Analysis
The culture of Michigan's swing counties
Oakland County cast 14.1 percent of Michigan's 2022 governor vote and 22.2 percent of the county movement between the 2018 and 2022 races; Kent and Ottawa, 15.1 percent.
| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| Oakland County’s share of 2018-to-2022 movement | 22.2% |
| Kent and Ottawa counties’ share of 2018-to-2022 movement | 15.1% |
| Eastpointe’s Black share of residents, 2000 to 2020 | 4.7% to 52.7% |
| Wayne County votes cast, 2018 to 2022 | −2.1% |
Oakland County cast 14.1 percent of Michigan’s vote for governor in 2022 and 22.2 percent of the movement between the 2018 and 2022 races. Kent and Ottawa counties, around Grand Rapids and Holland, cast 10.0 percent of the vote and 15.1 percent of the movement.
Wayne County, which includes Detroit, cast 14.5 percent of the vote and 4.6 percent of the movement. The statewide margin moved one point toward the Democrat between the two races. Oakland, Kent, Washtenaw, Ottawa and Kalamazoo moved further than the state in that direction; Genesee, Monroe and St. Clair moved the other way.
Oakland County: Troy, Novi and Southfield
Oakland County’s population grew from just under 400,000 in 1950 to more than 900,000 in 1970, Zack Stanton wrote in POLITICO Magazine in 2021. By then the county had a reputation as a bedroom community for auto executives, with Hazel Park, Royal Oak and Southfield as its inner suburbs and Pontiac as the county seat.
George H.W. Bush carried the county in 1992 with a plurality, the last Republican presidential win there. Detroit PBS reported in October 2020 that the county voted for Bill Clinton in 1996 and for the Democrat in the five presidential elections that followed.
Construction of Chrysler’s world headquarters in Auburn Hills was underway in the 1980s, Stanton wrote, and L. Brooks Patterson, the county executive from the 1992 election until his death in 2019, founded Automation Alley around the county’s engineering and manufacturing sector. The American Community Survey puts 19.6 percent of Oakland’s employed residents in manufacturing.
| Place | Bachelor’s degree, adults 25 and over | Foreign-born | Non-Hispanic Asian | Non-Hispanic Black | Median household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Troy | 64.1% | 29.8% | 26.1% | 4.1% | $119,299 |
| Novi | 61.2% | 27.4% | 25.5% | 8.3% | $110,938 |
| Southfield | 39.1% | 7.7% | 2.1% | 63.6% | $65,848 |
| Oakland County | 50.2% | 13.2% | 8.2% | 12.9% | $95,296 |
| Michigan | 31.8% | 7.0% | 3.3% | 13.2% | $71,149 |
Source: 2019-2023 American Community Survey five-year data profiles.
Troy’s Asian American and Pacific Islander share was about 13 percent in 2000, and the Census Bureau’s estimate had reached 25 percent by 2021, Stanton wrote; he described similar growth in Novi’s South Asian population.
Kurt Metzger, whom Detroit PBS introduced as a metro Detroit “stats guru,” said on the program that the technology sector had drawn those residents.
Southfield was less than 1 percent Black in 1970 and 70 percent African American by 2015, Anna Clark reported in Metromode that year. In 2015 the city held a quarter of Oakland County’s companies. Stanton dated the move of Black middle-class Detroiters across 8 Mile to Southfield to the 1980s.
By 1958 Detroit’s Jewish community was moving to Oak Park, Huntington Woods and Southfield, often into subdivisions built by Jewish developers, the Detroit Jewish News reported in 2017. Metzger told Detroit PBS that the Jewish population moved into Oakland County and then to the northwest, and that Black residents followed the same path.
The Chaldean Community Foundation, in its own estimate, puts more than 187,000 Chaldeans in Southeast Michigan, mostly in Macomb and Oakland.
In November 2018 Democrats won the county prosecutor, treasurer and clerk’s offices, Detroit PBS reported.
Joe Biden won the county by more than 108,000 votes in 2020, more than double Hillary Clinton’s margin, and John Klemanski of Oakland University attributed the gains to college-educated voters and women, Bridge Michigan reported. Northern Oakland remains solidly Republican, Bridge reported in 2024.
Oakland’s Democratic margin for governor widened from 16.96 points in 2018 to 23.08 in 2022, 5.15 points beyond the statewide change. The county cast 4.1 percent more votes in 2022.
