Today, six weeks in Saginaw, the most closely divided county in one of the most closely divided swing states in the American presidential election.
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Saginaw is a small post-industrial town in the middle of Michigan.If you recognise the name, it might be because it made it into a couple of songs back in the 1960s. But now, the folk singers are gone.
And so have most of the factories and many of the jobs that went with them.It's a place that doesn't often make the news at all.Except for once every four years.When the circus comes to town.
When we understand who we are as a nation, we take great pride in being a leader on so many things.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump know how important the voters in this state are.For both of them, the clearest path to victory in next Tuesday's election is if they can win in Michigan, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
All of which, for Guardian writer Chris McGreal, made Saginaw the perfect place to base himself in the lead-up to November 5th.
I chose Saginaw because Michigan's a crucial swing state.Whoever wins Michigan may well win the election.And I wanted to find somewhere inside Michigan that was representative of the narrowness of the vote.
For six weeks, Chris has been living in and reporting on Saginaw, getting to know people in the community there and trying to understand what could be about to happen when Americans go to the polls.
Because if past elections are any guide, as goes Saginaw, so goes the entire country.From The Guardian, I'm Michael Safi.Today in Focus, looking for America in the bellwether town of Saginaw, Michigan.
Chris, the first thing you did after arriving in Saginaw was you got in a car and you drove right across the county, trying to take it all in.Take me with you on that drive.What were you seeing out your window?
So we began in the east and headed west. and I should lay out the county a little bit for you because you have Saginaw City which used to be the main city and next door to it you have Saginaw Township.So we began in Saginaw City and
A couple of decades or more ago, that was mostly a black neighborhood, black and Latino neighborhood of Saginaw City.And when you drive through that now, you see a mini Detroit.In other words, you can see the decline that's happened over the years.
And the result of that is that you have lots of abandoned houses, some burned out houses, and many lots where houses used to stand, which are now just grass.
Some streets, the houses that still exist, are like the remaining teeth in a mouth that's lost most of its teeth, just sitting there all on its own.
And the other thing you see is the place where factories used to stand, and that's, of course, the cause of the decline of Saguenod.
Once you get out of Saginaw and you head west, you get the area that has gone from being mostly white to more mixed, black, white, Latino.And then you head into Saginaw Township, which despite its name is really just another city.
And that is almost exclusively white.And what you see is that large numbers of people that decamped from the city moved into the township, white people, partly because of the changing demographics of work. And you can see the money instantly.
The average income is about 50% higher in Saginaw Township, or maybe more than it is in Saginaw.The houses are newer, more expansive, bigger gardens, and you can see the prosperity.
And one of the distinctions I noticed was you go from seeing a lot more Harris signs to a lot more Trump signs when you make that transition. Driving from east to west through Saginaw County, it's a little America.
You can see a lot of America's diversity there.You've got big black community, prosperous white communities, there's Latinos, there's a small Arab American population.You do see all of America in this one county.
Chris, Saginaw is the heart of Michigan's Rust Belt, a place that was once prosperous and has since faded away.What happened to Saginaw?How did it go into decline?
The decline was gradual, really, but it was pushed along essentially by something called NAFTA, which is the North American Free Trade Agreement.
NAFTA will expand our exports, create new jobs, and help us reassert America's leadership in the global economy.
which came in the 1990s under Bill Clinton's presidency, although it was actually written by Republicans.
This agreement is in the deep self-interest of the United States.It will help make working Americans, the world's most productive workers, winners in the world economy.
It was billed as, this will be good for the United States because it will create more trade.But in effect, it meant that big corporations could, particularly manufacturers, could use cheaper labor in Mexico.
Until the 70s, there were about a dozen General Motors factories alone around Saganor.They employed around 40,000 people in a city of about 80,000.So you can imagine how much employment there was in this county from those factories.
And they provided a very good living for people.And I think the loss of those was devastating.
General Motors announced today plans to stop production at three North American assembly plants and two other facilities.It's all part of a restructuring plan estimated to cost more than 14,000 jobs in the coming months.
I felt like somebody kicked me in the stomach.I've been working here for a long time.
That's the core of it, but you see a broader change in any way of the American economy through the 80s and 90s.
The rise of the Rust Belt states, the loss of steel works, traditional American manufacturing collapsed in those years, and Saganor felt that very acutely.
