In a Michigan toss-up race, inflation has some voters ‘looking for a change’

• Voters in a key mid-Michigan congressional district say inflation and democracy are among their top concerns
• Republican Tom Barrett and Democrat Curtis Hertel are competing to replace U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin in the 7th District
• The race is expected to be one of the most competitive in the country and is considered a toss-up by political prognosticators

BRIGHTON — When Elyse Moore thinks of November and the upcoming presidential election, one word comes to mind: desperation.

A mother of four and owner of the Brighton-based shop, McClements Farm, Moore says she’s struggling to buy groceries for her family or stock for her shop. Inflation, she said, is “really killing people right now.”

“Supposedly, our economy is doing well, but it’s not translating into people having more money in their pockets,” said Moore, whose store specializes in freeze-dried and canned goods.

While business has been good in the months since she and her husband opened the shop in mid-May, Moore can’t help but worry. Even though inflation is now going down, “we are still paying the price of having high inflation for several years,” she told Bridge Michigan. 

Moore is one of nearly 780,000 residents who live in the 7th Congressional District, a mid-Michigan region anchored by dark blue Lansing and deep red Livingston County that could be among the nation’s most closely contested.

How Moore and other local voters respond to economic pressures could help decide control of the U.S. House and — in a state decided by fewer than 155,000 votes — the White House. Former President Donald Trump visited the district last week in his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris. 

President Joe Biden beat Trump here by a single percentage point in 2020, and Democrats lost their incumbent advantage this year when U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin chose to run for U.S. Senate. The race to replace her — between Republican Tom Barrett and Democrat Curtis Hertel — is considered one of fewer than two dozen “toss up” races nationwide. 

The district “is really a microcosm of the state,” where an urban Democratic core that is surrounded by rural Republican country “all kind of comes together,” said Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing.

Hertel and Barrett are both former state senators who clashed at times in Lansing before term limits forced Hertel out of office at the end of 2022. Barrett did not seek reelection, having run for Congress that cycle instead.

Each ran unopposed in the August primary, keeping the race somewhat under the radar. But with 63 days until the general election, that’s expected to change as the campaigns and outside groups prepare to spend in what was one of the country’s most expensive races in 2022 at roughly $33 million. 

Both candidates have focused heavily on economic issues in the campaign and told Bridge Michigan how they’d address rising costs.

Hertel said he would “crack down on corporate greed and price gouging, echoing recent Harris proposals, and cap prescription costs “by expanding drug price negotiation.” He’d also try to work “across the aisle” for a middle-class tax cut, which he’s also vowed in TV ads.

Barrett, meanwhile, blamed inflation on “overspending, overprinting and overborrowing of money” in Washington, telling Bridge he’d push Congress “to return to sound fiscal policy.” He said he’d also seek to tackle energy costs by allowing more “domestic energy sources.”

While the economy is a major issue among voters, federal officials insist inflation is largely under control.  The Federal Reserve's key metric to measure inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index, is up 2.5% over the past year, near its target of 2%.

That's down from 7.1% two years ago, but prices of many groceries and everyday items haven't decreased in kind or are still rising, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The cost of both groceries and average rents have risen 25% since January 2020, while costs of eggs, milk and car insurance are up nearly 50%.

‘Everything’ changed

The 7th Congressional District, a mixture of urban and rural communities centered around Lansing, is largely considered to be split down the middle politically. Voters narrowly backed Biden in 2020, but Trump won what is now the district by four percentage points in 2016. 

Due to redistricting, the current district map has only been tested in one statewide election — the 2022 midterm. In that contest, Slotkin beat Barrett by just over 5 percentage points.

Slotkin won Ingham County, a Democratic stronghold, and showed crossover strength by carrying Eaton, which had backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. But Barrett, who is running again, pulled through elsewhere, winning Shiawassee, Genesee and Livingston counties by double-digit percentage points.

There has been scant polling in the district so far this cycle, beyond February and July surveys that each showed Barrett leading Hertel by 7 points.

But those polls were conducted before Harris replaced Biden atop the ticket for Democrats, and that “changes everything,” said Steve Mitchell, a pollster and CEO of the Lansing-based Mitchell Research and Communications, Inc.

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While Barrett lost to Slotkin in 2022, he may have been hurt by an abortion rights ballot proposal that drew more Democrats to the ballot box that year, Mitchell said. Not having abortion explicitly on the ballot this cycle, he believes, will be to Barrett’s advantage.