Grand Rapids and Kent County
Grand Rapids furniture won its reputation at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial, and buyers came to the city’s furniture markets from 1878, according to Michigan State University’s Geography of Michigan. The Grand Rapids Public Library dates the city’s primacy in the industry from the 1870s through the 1930s.
Metal-based manufacturing exceeded furniture in value and output after World War I, by the MSU account, and the library says many of the largest office furniture companies remain in West Michigan. In Kent County 18.7 percent of employed residents work in manufacturing, against 18.4 percent statewide.
The Christian Reformed Church was established in West Michigan in 1857, and Calvin College and Seminary opened in Grand Rapids in 1876 as a ministry school for seven students, by the university’s own account. The 2020 Religion Census counts 28,722 Christian Reformed adherents in 84 Kent County congregations, beside 99,605 Catholics.
Ted Roelofs wrote in Bridge Michigan in November 2020 that Grand Rapids, once known as the Christian Reformed “city of churches,” had become more Democratic. Klemanski said of Kent County the same month, “It’s not the old Calvinist conservative Republican area that it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago.”
Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel started Amway in 1959, and the two families still hold the company privately, Michigan Public reported when DeVos died in 2018 at 92.
Dick and Betsy DeVos live in Ada Township, east of the city, where the median household income in 2019 was about $125,000 and 64 percent of adults hold a college degree, Roelofs reported. Donald Trump carried the township in 2020 by 234 votes, 50 percent to 48.
| Measure | Grand Rapids | Kent County | Michigan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hispanic or Latino share, 2019-2023 | 16.1% | 11.5% | 5.7% |
| Non-Hispanic Black share, 2019-2023 | 17.4% | 9.2% | 13.2% |
| Bachelor’s degree, adults 25 and over | 40.1% | 39.6% | 31.8% |
| Population change, 2000 to 2020 | +14.6% |
Sources: 2019-2023 American Community Survey five-year data profiles; 2000 and 2020 decennial censuses. Grand Rapids was about 5 percent Hispanic in 1990 and 15.9 percent in 2019, Bridge Michigan reported.
Trump held Kent County in 2016 by 9,497 votes, Roelofs reported. In 2020 Biden carried it 52 percent to 46 and took Grand Rapids 70 percent to 28, while Trump’s margin outside the city fell from about 36,000 votes to just under 19,000.
Kent’s Democratic margin for governor went from 4.15 points in 2018 to 10.25 in 2022, 5.13 points beyond the statewide change. Kent and Ottawa together gave the Republican a net 18,670 votes in 2018 and the Democrat a net 4,318 in 2022.
Holland and Ottawa County
The Dutch colonists who founded Holland in 1847 were Seceders from the state church, “a minority of one percent in the homeland,” the historian Robert Swierenga told the Holland Historical Society in 2013, and the enterprise was religiously directed. Non-Dutch households were 14 percent of the settlement in 1860 and 35 percent in 1880.
The Dutch of Holland identified with the Democratic Party for their first 20 years, until after the Civil War, Swierenga wrote in a 2006 paper. The founding pastor, Albertus Van Raalte, switched to the Republicans in 1859 while his colonists kept voting Democratic, and Ulysses S. Grant carried Holland with 58 percent in 1868, the first Republican win there.
Swierenga wrote that Van Raalte’s ideals shaped Holland until at least the 1960s, and that the city voted Republican in every presidential election until 2008, when Obama carried it by a slim margin.
Ottawa County gave Trump 62 percent in 2016 and just under 60 percent in 2020, and it has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1864, Bridge Michigan reported.
Ottawa’s Republican margin for governor was 23.57 points in 2018 and 18.03 in 2022, a shift of 4.57 points toward the Democrat relative to the statewide change, while the county cast 13.9 percent more votes.
| Body | Congregations | Adherents |
|---|---|---|
| Reformed Church in America | 49 | 28,741 |
| Catholic Church | 10 | 28,663 |
| Non-denominational | 35 | 22,350 |
| Christian Reformed Church | 63 | 22,037 |
| Protestant Reformed Churches | 8 | 3,098 |
| All listed bodies | 130,977 |
Source: 2020 U.S. Religion Census, Ottawa County, via the Association of Religion Data Archives. The three Reformed bodies together count 53,876 adherents, about 41 percent of the listed total; listed adherents are 44.2 percent of the county’s 296,200 residents.