And we begin with breaking news that a manufacturing plant in Saginaw County is closing its doors.
that has been a victim of economic changes that have spanned Republican administrations,
So if you go back to 2008, when Obama won, he took 58% of the vote.This is across the county.So that was a big victory over John McCain.Four years later, he takes 54,000 votes to Mitt Romney's 42,000 votes.So still a very substantial victory.
And then it changes, as it did in so many places in 2016, when Trump runs.And Trump beats Clinton, Hillary Clinton, by just about 1% of the vote.About 1,000 or so, 1,050 votes.
So it's a really close race, but it's a complete reversal of what you've seen before.And then in 2020, it's even closer.
Joe Biden beats Trump by just 303 votes. 303 votes in a county of 100,000 voters.Given how important this place is, given how close those margins are, what kind of attention has it been getting from the different presidential campaigns?
So Michigan is really one of those states that particularly Harris must win.Her easiest path to victory is to put together the three Rust Belt swing states, which are Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
She gets those, provided she doesn't lose any of the well-established Democratic states, then she's in the White House.If she loses one of them, including Michigan, then her path to victory is a lot more difficult.
So both Harris, or particularly Harris, actually, and Trump, have been pouring lots of effort and resources.Harris has visited Michigan a lot.
We fight for a future where every worker has the freedom to join a union.
Vice presidential candidate Walsh came.We'll win this thing, but we'll win it with the hard work.As I was saying, their voters are going to show up.We need to get our voters to the polls.We have the resources.
Bernie Sanders was in town.
I think that Kamala Harris's record is one that stands up for the working class of this country.
Trump was in town.He had a rally up at the university, which is about 15 minutes drive from here.
So you have to tell Lion Kamala that we've had enough, Kamala.We can't take you anymore.We're not going to stand for it anymore.Kamala, you're fired.Get out.
So Saginaw is an important stop off for both campaigns.In the end, they need to keep their supporters motivated.
This is a key part of it, is these rallies are aimed at make sure you get out to vote, make sure you get your family members out to vote, get your friends out to vote.
Get a ballot.Just go and vote.You got to vote.We got to win this election.Our country is being destroyed by this lunatic.
You know, don't just let this election pass by.It's absolutely crucial.
And what kinds of messages do you hear from the surrogates, from the candidates when they go to Saginaw?What's their pitch to people?
Well, it depends who they're talking to. So, there's still a reasonably big union population around here.
One of the things that most worries the Harris campaign and which helped cost Hillary Clinton the election in 2016 is lots of union workers who had traditionally voted Democrat went over to Trump.
And the Harris campaign is focused in part on trying to persuade them that Biden has been good for them and they really need to vote Democratic to protect those gains.
Around here, for instance, with the decline of the factories, what you see is that Biden's administration has put money through a couple of things, big billion dollar programs or multi-billion dollar, trillion dollar programs.
into investments in new factories.So we've got a couple of factories around here, one of which makes microchips, another which is being constructed that will be a silicon factory.They are providing a lot of jobs, well-paid jobs.
So the message to these workers is, look, you may have gone off the Democrats over the years, but Trump made promises in 2016 he was going to bring back the factories.He didn't.Biden's doing that.You really should be voting Democrat.
Yeah, and in fact, Kamala Harris made that very argument in a visit to a semiconductor factory in Saginaw earlier this week.
Donald Trump just recently talked about how he would get rid of chips.
The number of jobs for the painters union members, building trade members writ large, what we did with the Inflation Reduction Act, the jobs we've created there, all of that is at stake.
Chris, one of the things you're trying to do in Saginaw is to understand how these messages are resonating with blue-collar voters, this group that, as you say, cost Hillary Clinton the presidency way back in 2016.
One of the people you've been spending time with out there is a union organizer called Carly Hammond.Tell me about her.So I met Carly Hammond.
At a watch party for the vice presidential debate that was on at a union hall, at a United Auto Workers union hall.
So I was a community organizer long before I got into labor organizing.
Carly Hammond is an organizer for the AFL-CIO, which is an umbrella group for major U.S.unions.
I cover the Saginaw Bay area and the Thumb.
She said that she thought that many of those union members who had gone over to Trump in 2016 would stick with him.
And she said there are several reasons for that, one of which is that she doesn't think that the Democrats have made a persuasive case to those workers for why they should come back.
