Meet the one Michigan county that predicted Trump’s rise, fall and return

• Saginaw County has backed every winning presidential candidate since 2008. This year was no different, as local voters backed Donald Trump
• The county is considered a bellwether for Michigan politics due to its its history with manufacturing and mixture of urban and rural communities
• Trump won the county by nearly 3,400 votes in November, flipping it after President Joe Biden’s narrow 303 vote win in 2020

LANSING — As Michigan swung back to President-elect Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, Saginaw County swung too.

It was nothing new for the state's ultimate swing county,  where a majority of voters have supported the presidential winner since 2008, when former President Barack Obama first won election.

Saginaw County voters have been an even stronger barometer for the state, voting for each Michigan winner since former President Bill Clinton in 1992. 

That’s because the area is “really a measuring stick for the kitchen table issues for mid-Michigan, and the state as a whole,” said former Saginaw County Republican Party communications director Debra Ell. “Trump just happens to be here at the right time.”

Home to roughly 188,000 residents — making it the 11th largest county in the state — Saginaw is considered a bellwether for the presidential election. 

This year, the area saw multiple visits from major party contenders, including Trump, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, her running mate Tim Walz and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

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Trump ended up winning Saginaw County by nearly 3,400, flipping it back from Biden, who had won by 303 votes four years prior. It was a bigger win for Trump than in 2016, when he won Saginaw County by 1,074 votes. 

All told, Trump won Michigan by 81,103 votes. He grew his vote share in most parts of the state, but Saginaw and Muskegon were the only counties he flipped. 

The last time a Republican won Saginaw County prior to Trump’s 2016 victory was former President Ronald Reagan, who won it in a landslide during his successful 1984 reelection campaign. 

Like Reagan, Trump is “very attractive to the common person who just wants their country back,” Ell said, noting Trump was able to speak to voter concerns on issues like inflation and gas prices in a way that Harris did 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.

“When you drive around rural Saginaw County … all four corners of the county, you are seeing Trump flags and Trump signs in peoples’ yards year-round,” he said. 

Though Democrats have fared well at the local level — the party has a 6-5 advantage on the Saginaw County Commission — Adams believed Democrats struggled to share their policies and priorities with voters in a way Trump simply did not. 

Issues like inflation, crime and border security went unaddressed “up until probably the last month of the election cycle,” added Adams, and even then “they really weren't speaking to those issues. Matter of fact, maybe even blowing them off.”

It didn’t help that when Harris had the opportunity to distance herself from the Biden administration, she chose not to, Adams said. Instead, the party continued to push the message that electing Harris would be potentially historic due to her gender and racial background.

That was premature, said Adams, who lamented that Democrats chose to “focus on identity politics” rather than address a rising cost of living. 

Ell, the former county Republican Party spokesperson, seemed to agree, saying Democrats seemed to campaign more on Harris just simply not being Trump than on her positive merits.

“When she was running her rallies, she was just so negative. Nobody wants to hear that,” Ell said. “Let's celebrate the wonderful things that we still have in America. Let's make America great again.”