Yue Stella Yu reported in Bridge in 2022 that Ottawa County Republicans had traditionally been affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church and had held to the fiscal conservatism and moderation associated with Gerald Ford, who kept a summer home in the county.
James Bratt, a history professor at Calvin University, told Yu that for traditional evangelicals belief and political agenda are “wedded together as tight as man and wife.”
Ottawa Impact formed in 2021 over COVID-19 mitigation measures, Sarah Leach reported in Michigan Advance, which describes the group as far-right and fundamentalist. County health officials had shut Libertas Christian School near Hudsonville, where founder Joe Moss sent his children, in October 2020 for violating masking mandates, WOOD TV8 reported.
The group’s slate swept the county commission race in November 2022. At its first meeting on Jan. 3, 2023, the new majority fired the county administrator, changed the county’s motto, dismantled its diversity, equity and inclusion office and demoted its health officer, FOX 17 reported. Leach counted five lawsuits against the commission in 14 months.
In the Aug. 6, 2024 primary the group lost its majority, and traditional Republicans beat its candidates for sheriff, prosecutor and treasurer by 20 points or more. The pollster Richard Czuba told WGVU that Republicans, independents and Democrats had coalesced behind the candidates running against Ottawa Impact.
A quarter of Holland’s employed residents, 25.1 percent, work in manufacturing, as do 23.2 percent of Ottawa County’s. Ottawa’s population grew 24.3 percent from 2000 to 2020, to 296,200. Holland is 23.2 percent Hispanic or Latino, the county 10.1 percent.
Flint and Genesee County
Genesee’s Democratic margin narrowed from 21.68 points to 18.67 between the two governor’s races, a shift of 3.97 points toward the Republican relative to the statewide change. Its votes cast rose 1.8 percent while the state’s rose 5.0 percent.
| County | American Communities Project type | Shift relative to the statewide change, 2018 to 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Genesee | Middle Suburbs | R +4.0 |
| Saginaw | Middle Suburbs | R +1.2 |
| Bay | Middle Suburbs | R +1.1 |
| Monroe | Middle Suburbs | R +5.8 |
| Shiawassee | Rural Middle America | R +4.2 |
| St. Clair | Rural Middle America | R +4.8 |
| Lapeer | Rural Middle America | R +4.6 |
| Tuscola | Rural Middle America | R +6.2 |
| Sanilac | Rural Middle America | R +4.7 |
| Huron | Graying America | R +1.3 |
Sources: American Communities Project; Hesitation Media analysis of the official county results for the 2018 and 2022 governor’s races. The first five counties are the I-75 corridor as Bridge Michigan draws it; the last five are the Thumb, where Bridge reported in 2020 that fewer than 19 percent of adults hold a college degree.
The five I-75 corridor counties, home to 920,000 people, backed Obama by nearly 74,000 votes in 2012 and Trump by more than 12,200 in 2016, Mike Wilkinson reported in Bridge. In the governor’s races their net Democratic margin fell from 38,203 votes to 28,526.
The Flint sit-down strike ended on Feb. 11, 1937, after 44 days of occupation, with General Motors agreeing to recognize the United Auto Workers, Livia Gershon wrote in JSTOR Daily.
Between 1940 and 1960 GM built eight new industrial complexes in the Flint metropolitan area, all of them in the suburbs, the historian Andrew Highsmith told Michigan Public in 2016. A plan proposed in 1957 and 1958 to consolidate Flint and its urbanized suburbs into one regional government met resistance from suburbanites.
GM employed 80,000 workers in the Flint area in the late 1970s, the Associated Press reported in 2006, when more than 3,100 of the 10,400 hourly workers in Genesee County’s seven GM plants took buyouts. In 2019 the Canadian Press put GM’s employment in Flint and Genesee County at roughly 10,000.
Statewide, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 566,000 union members in 2025, 13.0 percent of wage and salary workers, down from 13.4 percent in 2024.
The Flint Journal and the Grand Rapids Press, two of MLive Media Group’s eight Michigan papers, publish their last print editions on Dec. 6, WKAR reported in September.
Flint’s population peaked above 200,000 in 1960 and fell below 100,000 by 2014, the Flint Water Advisory Task Force wrote in March 2016, putting the city at about 57 percent Black with 41.6 percent of residents below the poverty line. The 2019-2023 survey counts 80,835 residents.