Honestly, I think it's because the Democrats since Trump, we have the Joe Biden administration. still haven't fulfilled the original promise.
I think people are going to stick with Trump until they see and they feel like things are getting better for them.And so, you know, you can blame COVID or external factors, but inflation rose and, you know, corporations are doing better than ever.
The stock prices keep growing and people are still struggling.There's still no change.
And so she felt that many of those workers would stick with Trump because he speaks to their issues.And whether or not he, for instance, when he came to Saginaw, he promised that he was going to bring back the car factories.
And there's not many people here believe the car factories are coming back.They really don't.But the fact that he's talking about it and making promises to them is good enough for many of those workers because he says it's speaking to them.
There's a sense of abandonment by the people at the top. And that's partly because the Democrats are seen as elitist and representing corporate interests these days.
But the trends that I saw in my own community and the trends that I see in labor and with people who are Trump supporters is it is a tendency to be very upset with the status quo.
And I feel like Democrats and the Democratic Party, they make people feel crazy.They make people feel alone because they say they're gonna do something and they say they support you.They said they supported unions and then we have NAFTA.
So we said, you know, it was it was really a lot of our own our own party that, you know, betrayed the working class.
But I mean, Trump doesn't just talk.He had four years in power to actually legislate.Were those years good for blue collar workers in Saginaw?
No, and this is one of the striking things, is when I ask union members more or less, what did Trump actually do for you?Few can actually name any great policies.Many will just retreat back into the economy as better.
We've had very high inflation, which is undoubtedly true.There has been very high inflation under Biden. But it doesn't seem to matter that he didn't really change very much around here.
He did, a couple of people were honest enough to mention that he gave very large, the federal government under Trump gave very large payments in the thousands and thousands of dollars under COVID to help people get by.And they haven't forgotten that.
It's a sense that Trump looked after us when things were tough under COVID.But no, it's very hard to pin people down on what Trump did for them, but they still very much feel that he's their man.
I mean, it's really interesting that Trump is still the kind of protest vote, it sounds like, for people like that, even though they have materially done better under Joe Biden, who's been able to bring jobs back to a place like Saginaw.
It doesn't matter, they're angry, and Trump is the kind of outlet for that anger.Did Carly Hammond tell you about, I guess, how she tries to talk to members of hers who are leaning towards Trump, and how those conversations go?
The thing to be said about Carly Hammond is that she's not a huge fan of Kamala Harris herself.
She says she completely understands why large numbers of ordinary working Americans, and people around Saginaw in particular, don't feel that the Democrats represent them anymore.
Also, what I see at a local level in politics all the time, and it happened here in Saginaw, is somebody comes in and promises a whole lot, and then when they fail to deliver, the next year, the voter turnout, the bottom just drops out of it.
Really, the enemy of progress isn't the radical.The enemy of progress is the moderate who doesn't do anything.
She's been trying to persuade them that Trump will be worse, that Trump is actually also acting in the interests of those big corporations with his tax cut plans, but also with things like Project 2025, which is a sort of authoritarian right-wing plan to take over all aspects of government in this country.
But I think the truth is, that there's really not a lot of votes to be shifted in this election.You're not really persuading very many people.They've made their minds up.It's not like we don't know who Donald Trump is.
If you're still voting for Donald Trump now, then you're probably fairly entrenched with him.I think the real push by Hammond and others is to get people who want to vote for Harris to make sure they turn out and vote.
Because this election, in the end, isn't going to turn on policy anymore.It's going to turn on turnout.
And speaking of turnout, another trend in Saginaw is that black Americans, who like blue-collar voters were once this bedrock part of the Democratic coalition, have been turning out in smaller and smaller numbers than in the past for Democrat candidates.
Why is that?Why are they so much less enthusiastic about the party than they used to be?
So I spoke to Jeff Balls, who's the president of a group here in Saginaw called the Community Alliance for the People in Saginaw.And I asked him this question about, you know, why, why such low turnout?
Some people, you know, especially, you know, poorer people, you know, they feel like their vote doesn't count.I think people have been jaded with, you know, government A lot of them feel like government doesn't have any effect on their lives.
He feels that they just feel underrepresented and underserved.And in Saginaw, it's not helped by the fact that they have issues with the police as well, as many black communities do.
