SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Lillian Bandy is the kind of voter both parties would love to have in their corner. And they each still might.
Bandy, 60, is a truant officer for the city of Saginaw’s public school system in a Democratic stronghold that’s the seat of outgoing Rep. Dan Kildee’s power base. She’s likely to vote for the Democrat vying to succeed Kildee in the 8th Congressional District, state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet, citing commercials she’s seen about Rivet’s “millionaire” GOP opponent, Paul Junge.
The problem for Democrats: Bandy, who is Black, is no straight-ticket voter.
She’s undecided about the Senate race between Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin and former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers. She cast her ballot for former President Donald Trump four years ago and may do so again, though she’s turned off by his actions ahead of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
“If you lose, lose gracefully,” Bandy said in an interview outside of 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 hasn’t been able to win over this disaffected Trump voter. Bandy said Democrats have focused too much on LGBTQ rights and not enough on pocketbook issues.
“We can’t even get good health care and we’re giving [taxpayer dollars] for people who want sex changes?” she said.
Bandy also took issue with Harris’ recent comment that she couldn’t think of anything she’d do differently than President Joe Biden, including on inflation.
“Why didn’t you lower the food prices?” Bandy said. “I know her hands were tied as far as making a lot of big decisions, but she never spoke up.”
Saginaw is perhaps the most closely contested county in one of the tightest swing states headed into Election Day. If Harris can’t replicate Biden’s narrow 2020 victory here, her odds of winning are greatly diminished. That’s why Harris was in Hemlock, Mich., on Monday touting a semiconductor manufacturing grant awarded under a 2022 law Biden signed.
Harris is still considered likely to dominate the Black vote in Michigan and nationally. But Trump’s strength relative to past GOP performance, which some attribute to culture-war arguments, is worrisome to Democrats.
A 70-year-old Black man who would only give his first name, speaking outside of a Lowe’s in another shopping center north of the city, provides some evidence of this.
While “Louis” won’t vote for Trump, he’s sitting out this election rather than vote Democratic as he always has in the past. He cited Harris’ stances on “gay marriage and stuff like that” as a reason he won’t back the vice president.
Louis has seen the same television ads that Bandy has about Harris supporting gender-affirming surgeries for prisoners, and like Bandy, he doesn’t like it. In those commercials Harris “talks about having money for the gays to have sex change in prison and stuff like that. I’m totally against that,” Louis said. “That’s a waste of taxpayer money.”
Media fact-checkers have pointed out this policy is required under federal law as interpreted by the courts, which even the Trump administration acknowledged. But the transgender prisoner ads are clearly breaking through with a certain cohort of voters, which isn’t great news for Harris.
Up for grabs
Saginaw County follows familiar recent voting patterns. The city of Saginaw votes Democratic; the less-populated areas further out vote Republican; and suburbs like Saginaw Township, where Bandy was shopping on Monday, are up for grabs.
[Central Michigan gets central role in elections]
It wasn’t always this way: Trump changed the game in an area that had been part of Democrats’ famed “blue wall” in the past. He toppled Hillary Clinton by 1.2 points in Saginaw County in 2016 en route to winning the state by a nose; Biden reversed that outcome in 2020 aided by a tiny 0.3 percent margin in Saginaw County. It was the tightest Michigan county result four years ago and the second-narrowest eight years ago.
Down ballot, there’s been more nuance. House Democrats — mostly Kildee, a veteran lawmaker with name recognition whose uncle, Dale, also represented the area — outperformed Clinton in Saginaw County, and underperformed Biden four years ago.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., did better than Biden in 2020, while Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as well as Kildee — who was taking on Junge at the time — handily won the county two years ago, when a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights was also on the ballot.
In Michigan abortion policy is still a motivator, especially among Harris supporters, who said they fault the Trump Supreme Court appointees who overturned Roe v. Wade and support enactment of a federal law allowing abortion in every state.
Julie Gittins, 65, said her top issue is “choice.” The Saginaw Township resident voted for Biden four years ago and a straight Democratic ticket this time.