In April 2014 the city began treating Flint River water at its own plant full time, under an emergency manager, and it reconnected to Detroit’s system on Oct. 16, 2015, the task force reported. The task force called the crisis “a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice.”
In Genesee County the 2020 Religion Census counts 37,649 Catholics, 25,046 adherents of non-denominational congregations, and 11,416 and 10,318 in the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America and the National Baptist Convention, USA.
Wayne and Macomb
Wayne County cast 645,739 votes for governor in 2022, 2.1 percent fewer than in 2018, while the state cast 5.0 percent more. Its Democratic margin barely moved, from 42.99 points to 42.91, and its net Democratic margin fell by about 6,500 votes.
Detroit counted 639,111 residents in the 2020 census, down 10.5 percent from 2010 and from more than 1.8 million in 1950, Michigan Public reported. The city is 76.4 percent non-Hispanic Black in the 2019-2023 survey.
Macomb County’s population was just over 100,000 in 1949 and 694,000 in 1980, the pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote in “Middle Class Dreams,” as GM’s Buick assembly division, Chrysler’s stamping plants and Ford’s transmission and chassis division moved in.
In 1985, Greenberg found, almost 40 percent of its residents lived in union households, most of them UAW, and 97 percent were white.
Greenberg wrote that the 1937 strikes at Flint and at the Kelsey-Hayes wheel plant in Detroit were “seared into the consciousness of Macomb families.”
| Place | Black alone, 2000 | Black alone, 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Eastpointe | 1,601 (4.7%) | 18,086 (52.7%) |
| Warren | 3,697 (2.7%) | 28,386 (20.4%) |
| Roseville | 1,252 (2.6%) | 9,989 (20.9%) |
| Macomb County | 21,326 (2.7%) | 109,476 (12.4%) |
Source: 2000 Census Summary File 1 and 2020 Census redistricting data. Lauren Gibbons reported in Bridge Michigan in 2022 that Warren’s population rose in the 2020 census for the first time since 1970.
Gibbons wrote that Macomb “has long been considered Michigan’s bellwether,” and the pollster Ed Sarpolus told her, “It’s a purple county, and it depends on what independents show up.” The county voted for the Democrat for governor in 2018 and 2022 and for Trump in 2016 and 2020.
The Catholic Church had 194,399 adherents in Macomb in the 2020 Religion Census. Among the county’s adults 25 and over, 27.2 percent hold a bachelor’s degree, against 31.8 percent statewide.
Macomb’s shift between the two governor’s races was 0.76 points toward the Democrat relative to the statewide change, and it carried 2.0 percent of the movement from 8.6 percent of the vote.
Where to look on election night
The live county table at hesitation.media/election/#counties shows each county’s count against the margin it would post in a tied statewide race, and the Senate race is at hesitation.media/election/#race-MI.
- Oakland against Macomb, then Kent and Ottawa against each other.
- Washtenaw, Kalamazoo and Ingham for the college towns; Grand Traverse and Midland in the north.
- Genesee, Saginaw, Bay and Monroe along I-75, then St. Clair and Lapeer in the Thumb.
- Wayne’s total votes cast against the 2022 count, as well as its margin.
Race breakdowns cover MI-04 across Kalamazoo and Ottawa, MI-07 in Ingham and Livingston, and MI-10 across southern Macomb and the Oakland County portion that includes Rochester Hills.
The method, caveats and every source are under How we did this.
How we did this
Between the 2018 and 2022 governor’s races the statewide margin moved 0.96 points toward the Democrat, from 9.57 points Democratic to 10.53. A county’s shift relative to the statewide change is the change in its Democratic margin between the two races minus that statewide change.
Hesitation Media weighted each county’s shift by the votes the county cast in 2022, added the weighted shifts regardless of direction, and grouped the counties; a group’s portion of that total is its share of the movement. County vote shares are percent of the 2022 statewide vote.
Both years are the Michigan Secretary of State’s official county canvass files for governor, with the arithmetic of movement2.py; the output tables are county_detail_MI.csv, turnout_MI.csv and MI-values.csv. The r18 field for Michigan in Hesitation Media’s counties.json is the 2018 U.S. Senate race and was not used.