We're being over-policed.It's even a racial disparity on where they patrol.It's largely here, right here in the city.It's not in the township.It's not in any of the surrounding townships.Saginaw City, right here.
And, you know, Saginaw City is mostly black.
So that is the arm of the state that they most come in contact with, and it's not a good experience.And that idea of, you know, being ignored was really reinforced in March when Joe Biden came here, the president.
here MBS International Airport in Freeland where President Joe Biden is expected to make a stop here later this afternoon at one o'clock.
He was still in the running for re-election back then and he came to Saginaw and he really didn't meet any black community leaders, go to black church and that created a lot of stir here.People felt that he just ignored the black community.
And as Jeff is out there trying to convince especially black voters to vote on November 5, did he find that it was helpful or inspiring that Kamala Harris would be a black president in the White House, not the first, but still somebody from their community in the most powerful office in the country?
Jeff Bowles and other black community leaders essentially said the same thing to me, which was they thought there would be more enthusiasm for Harris than there had been for Biden.
But it won't be of the levels that we saw in 2008 when Obama was elected.That was a truly groundbreaking moment for a lot of people and a very hopeful moment.
This is all a pretty negative picture for the Democrats.You've got blue collar workers who are less enthusiastic than they have been in the past, black voters questioning the value of voting for the Democrats.
Have you met anybody there who is actually enthusiastic about the prospect of a Kamala Harris presidency?
Yes, I think there's some people here that are very hopeful.I was up at the state university here, the Saginaw Valley State University, and young people up there, there's many who are very enthused by the idea of Harris being elected.
When you talk to them about what the issues are, they're very focused on women's rights, particularly abortion after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional protections, but also a sense that they want some hope in their life.
Trump is a very negative individual and everything about him sort of exudes negativity and hostility in his policies and the way he talks about immigrants and all of the rest.
And this is, you know, these are young people at the start of their lives and they want, you know, a more positive outlook, somebody that's going to offer them more hopeful prospects.And then amongst some others, I spoke to a couple of veterans.
There was a veterans meeting here in downtown Saginaw in support of Harris.It was very interesting to listen to them talking about Trump, a lot of anger at Trump.
He had the absolute, total disrespect to ask General Kelly, whose son died in Afghanistan in combat, At Arlington Cemetery, I don't understand this.They're suckers and losers.Why would anybody do that?Yeah, I have nothing but contempt for them.
Particularly about the way he's spoken about veterans.
He had no regard for the history of our country, no regard for what made it great.The guy's a carnival barker.He sells watches, he sells Bibles, he sells steaks, he sells shoes.He's supposedly a billionaire and he's got to sell tennis shoes?
But amongst those veterans were a couple, Jerry and Dale.
Both of us agree that Trump can't be allowed into the office again.
No, we've still had four years to him.No, thank you.
He has no respect for anyone except himself.
Gerry had been in the Navy for 24 years, Dale was in the Air Force, they'd met and married in Iceland on a military base there, and they were very positive about Harris.
What she did like was the fact that, in her eyes, Harris had a positive message, that she was going to do things to make the country better.
I like her.And what do you like about her?She's a fighter.She's feisty.I like her positive attitude instead of Trump's.The world's going to go to shit if you don't elect me.I like her attitude that we need to lift each other up.
I've always felt that that's what the United States was all about, that we need to uplift each other.And we can't do that if everybody is the other.
Coming up, what Chris has learned about America and this election from six weeks in Saginaw.
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Chris, we've been talking about Saginaw, but across Michigan, across this crucial bellwether state for the American election, there's another issue that threatens to make things more difficult for Kamala Harris, and that is the Biden administration's ongoing support for Israel's war in Gaza.
In the time that you've spent in Michigan, how much is that playing into people's decision making?
I think for a kind of small but potentially very crucial section of the electorate, it's very important.There's about 300,000 people live in Michigan who are of Middle Eastern, North African descent, mostly Arab Americans, but others as well.And
They're very focused on Israel's war in Gaza and what's been going on, and particularly Joe Biden's largely unconditional support for Israel and provision of weapons.And so there's been a lot of anger about that.
They're unlikely to vote for Trump, most of them, but they may just stay away and not vote. given that Trump won this state by only, well, fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016, that could make all the difference, that could hand the state to Trump.
