In mid-Michigan, economic worries persist. So does disgust of politics

• Voters in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District worry about the economy and democracy but say they’re already tired of the 2024 election
• The U.S. House race between Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet and Republican Paul Junge is expected to be one of the tightest congressional races in the country
• The district includes more than one bellwether community, where Republicans made some inroads to Black communities in 2020 while losing wealthier, white suburbs.

FLINT — At 78, Daniel Spaniola still mans the counter at Paul’s Pipe Shop, the business his father started 96 years ago. The walls of the tobacconist are lined with display cases for pipes and are mostly empty these days. 

“I’ve burned up most of my savings, but we’re struggling,” Spaniola said. He flirted with closing the downtown mainstay last year, as rising prices and other problems make it “hard to keep a steady flow of customers.” 

“I'd like to make it to 100 years and close up,” he added. “I don't know if I can get that far.”

Economic worries loom large in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, a tossup district that spans from the Flint suburbs to north of Pinconning and includes vast stretches of farmland and factory towns.

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In his first run for president, Donald Trump held his first Michigan campaign stop in the district in 2015 in Birch Run. He flipped a one-time Democratic stronghold by speaking to economic fears of folks like Spaniola who feel left behind by the country’s economic changes.

Nearly 10 years later, those worries remain but so does political fatigue. Residents told Bridge Michigan they feel burned out by an inescapable and bitter presidential election.

“I almost really don't even want to vote. It's just that bad,” Spaniola said. “I just don't think anybody out there is out there for us.”

He doesn’t like Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, but after 25 years as a sheriff’s deputy, doesn’t think he can bring himself to vote for Trump after his felony convictions.

Absentee voting begins this month for the Nov. 5 election, and the 8th District is expected to be one of the most competitive in the nation. Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet and Republican Paul Junge vie to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint.

Both McDonald Rivet and Junge told Bridge they have centered their campaigns around the economy in the district, which is whiter, poorer and less college-educated than Michigan as a whole.

Those are demographics that now tend to lean in Trump’s favor.

In general, the economy is worse in the district than the state as a whole — with higher unemployment than the state in much of the area and significantly lower wages. Median household income in the district is $58,000, about $9,000 less than Michigan as a whole.

District overview

The district straddles Interstate 75, just past the outskirts of metro Detroit to the crook of Michigan’s Thumb. Redrawn for the 2022 election, the 8th District is anchored by once-thriving industrial hubs in Flint, Saginaw and Bay City.

The population of their counties — Genesee, Saginaw and Bay — have declined by 7% since 2000, more than 55,000 residents. Nearly a half century ago, General Motors employed 80,000 people in Flint alone. Now all of surrounding Genesee County has less than 14,000 people working in manufacturing, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The changes mean the district, for proper apportionment, now stretches farther into the farmlands and small towns that surround it than in the past.

Republicans saw an opening in 2023, when Dan Kildee announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. He was in office 10 years, succeeding his uncle, Dale Kildee, who was elected to Congress in the 1970s.

The national GOP campaign arm last month added Junge to a support program for candidates in target seats. The race is a “toss-up” that on paper only narrowly favors the Democrat McDonald Rivet, according to experts at the Cook Political Report.

Midland, which was partially drawn into the district in 2022, has maintained a relatively flat population. The county went for Trump in both 2016 and 2020, but the city of Midland flipped to Democrat Joe Biden four years ago.

The only public poll release in the race so far, conducted before the primary at the end of July for McDonald Rivet’s campaign, found Junge a single percentage point ahead, placing the candidates in a statistical tie.

A ‘miraculous’ shift in Midland

Sandra Haughton has lived through the changes in the district.

She told Bridge hers was only the seventh Black family in Midland when she moved to what was then a conservative stronghold in 1964.

Now retired after a career as a child psychologist, Haughton is working as a Midland Democratic Party volunteer. She said her local office ran out of a shipment of Harris-Walz signs almost immediately.

“For Midland, that’s miraculous,” Haughton said. 

Midland hasn’t escaped the impacts of inflation, she said, however “It isn't as painful as it is in other communities.”

Many precincts in and around Midland and Saginaw saw double-digit swing toward Democrats between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, according to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab. 

At the same time, some areas in and around heavily Democratic Flint moved just slightly in Trump’s favor in 2020, evidence of the complex dynamics at play — and why Trump’s campaign has shown a significant interest in persuading Black voters to cross party lines.

Biden earned 50.3% of votes, just a 10,000-vote margin over Trump, in what is now the district. 