Every movement figure describes one pair of elections and is not a forecast. No source gathered for this analysis ties the changes in churches, plants and newspapers to the 2018-to-2022 county shifts.
The two GM employment counts for Genesee County, from 2006 and 2019, may not cover the same workers. The Chaldean figure is the Chaldean Community Foundation’s own estimate. Sources differ on whether L. Brooks Patterson took office in 1992 or 1993.
Census figures are the 2019-2023 American Community Survey five-year data profiles and the 2000 and 2020 decennial counts, pulled from api.census.gov on Nov. 3, 2026. Black shares in the Macomb table are “Black alone” from both decennial censuses; the Oakland table’s Black and Asian shares are non-Hispanic, single race.
Quotations were checked against the live pages on Nov. 3, 2026.
American Communities Project types are credited to the project by name; the project’s workbook spells the type Urban Burbs and its type page Urban Suburbs.
| Passage | Figures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Statewide margins; county vote shares, movement shares, relative shifts and votes cast (chart, key numbers, body, tables) | 9.57 to 10.53; Oakland, Kent, Ottawa, Genesee, Wayne and Macomb margins, shifts and vote changes; the I-75 and Thumb table | C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\swing-state-cultures\scratch\attack2\county_detail_MI.csv ; turnout_MI.csv ; C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\swing-state-cultures\visuals\MI-values.csv |
| Group net margins | Kent and Ottawa -18,670 to +4,318; I-75 corridor +38,203 to +28,526; Wayne down 6,532 (canvass D and R votes, not the gate table, which rebuilt them from rounded margins); I-75 vote share 9.0 (full precision 9.049; the gate table’s 9.1 is a double rounding) | C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\swing-state-cultures\gates\attack-2-2026-11-03.md, section S3 Michigan; visuals.md |
| ACP types (map, table) | Genesee, Saginaw, Bay, Monroe: Middle Suburbs; Shiawassee, St. Clair, Lapeer, Tuscola, Sanilac: Rural Middle America; Huron: Graying America | county_detail_MI.csv, acp field (American Communities Project 2023 typology) |
| ACS figures (Black = DP05_0083PE, not Hispanic, Black alone; Asian = DP05_0085PE; Hispanic = DP05_0076PE; bachelor’s = DP02_0068PE; foreign-born = DP02_0094PE; manufacturing = DP03_0035PE; median household income = DP03_0062E) | Oakland and Kent tables; Oakland manufacturing 19.6; Michigan 18.4; Kent 18.7; Ottawa 23.2 and Hispanic 10.1; Holland 25.1 and 23.2; Flint 80,835; Detroit 76.4; Macomb bachelor’s 27.2 | C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\swing-state-cultures\scratch\attack2\census_MI.csv (https://api.census.gov/data/2023/acs/acs5/profile , counties, places and state of Michigan) |
| Decennial counts | Macomb table; Kent 574,335 to 657,974; Ottawa 238,314 to 296,200 | census_MI.csv (https://api.census.gov/data/2000/dec/sf1 P001001, P003004; https://api.census.gov/data/2020/dec/pl P1_001N, P1_004N) |
| Stanton | Oakland 1950 to 1970; 1992; bedroom community; Chrysler headquarters construction; Patterson and Automation Alley; Troy and Novi (AAPI share); Southfield in the 1980s | Zack Stanton, POLITICO Magazine (syndicated copy), June 18, 2021, https://news.yahoo.com/biden-republicans-took-over-suburbs-060051754.html (fetched raw HTML, full text read; POLITICO’s own URL returned 403) |
| Detroit PBS | Clinton 1996 and the five elections after; Metzger on the technology sector and on Jewish and Black settlement; 2018 countywide offices | Detroit PBS, Oct. 6, 2020, https://www.detroitpbs.org/news-media/oakland-county-election-2020 (fetched raw HTML, full transcript read) |
| Bridge on Oakland and Kent | Biden by over 108,000; Klemanski (reporter’s paraphrase, and the Kent quote); northern Oakland solidly red | Wilkinson, Oosting and Halpert, Bridge Michigan, Nov. 4, 2020, https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/how-suburbanites-college-grads-helped-biden-edge-trump-michigan/ ; Lauren Gibbons, Bridge Michigan, Sept. 19, 2024, https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/suburban-shift-helped-dems-win-michigan-kamala-harris-needs-it-hold (both fetched raw HTML, read) |