It had been thought, the Harris campaign has been very worried about this, and it had been thought that because she has not been central to the decision-making on Israel, it was It was Biden.
And because the issue had been fading away a bit, that this would be less of an issue for her.But since Israel's attack on Lebanon, it's become more of an issue for her, partly because she's being asked about it again.
She's firmly planted her flag with Israel.
Does the U.S.have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?
The aid that we have given Israel allowed Israel to defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles that were just meant to attack the Israelis and the people of Israel.
Chris, you made the point earlier that most voters in Saginaw already know who they're going to vote for.It's a question now of who actually shows up at the ballot box by next Tuesday.
Is that just true of everybody, or are there people who are genuinely undecided at this stage?
There's a sliver of people in Saginaw and in Michigan as a whole that the Harris campaign still thinks it can shift.
And those are Republicans who voted for Trump the first time, and maybe even the second time, who are reasoned, more moderate, and who can be persuaded that actually it would be dangerous to vote for him a third time.
And there's a campaign going on in this state now that brings in former Republican congressman for Harris, Liz Cheney, the former Republican member of Congress, who is the daughter of Dick Cheney, who led the US war in Iraq.
Both of them have come over for Harris.
And at the end of the day, there's only one choice.There's only one candidate, in my view, in this race that that we can say we'll count on them to uphold the rule of law.And that's Vice President Harris.
And this is mostly aimed at white suburban women who actually don't like Trump's aggression and bluster and all of the rest.And so they're trying to create a safe space for those voters to go over to Harris.
So that's the one group they probably think they can make some headway with.Other than that, it's all about turnout.
Chris, places like Saginaw occupy a kind of place in the minds of people who watch American politics closely.You know, we think of it as real America.We think of it as places that basically handed Trump the presidency eight years ago.
You've had the privilege of not just flying in, but spending time in a place like Saginaw.Away from politics, what is it that surprised you about just being able to take in a place like that?
One of the things that's striking is the community organizations that try and put the communities on a different path to improve the quality of life.
There's a very, very high crime rate in this city, one of the highest in America, very high murder rate.And there are huge efforts by local communities going into, what are the causes of that?How do we tackle that?
And it's something that strikes me in lots of places in America is how people try and take control of their lives locally, partly because of those factors we were talking about earlier, that they feel that national governments don't do much for them.
Has your time there taught you anything about American politics and about this election?
I think it confirmed to me, this is my fourth election,
that the system isn't really working for most people in this country and by the system I mean for just the practical way it works that congress actually does not act in the interests of most people in this country it's really about competition with
for political power without whoever's in the White House.But more than that, particularly the political parties no longer really represent the interests of ordinary people.
You know, the Republican Party is focused on how to grab power through scaring people over immigration or whipping up division and hate.
and the Democrats continue to be really quite elitist and detached, more representative of East Coast liberals, to be honest, than they are of working people out in places like Saginaw.
Will any of that sense of the system being broken, of apathy, will any of that change on November 5th, whoever wins the White House?
I don't think so.If you look at Harris as a candidate and look at her history, she's very establishment, she's quite conservative.I don't see her as somebody who's going to go into the White House and turn everything upside down.
And one of the things that underpins both support for Trump and support for the left of the Democratic Party, so Bernie Sanders, for instance, they both want to tear the system down.They don't like the system as it is.They want to change it.
Now, they want to change it in completely different ways.But, you know, there's quite a lot of people who just think things have to change.Harris doesn't strike me as the person that's going to change that.
Trump, if he wins, he gets in, I think things will change.I don't think they'll necessarily change in ways that most Americans will ultimately feel are for the better. But yeah, I'm sure they'll change.
Well, Chris, thank you so much.My pleasure.And that was Chris McGreal.You can read all of his dispatches from Saginaw at theguardian.com.
Before we go, for more on this election, listen to Thursday's episode of Politics Weekly, America with Jonathan Friedland.As the campaigns focus so much of their effort on turning out young voters,
Guardian Democracy reporter Alice Herman is in Madison, Wisconsin to see if they could be the demographic that swings this election.That's Politics Weekly America.Find it wherever you listen to today in focus.And that is it for today.
This episode was produced by Alex Atak.Sound design was by Joshan Channa.The executive producer was Sammy Kent.And we're back with you on Monday.
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