Less than six months before the US presidential election on 5 November, anxiety over the economy looms large. While official figures show a significant recovery since the pandemic, many Americans aren’t buying it. As election day approaches, the Guardian is dispatching reporters to key swing counties to gauge how they are feeling – and how they might vote.
Joe Biden should be worried about Janel Turner, owner of Kreole Qweenz, a gumbo shop in downtown Saginaw, Michigan.
Turner represents the intersection of the kind of residents with whom the president is struggling: millennial and Black, with doubts about Biden. Turner said she voted independent last time around, and with a laugh, added she won’t say for sure who she’ll support in November.
But her small business, retirement and social security are a worry, and Donald Trump “may just be a better fit with the economy”, Turner added. “A lot of people I know are in the same boat.”
Whoever wins November’s election will almost certainly pull significant support from Saginaw, Michigan. Saginaw, which is 46% African American, is a must-win swing county in a must-win swing state. Those who know the region’s electorate say it historically leans Democratic, but is increasingly independent. The former president won in 2016, Biden won 2020 – both by razor-thin margins.
Top of mind for Turner and many like her is the economy. Though broad-level, national economic data is generally positive and should be propelling Biden’s re-election campaign, polling shows there’s discontent and doubt, and that comes through when talking with voters here.
Economically discontented young people in Michigan may play an outsized role in determining the next president, according to pollsters and economists. April polling found 19% of 18-34 years olds were most concerned about the economy, more than three times the rate of the oldest age bracket.
Though Saginaw comprised only about 2% of Michigan’s 2020 turnout, the candidates know its importance: Biden has already campaigned here twice this year, and Trump visited in early May. Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020 after Trump won by about 11,000 votes four years prior, and it’s one of seven swing states that observers say will decide the election.
“If younger people don’t show up then the Democrats lose statewide,” pollster Ed Sarpolus said.
The frustration among young Saginaw adults is probably driven by several problems not clearly reflected in national economic data, said the University of Michigan economist Don Grimes. Foremost among them: interest rates.
High rates generate higher earnings on savings or money market accounts, which broadly benefits older and wealthier people. But for a significant number of voters in areas like Saginaw, on middle-to-lower incomes, high rates mean residents pay more on credit card debt, and many struggle to afford loans for cars, homes or businesses.
In most broad economic analyses, those two issues cancel each other out and the divide gets lost, Grimes said. “This inequality is a real problem now and that is showing up in the unhappiness with the economy.”
Moreover, while major cities and rural areas in coastal or mountain towns have attracted wealthier residents, mid-sized rust belt cities like Saginaw, where 44,000 people live, have struggled. Its 35% poverty rate more than doubles Michigan’s average of 13%, US Census data shows, as it slowly recovers from the loss of auto manufacturing and industrial activity that long ago made it an economically vibrant area.
Such problems are deep and structural, and Grimes doubts that Trump or Biden has the antidote, so voter ire will probably be directed at whoever is in office, perhaps explaining why Saginaw has gone against the incumbent at the last two elections.
“There’s this frustration that is being felt among the potential swing voters: working-class, younger voters and people who are not particularly affluent,” he said. “They swing against whoever is in power.”
If Trump wins Saginaw this year, Grimes suspects a Democrat would win in 2028.
Turner, owner of Kreole Qweenz, expected a lot more would happen economically under Biden, she said, and expected the administration would make more support available to small businesses in the form of grants or financing.
When the gumbo shop launched as the nation reopened from lockdowns, Turner was “hit with a spike” in chicken and protein costs. Her menu prices went up 20%, and that was passed on to customers.
“I have customers say: ‘Woo – I spent $60 on three items,’ and I say: ‘I know, it’s hard,’’” she said.
Turner worries how it affects her customers, but she is also confident that she can weather the storm. “People will support something new and different,” she says, even if she would have liked a little more help.
Not everyone is convinced young Black people are migrating from Biden to Trump. Though national polls show the president’s support among Black people has eroded from about 87% to 57%, Hurley J Coleman Jr, a pastor at a largely Black church, questioned the polls’ accuracy.
In his conversations with city residents, he senses some disenchantment among the young because of economic challenges no matter who is in office. But he has not heard of widespread defection to Trump.