| Southfield and Jewish settlement | less than 1% Black in 1970; 70% in 2015; 25% of Oakland companies; Oak Park, Huntington Woods, Southfield from 1958; Jewish builders | Anna Clark, Metromode, Feb. 19, 2015, https://metromodemedia.com/inclusivesouthfield021915/ (fetched raw HTML, read); Detroit Jewish News, Jan. 25, 2017, https://thejewishnews.com/2017/01/25/migration-suburbs-started-1950s-now-returning-urban-core/ (fetched raw HTML, read in full) |
| Chaldeans | more than 187,000, mostly Macomb and Oakland (the foundation’s figure) | https://www.chaldeanfoundation.org/chaldean-history/ (fetched raw HTML, read; advocacy organization) |
| Religion Census (ARDA) | Kent 28,722 in 84; 99,605. Ottawa table; 53,876 and 41% are Hesitation Media arithmetic. Genesee 164,510; 37,649; 25,046; 11,416; 10,318. Macomb 194,399 | https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/census/congregational-membership?y=2020&t=0&c=26125 ; c=26081 ; c=26139 ; c=26049 ; c=26099 (data pages read in full) |
| Grand Rapids furniture | 1876 Centennial; markets from 1878; metal-based manufacturing after World War I; 1870s through 1930s; office furniture companies | MSU Geography of Michigan, https://project.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/furniture_mfg.html (fetched raw HTML, read in full); Grand Rapids Public Library, https://grpl.org/furniture-history/ (fetched raw HTML, read) |
| Calvin and the CRC | 1857; 1876; seven students | https://calvin.edu/about/ and https://www.calvin.edu/about/history (fetched; institutional self-description) |
| Roelofs on Kent | 9,497 in 2016; 52 to 46; 70 to 28; about 36,000 then just under 19,000; Ada 234 votes, 50 to 48, about $125,000, 64%; Dick and Betsy DeVos; Hispanic 5% to 15.9%; “city of churches” | Ted Roelofs, Bridge Michigan, Nov. 12, 2020, https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/biden-win-kent-county-latest-evidence-regions-demographic-shifts/ (fetched; quotes verified against the live page) |
| Amway | 1959; privately held; died 2018 at 92 | Lindsey Smith, Michigan Public, Sept. 6, 2018, https://www.michiganpublic.org/business/2018-09-06/amway-co-founder-richard-devos-sr-dies-at-92 (fetched raw HTML, read) |
| MLive print | eight papers; last print editions Dec. 6 | Andrew Roth, WKAR, Sept. 2, 2026, https://www.wkar.org/wkar-news/2026-09-02/mlive-to-end-print-production-of-eight-michigan-newspapers (fetched; quotes verified against the live page) |
| Swierenga | “a minority of one percent in the homeland”; religiously directed; 14% and 35%; until at least the 1960s; 1859 and 1868; Republican until Obama 2008; Democrats for the first twenty years; Grant 58% | “What Made Holland Holland,” Jan. 8, 2013, https://swierenga.com/HASP2013WhatMadeHolland.html ; “Getting Political in Holland,” April 11, 2006, https://swierenga.com/PoliticsHHSpaper2006.html (both fetched; quotes verified against the live pages) |
| Bridge on Ottawa | Dutch Reformed Church; Ford’s summer home; no Democrat since 1864; Bratt quote and title; Trump 62% (2016), just under 60% (2020) | Yue Stella Yu, Bridge Michigan, July 19, 2022, https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/deep-red-ottawa-county-religion-race-spark-civil-war-among-republicans/ (fetched; quotes verified); Mike Wilkinson, Bridge Michigan, Nov. 6, 2020, https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/dont-blame-fraud-dwindling-suburban-support-lost-michigan-trump (fetched raw HTML, read) |
| Ottawa Impact | formed 2021; “far-right fundamentalist” (Leach); five lawsuits; majority lost Aug. 6, 2024; Libertas Christian School; November 2022 slate; Jan. 3, 2023 actions; Czuba | Sarah Leach, Michigan Advance, Aug. 12, 2024, https://michiganadvance.com/2024/08/12/with-ottawa-impact-set-to-lose-majority-on-county-commission-dems-look-to-pick-up-more-seats/ ; Henry Erb, WOOD TV8, https://www.woodtv.com/news/ottawa-county/how-businessman-built-ottawa-impact-and-took-control-of-county-board-in-2-years/amp/ ; Matt Witkos, FOX 17, https://fox17online.com/news/local-news/lakeshore/ottawa/ottawa-county-overhaul-one-year-later ; Rick Pluta, WGVU, Aug. 7, 2024, https://www.wgvunews.org/news/2024-08-07/ottawa-impact-loses-county-board-majority (all fetched raw HTML, read) |