Cultural issues are driving both sides. Harris supporters identified LGBTQ and women’s rights, as well as threats to democracy, as top concerns.
Kristine Sparks, 47, a Harris voter who lives in the city of Saginaw, said she voted for Trump in 2016 and was disappointed. “I really wanted that change that he was promoting.” But instead all he did was “divide the country,” she said.
Sparks, who works in customer service at Dow Inc., said she has shifted her party allegiance from Republican to Democrat in recent years over LGBTQ and women’s rights.
Becky Anaman, a past supporter of Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, is thrilled with Harris, calling her “amazing.”
As for Trump? “He’s a convicted felon,” the Saginaw Township resident, who’s retired from retail sales, said. “He lies. I think he’s all out for himself. He wants to stay out of jail, that’s obvious.”
‘All the way down’
Interviews with more than two dozen voters in Saginaw’s northern suburbs revealed why the county swings back and forth so much. Neither party had a decided advantage among residents interviewed for this report, though one trend that emerged is voters had less information about the House and Senate races and were focused mainly on the presidential contest.
While Sparks clearly recalled her vote for Harris, she needed a little prompting to remember Slotkin’s name, whom she voted for Senate. As for the House race, Sparks couldn’t recall a name though “I’m pretty sure it was the Democrat,” she said.
The opposite is true for Joanne McCallum, a retired teacher in her 80s who still does some substitute teaching. “I went Republican all the way down,” she said. McCallum voted early for Trump because of his positions on abortion and her belief that Democrats “abandoned the middle class.”
Brian Brown, 56, who drives a Zamboni to clean the ice during hockey games, said he will vote straight Republican because it’s a matter of “evil vs. good.”
“We can’t do another four years of all this negative influence and this economy that’s gone to the tubes because of Democrats and how they’re thinking,” said Brown, a resident of Bridgeport, Mich., southeast of Saginaw city.
Adam Coggan, a 56-year-old former Marine Corps sniper, voted early for Trump, arguing “he did better for our country than Biden ever did.” He also cited the current president’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan as a reason to oppose his would-be Democratic successor as commander-in-chief.
“We can’t keep going on the way we are,” added Lisa Young, 55, a registered nurse who works at a surgical center in Saginaw Township. “I just fear for my grandchild the way it’s going. They don’t know what sex they are. They don’t know what bathroom to use anymore. It’s just getting crazy out there.”
Young, who was on her way to vote early for Trump, also backed the former president in 2016 and 2020. She lives in neighboring Tuscola County, which is more heavily Republican, but was shopping at a Party City store on Tuesday just over the county line.
“When [Trump] was in, my paycheck went a lot further and the borders were secure,” Young said. “I just feel we were much safer. And I think the foreign countries respected him much more than they do the current president.”
‘Commonsense’ approach vs. ‘civility’
Jacob Hyde, a college student from Birch Run, which is south of Saginaw, was shopping at a Cabela’s in the northern suburbs on Monday. Hyde said the border and rising prices are big problems for him. “I’m a college student; it’s hard to buy groceries at times,” he said.
Hyde said he can’t vote for Harris, but he doesn’t like Trump’s personality – even as he agrees with many of Trump’s policies — and may instead cast a protest vote for Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver.
Ed Ken, a chemical engineer who immigrated from East Africa, likes some Trump policies such as his “commonsense” approach to regulation. But he is solidly behind Harris and other Democrats on the ticket over the issue of “civility.”
“We need a leader that shows dignity in that office,” said the Saginaw Township resident, in his late 30s. Ken also objects to what he said is Trump’s badmouthing of immigrants.
“We actually contribute a lot to this country, make it innovative, we make it stronger, not weaken it, [through] innovations and making sure the U.S. continues to lead the world in every field,” Ken said.
A retired arborist from Saginaw Township, who like Louis would only give his first name, sums up the type of persuadable centrist voter this election will hinge on.
“Dan” said he’s likely to vote for Harris and other Democrats on the ticket even though he has concerns about “how do you pay for these things” that Harris has proposed.
“I think we have too many giveaway programs and people not willing to go out and work,” he said.
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