Five states went from red to blue in 2020. My home state, Michigan, is one of them. Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania are the others.
Within those fabulous five, only eight counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 voted for President Biden in 2020. One of those counties is Saginaw, a Michigan metropolitan area of about 200,000 people. So if you're wondering why Biden made two campaign stops here in the rain last week, that's part of the answer.
opinion columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports, and living life in America.
In the last 40 years, only two Republicans have managed to win Saginaw in the general election: Ronald Reagan and Trump. That Reagan turned it around was no surprise. His opponent, Walter Mondale, managed to win only his own state in 1984, Minnesota, and, to be honest, barely did it.
However, Trump's 2016 victory was so shocking to Democrats that in her memoir “What Happened,” Hillary Clinton wrote: “And I suppose it's possible that a few more trips to Saginaw or a few more ads aired in Waukesha “They could have tipped a couple thousand votes here and there.”
Trump beat Clinton here by 1,073 votes.
Biden turned it blue by just 303.
In the big picture, Saginaw represented less than 2% of the state share in 2020. If it narrows further, Biden could be in real trouble, and that's worrying in light of the more than 100,000 voters who marked “uncommitted” in the state's Democratic primary in protest of the US's handling of the war in Gaza. of the Biden administration.
Saginaw is the only county in Michigan that voted twice for Obama/Biden that Biden/Harris was able to take from Trump. All other counties remained red. So to secure a victory in Michigan in November, he'll have to follow Clinton's advice and make “a few more trips to Saginaw.”
His first stop was at the home of Saginaw school board member Kevin Rooker and Bill Ostash, who in 2018 became the city's first gay councilman. Congressman Dan Kildee was also among the estimated group of 50 supporters, volunteers and community leaders who attended.
The second was at Pleasant View Golf Course. I was the only journalist allowed to be present for a conversation Biden had with Hurley Coleman III and his 13-year-old son, Hurley Coleman IV. The family comes from a long line of preachers. A politician strolling through a black church come campaign season is a familiar scene. However, Biden and the Colemans sitting in the clubhouse (the outdoor appearance was canceled due to rain) was not business as usual. The campaign is incorporating more of these kitchen table conversations to give Biden a chance to listen more than talk.
It's no secret that Biden relies heavily on support from the Black and LGBTQ+ communities. However, there has not been much talk about Biden losing the latter's support. It is the supposed erosion of black support that has dominated the headlines and been reflected in the primaries.
In his conversation with the family, Biden mentioned his long history of fighting racial injustice. I later asked the president what it was like to hear media reports about black support fading. He said it was “a fascinating thing” given his record, and added that the black community, he said, “is the reason I was first elected senator in 1972: I got more than 85% of the African-American vote.” .
“As that old expression goes,” the president continued, “the black community brought me to the dance… and that's why my interest, my heart, has always been there. And if you notice, I have more African Americans in my cabinet than anyone else. I have named more [Black] circuit court judges than any other president in American history. “I appointed the first black woman to the Supreme Court, the first black woman as vice president.”
There are some Black voters who are disappointed that Congress has not passed comprehensive criminal justice reform or voting rights protections, or who do not feel they are sharing in the gains of the soaring stock market under this administration. Biden's hope is that these intimate conversations will help him make her case to potentially disaffected voters, a case strong enough to inspire turnout.
“As a young, working-class African-American man, faith in my life has been an important component,” Coleman Sr. told me after his talk with Biden. “I have seen it operate in the life of my grandparents, in the life of my father, and now we are putting it in the life of my son. So knowing that our leader of the free world, our president, believes in faith and his core belief is embedded in faith, the decisions that he makes, the responsibility of delegating and leading this entire country, he relies on and depends on God and his faith to make the necessary decisions, and I believe that if our president has a fundamental belief in faith, then that faith will take this country where it needs to go.
