As Michigan returned to President-elect Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, Saginaw County did as well.
It was nothing new for the state’s ultimate swing county, where the presidential winner has received a majority of votes since 2008, when former President Barack Obama won his first election.
Saginaw County voters have been a better barometer for the state, voting for every Michigan winner since former President Bill Clinton in 1992.
This is because the region is “really a measuring stick for the kitchen table issues for mid-Michigan, and the state as a whole,” according to former Saginaw County Republican Party communications director Debra Ell. “Trump just happens to be here at the right time.”
Saginaw County, which has approximately 188,000 residents and is the 11th largest in the state, is regarded as a bellwether for the presidential election.
This year, major party candidates such as Trump, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, her running mate Tim Walz, and Vice President-elect JD Vance all paid visits to the area.
Trump won Saginaw County by roughly 3,400 votes, reversing Biden’s victory of 303 votes four years earlier. It was a larger victory for Trump than in 2016, when he won Saginaw County by 1,074 votes.
Overall, Trump won Michigan by 81,103 votes. He increased his vote share in much of the state, but Saginaw and Muskegon were the only counties he won.
Former President Ronald Reagan carried Saginaw County in a landslide during his successful 1984 reelection campaign, the only time a Republican did so before Trump’s victory in 2016.
Trump, like Reagan, is “very appealing to the common person who just wants their country back,” Ell said, noting that Trump was able to address voter concerns on subjects such as inflation and gas prices in a manner that Harris could not.
Saginaw was once one of Michigan’s more important industrial centers but has shrunk in stature and size.
The county, which includes more rural areas, is both poorer and less educated than the rest of the state. It has struggled with crime and economically. Its 5.5% unemployment rate in October was nearly a full percentage point higher than the state.
The city of Saginaw has shrunk in recent years. Its current population of 44,000 residents ranks 38th largest in the state. But it remains a hub for Black residents, who make up more than 45% of the local population, far exceeding the statewide rate of 14%.
Those residents also care about things like gas prices and grocery bills, said Brandell Adams, newly elected chair of the Saginaw County Democratic Party.
In a recent interview with Bridge Michigan, Adams described Saginaw County as “the most accurately reflective of the nation’s demographics of any of the Michigan counties” — which is why it didn’t surprise him when Trump won at the county, state and national level in November.
Though Democrats have done well at the local level (the party has a 6-5 advantage on the Saginaw County Commission), Adams believes Democrats struggled to share their goals and priorities with voters in a manner that Trump did not.
Inflation, crime, and border security remained neglected “up until probably the last month of the election cycle,” according to Adams, and even then “they really weren’t speaking to those issues.” In fact, maybe I’ll blow them off.”
It didn’t help that Harris declined to disassociate herself from the Biden administration when given the option, according to Adams. Instead, the party emphasized that electing Harris would be potentially historic owing to her gender and ethnic background.
That was premature, according to Adams, who lamented Democrats’ decision to “focus on identity politics” rather than confront rising living costs.
Ell, the former county Republican Party spokesperson, seems to agree, claiming that Democrats appeared to campaign on Harris’s lack of Trump-like qualities rather than her favorable qualities.
“When she was doing her rallies, she was quite negative. “Nobody wants to hear that,” Ell stated. “Let us appreciate the good things that still exist in America. “Let us make America great again.”
