppy withdrawal from Afghanistan as a reason to oppose his would-be Democratic successor as commander-in-chief.

“We can’t keep going like this,” added Lisa Young, 55, a registered nurse who works at a surgery center in Saginaw Township. “I’m just worried about my grandson’s development. They don’t know what gender they are. They don’t know which bathroom to use anymore. It’s just getting crazy out there.

Young, who traveled earlier to vote for Trump, also supported the former president in 2016 and 2020. She lives in neighboring Tuscola County, which is more Republican, but on Tuesday she was shopping at a Party City store just across the county line.

“When (Trump) took office, my salary went much higher and the borders were secure,” Young said. “I just feel like we were a lot safer. And I think foreign countries respected him much more than the current president.

“Common sense” approach vs. “participation”

Jacob Hyde, a college student from Birch Run, south of Saginaw, was shopping at Cabela’s in the northern suburbs on Monday. Hyde said the border and rising prices are big problems for him. “I am a student; sometimes it’s hard to buy groceries,” he said.

Hyde said he couldn’t vote for Harris, but he didn’t like Trump’s personality – even though he agreed with many of his policies – and might instead cast a protest vote for Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver.

Ed Ken, a chemical engineer who immigrated from East Africa, likes some of Trump’s policies, such as his “common sense” approach to regulation. However, he strongly supports Harris and other Democrats on the “participation” issue.

“We need a leader who will demonstrate dignity in this position,” said the 30-year-old Saginaw resident. Ken also objects to what he says is Trump’s badmouthing of immigrants.

“We actually contribute a lot to this country, we make it innovative, we make it stronger, not weaken it (through) innovation, and we make sure the United States continues to lead the world in every field,” Ken said.

A retired Saginaw Township arborist, who, like Louis, would only give his first name, sums up the type of persuadable centrist voter on whom this election will depend.

“Dan” said he will likely vote for Harris and the other Democrats on the ticket, although he has doubts about “how to pay for these things” Harris has proposed.

“I think we have too many giveaway programs and people who don’t want to go out and work,” he said.