Eight years earlier, then-President Barack Obama had won 58.5% of the local vote. 

It’s not that significantly fewer voters turned out for Biden — just many more had come out to support Trump, particularly in the district’s rural stretches.

“I would be a Republican if there were normal Republicans,” Greg Becker told Bridge. He and his wife live in Sanford, outside the city of Midland.

He described himself as “more conservative” than liberal, but in the presidential race he said his inclination is “anyone but Trump,” calling himself “homeless, burned out, horrified” by the current election.

For Katy Becker, his spouse, “democracy” will be top of mind in the voting booth in November.

“I think everybody's exhausted by the polarization, and I can't help but think that if we can get through this election without a Trump win, that we will get back to stupid normal, instead of whatever this is,” she said.

Many of their friends and family don’t feel the same, acknowledged Greg Becker, a chemist at Dow. Wedge issues like abortion and gun rights are motivating them to support Trump, he said. 

State Rep. Bill G. Schuette, R-Midland, said he’ll be counting on those policy-focused voters to carry Republicans to victory in the election. He’s leading GOP efforts to retake the state House.

“Midland is a discerning populace,” Schuette said, noting he won a majority of votes in the city.

“Back in the last election a lot of voters split their ticket,” he added. “There’s a reason why ... Kildee won the city of Midland. I think people will look and evaluate individual candidates, and it's on us to make the case.”

The ‘Trumpinator’

In a strip mall in suburban Saginaw Township, the county’s Republican Party has a storefront that doubles as a one-stop shop for Trump-themed merchandise, including “Trumpinator” bobbleheads and pet-themed Trump yard signs.

Garry Ell, the county party chair, is acting as cashier for the steady stream of Trump supporters who arrive in search of yard signs.

In seven years’ time, Ell and his allies went from waving flags on street corners to support Trump to ousting what Ell called “the old guard Republicans.”

“We gained such notoriety compared to the Saginaw County Republican Party, that we built a coalition of grassroots Trump-supporting delegates, that we've overtaken the Saginaw County (GOP),” Ell said.

Junge was not the county party’s first choice in the Republican primary – they’d backed candidate Mary Draves – but Ell said they will stand behind him because “he stands firmly with Trump and Trump's positions on all the major issues.”

The Saginaw GOP office is decorated exclusively with Trump signs, a marked contrast from the Midland County Republican Party, whose office is adorned with signs for local candidates. 

The two county parties also represent two sides of an ongoing schism within the larger state party. Ell and his executive committee had been major backers of the ousted former chair Kristina Karamo, and he said funds have been raised to fight the court ruling that barred her the post. 

The Midland County party’s vice chair, attorney Jonathan Lauderbach, represented the breakaway faction that elected Pete Hoekstra to lead the party.

Money woes loom large

McDonal Rivet has a simple agenda she presents to voters on the campaign trail — “more money in pockets” and protecting abortion access. 

Those issues have been a major focus for Democrats in Lansing since winning control of state government in 2022, where McDonald Rivet serves in the Senate.

She lives in Bay City with her husband and emphasized her roots in the district, where she’s raised six children while working in the nonprofit sector. 

“I actually can talk about having to balance a budget at the end of the month, and worry about prescription drugs for my family and whether or not my adult children will be able to afford to buy a house,” she said.

It’s a sideways swipe at Junge, who is on his third run for Congress since 2020. McDonald Rivet and his primary opponents have attacked his roots in the district.

Junge, for his part, says the voters he talks to “want common sense solutions to their problems.”

He focuses on, “what we can do to try to make sure we've got an economy that's working for the working class and not for giant corporations, and not for China?”

Trump has made electric vehicle doomsaying a campaign trail staple — “every auto worker here will be out of a job within three years if I’m not elected,” he said in Howell in August — and Flint is home to the Flint Truck Assembly, which produces General Motors popular full-size gasoline and diesel pickup trucks.

Calvin Leslie, a retired auto worker and deacon at the House of Prayer Missionary Baptist Church, is no stranger to changing times: in the past, Leslie sprung for retraining to work with robots as Flint Assembly Plant became more automated. He isn’t convinced by Trump’s prediction.

“He's not God, I don't think he can look that far ahead,” Leslie said, adding that he believes Harris needs to do more to address the issue because “it's kind of concerning with folks just trying to get ahead.” 

He supports Harris, but said he’s already fatigued by the campaign.

“I just believe they don’t have to bash the other too much and (should) just concentrate on the country,” he said, adding that he’s “sick of the personal attacks and nastiness.”