But abortion remains a hot-button issue nationally, and “successful candidates are making reproductive health care a part of the conversation,” said Anthony, the Democratic state senator who represents part of the district. 

“Every time we cast a ballot in Michigan, and really, across the country, we are affirming or reaffirming where we stand on reproductive health care,” she said.

‘Run up the score’ 

Harris, who officially accepted the Democratic Party nomination last month,  appears to be pumping some new energy into the district, giving Hertel a bump by removing Biden’s dropping approval rating from the equation. 

That’s the case with Margaret Barkman, 70, a Lansing resident who recently retired as an academic graduate coordinator at Michigan State University. 

She told Bridge she’s “thrilled … that a strong woman with great credentials” like Harris is running for president, and while not knowing much about Hertel’s campaign, said she already knows who she’s backing in November. 

Among the issues driving her to the polls are preserving democracy and keeping abortion legal in the United States, she said, calling it “not only a right, but a privilege” to vote in an election.

Barkman is part of the nearly 215,300 registered voters in Ingham County, a reliably Democratic region where Hertel will need to “run up the score” in order to win the congressional race, said Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat. 

Home to both Lansing and Michigan State University, Ingham is relatively young, with a median age of 33 years old in 2022. Local residents had a median income of $62,548 and a median property value of around $173,600.

Observers say Hertel is doing what he needs to in Ingham, where he’s running television ads and knocking doors. But whether his message will resonate with voters like East Lansing resident Phil Damico remains unclear.

As a manager of a local Kroger deli, the 27-year-old says he’s looking for someone who’ll help lower the cost of inflation over anything else.

“Me and myfiancé are making the most money we’ve ever made, but it’s not going far enough to even just pay the bills,” he said, adding that “even with the raises and the money coming in, it’s not nearly enough” to try buying a home or having children — something the couple are soon hoping to do. 

“I’m just looking for a change.”

‘An island of red in a sea of blue’ 

While a Democrat has represented various iterations of the district since Slotkin took office in 2019, the region was previously represented by Republicans and continues to have a sizable GOP voter base. 

That’s nowhere as apparent as in Livingston County, which former Livingston Post Editor Buddy Moorehouse describes as “an island of red in a sea of blue.” 

Despite being home to nearly 200,000 residents — 167,846 are registered voters according to the Secretary of State —  the county “still has that rural feel to it,” according to Moorehouse. 

The median property value in the county is over $311,000, with its median household income clocking in at $96,135 as of 2022. Less than 5 percent of its population is considered impoverished and the median age for the district is around 43 years old.

But people who grew up in Livingston County are struggling to stay there due to rising housing prices, Moorehouse said, making the economy “the number one” issue for local voters. 

That’s the case for Andrea Sydor, 37, who owns the Howell-based sandwich shop The Crunchy Pickle. She also runs a local garlic farm with her husband in Genoa Township, where the pair live with their three kids.

While the restaurant hasn’t noticed a slowdown in customers, Sydor knows it's coming as winter approaches. It’s a cause for concern, as the family is already feeling the weight of inflation when grocery shopping or paying for daycare.

“I would just hope that those who are running are providing … actual plans” to combat things like inflation, Sydor said, as “nobody wants to hear a bunch of politicians making promises, kissing babies and shaking hands. Nobody cares about that.”

Inflation is an issue the Barrett campaign has tried to dig in on since he first ran for congressional office two years ago. In May, while acknowledging that inflation “has begun to slow,” Barrett said it was “relative to the astronomically high rate of inflation that we were facing very recently.”

Inflation and immigration are issues Barrett needs to “hammer away on” in order to win the district, said Livingston County Commissioner Wes Nakagiri.

Nakagiri told Bridge that Barrett has a “bigger, better presence” in the district than in 2022, which he believes will help the GOP nominee come fall. 

“The party out of power always has a little bit more motivation for trying to change things.”

While Republicans are optimistic about their chances of flipping the district, they’ll still have to reach disaffected local voters like Moore, the small business owner from Brighton. 

The 38-year-old mother of four said she’ll eventually figure out who she’s voting for in the 7th Congressional District race, but she isn’t champing at the bit to do that anytime soon.

“I’m normally kind of a political junkie … but I had to step back. It was too stressful,” Moore said. The turning point was when she gave herself stomach ulcers in 2020 due to being “so stressed out” about the election.

“I just can’t follow every single conspiracy theory, every single political argument online,” she said, “I just can’t do it anymore.”