| Flint strike | Feb. 11, 1937; 44 days; GM recognized the UAW | Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, Dec. 3, 2021, https://daily.jstor.org/the-flint-sit-down-strike-from-the-inside (fetched; verified against the live page) |
| Greenberg, ch. 2 | Macomb 100,000 (1949), 694,000 (1980); Buick, Chrysler, Ford; almost 40% union households, 97% white (1985); “seared into the consciousness” | Stanley B. Greenberg, Middle Class Dreams (rev. ed., Yale, 1996), ch. 2, https://democracycorps.com//wp-content/uploads/1996/03/Middle-Class-Dreams-Chapter-2-Macomb-in-the-American-Mind.pdf (full chapter read; quotes verified against the PDF) |
| Highsmith via Michigan Public | eight complexes, 1940 to 1960; 1957 and 1958 plan | Josh Hakala, Michigan Public, Feb. 8, 2016, https://www.michiganpublic.org/post/flints-struggles-began-gms-move-suburbs-1940s-historian-says (fetched; verified against the live page) |
| GM employment in Flint | 80,000 in the late 1970s; 3,100 of 10,400 (2006); roughly 10,000 (2019) | AP via NBC News, July 3, 2006, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna13689698 ; Canadian Press via CFJC Today, Sept. 20, 2019, https://cfjctoday.com/?p=782220 (both fetched raw HTML, read) |
| Flint water | over 200,000 (1960) to below 100,000 (2014); about 57% Black; 41.6% below poverty; April 2014 under emergency manager Darnell Earley; Oct. 16, 2015; “a story of government failure…” | Flint Water Advisory Task Force, Final Report, March 2016, https://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/FWATF_FINAL_REPORT_21March2016_517805_7.pdf (PDF fetched, full text searched) |
| Bridge regions | I-75 corridor counties; 920,000; Obama by nearly 74,000, Trump by over 12,200; Thumb under 19 percent college | Mike Wilkinson, Bridge Michigan, Sept. 23, 2020, https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/six-michigan-regions-view-politics-far-differently-they-may-decide-election/ (fetched; figures verified against the live page) |
| Gibbons on Macomb | “has long been considered Michigan’s bellwether”; Sarpolus quote; Warren’s population rose for the first time since 1970 | Lauren Gibbons, Bridge Michigan, May 27, 2022, https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/redrawn-districts-macomb-once-again-could-decide-michigan-power-balance/ (fetched; quotes verified against the live page) |
| Macomb presidential votes | Trump carried Macomb in 2016 and 2020 | C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\election-night-2026\counties.json, key MI, p16 and p20 |
| Detroit population | 639,111; down 10.5%; more than 1.8 million in 1950 | Sarah Cwiek, Michigan Public, Aug. 12, 2021, https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2021-08-12/census-shows-detroit-population-loss-continues-duggan-questions-count (fetched; tool-processed) |
| BLS | 566,000; 13.0% (2025); 13.4% (2024) | “Union Members in Michigan, 2025,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 6, 2026, https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/news-release/unionmembership_michigan.htm (read in full) |
| Visuals | MI-acp-map.png and MI-groups.png: alt text and source lines; numbers checked against the CSVs by check_mi.py (last run PASS) |
C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\swing-state-cultures\visuals\visuals.md, Michigan section |
| Photos | Southfield Town Center (Dave Parker, public domain, 2006); Berkey and Gay plant, elevated view (Murch S. Morris, Grand Rapids Public Library, public domain, 1924); De Zwaan (Astridmigu7, CC BY-SA 4.0, 2019); Fisher Body Plant No. 3 (Sheldon Dick, Library of Congress, public domain, 1937); captions follow the Commons descriptions | C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\swing-state-cultures\research_notes\places-2026\MI\photos.md |
| Race links | MI Senate, MI-04, MI-07, MI-10 | C:\Users\brian\Desktop\Journalism\election-night-2026\races\ |
Changelog
- Published.
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