“I don’t see that,” Coleman said. “But people are feeling less enthusiastic about the process and the institutions.”
Rasvie Box, 39, is African American and formally unemployed, but has various side hustles to bring in income. He feels OK about the Biden economy, though concedes he does not follow politics closely. He voted for Biden in 2020 and said he would vote for him again. Saginaw seems to be finally getting back on its feet after “everything went up in smoke” during Covid-19, Box said.
These days, inflation is his big financial problem. He is spending $100 more per month on food, but doesn’t blame Biden. The problems are so deep that he doubts Biden can fix them, and “the economy has been messed up,” Box said, adding that Trump did not do much for it either.
All those who spoke with the Guardian said they generally felt some degree of optimism about Saginaw’s economy, and a return to normalcy over the last year.
Biden’s supporters say the administration needs to hammer home Biden’s role in the recovery. Locally, the Chips Act and Biden’s focus on semiconductors was a boon for hi-tech employers Hemlock Semiconductor, which is expanding just west of Saginaw, and SK Siltron, just north in Bay City.
The Democratic state representative Dan Kildee, who has represented the area for 11 years, noted Biden brought down the price of insulin to about $35, and Democrats plan to push abortion as a reproductive rights and economic issue. Meanwhile, Biden is poised to introduce a new national initiative designed to bring down home prices across the spectrum.
“Our job for the next half-year is to connect the dots for people,” Kildee said. “For Trump, it’s ‘find someone else to be angry at and cut taxes for the richest Americans’ – that’s his entire presidency in a nutshell.”
Business owner confidence in Michigan is perhaps even higher than residents’. A January Detroit Economic Club survey of state businesses found 42% holding a somewhat or extremely positive outlook, compared to last year’s 36%, while negative views fell to 30%, from 38%.
But, like with residents, the experience of individual businesses in Saginaw varies. They face difficulty attracting new talent to the region, and energy prices are high, said Veronica Horn, president of the Saginaw county chamber of commerce. Under Biden, there has been a “lack of stability” that she suspects is behind a shift toward Trump in the area.
And though Biden’s recent tariff on Chinese semiconductors is a win for Saginaw’s economy, Horn noted that Trump proposed similar tariffs during his administration, suggesting it was only done now because it’s an election year.
There is some evidence in Michigan that the issue might not be the message, but the messenger. As in other swing states, Democratic candidates for Congress are polling better than Biden is.
Chris Anderson, who works in the real estate industry, said he would vote Democratic down the ticket, but remainsundecided about Biden. Saginaw is undoubtedly in a better economic spot than it was four years ago, when the economy was collapsing during Covid-19, he said.
But Anderson is concerned about Biden’s age. “It is hard to watch him on TV,” he said.
As Julie Oliver handled the pre-Mother’s Day rush at Flowers by Roman, a small shop in downtown Saginaw, the 45-year resident of the city talked about the long post-Covid recovery and characterized the city’s economy as “doing fair-to-mildly well”.
Flowers weren’t a necessity people spent on during Covid-19, then inflation hit, and supply chain issues made it difficult to consistently get product from their wholesaler. Their costs jumped 20%.
But the last year has brought some stability. Orders are up about 30% as people are consistently buying flowers again, a welcome change from a few years ago when they would arrive at the hospital or a birthday party only with smiles and well wishes, she added. “They’re relaxing a little bit more, and not worried as much about the economy or being locked in somehow.”
Is that translating to support for Biden? Not for Oliver. Biden seems feeble and fumbles his speech when he speaks, she said. He could be doing more for the economy, she added, but does not totally blame him: House Republicans would stonewall any meaningful legislation, and partisanship is a scourge on US politics, Oliver said.
She “was on the Trump bandwagon” in past elections, supporting him in 2016 and attending rallies. But she said he was “too flamboyant for a lot of people and doesn’t know when to stop talking, even though he got things done”.
She is intrigued by Robert F Kennedy Jr as a third-party option, but doesn’t want to waste her vote if he doesn’t have a real chance of winning.
Instead, she summed up the sentiment of many independents: “It’s like picking the least worse of two evils.”
