The largely invisible presidential campaign on the ground in rural Michigan

Brandy Jones and Justin Patterson were hoping to find a restaurant with prime rib on the menu as they walked along the main street in this small Central Michigan town of about 1,750.

The pair said they have seen little evidence of the presidential election this year in their hometown outside Lansing, on the nearly two-hour drive to the Evart area, where they were vacationing, or even on social media. That's a major shift from past campaign seasons, according to Jones.

"I'm actually seeing a lot less campaign signs and advertisements," she said Monday afternoon. "Usually this time during an election year, we're being bombarded with it and I'd be over it and irritated. This year it's just nothing."

While the relative prevalence of campaign signs is hardly a scientific indicator of voter enthusiasm, election day is just three months away and you wouldn't know it by visiting or driving through many rural stretches of Michigan.

A Los Angeles Times reporter who drove hundreds of miles across a broad swath of the state last week, mostly on rural main streets, country roads, gravel lanes and highways, spotted only 16 presidential campaign signs and flags and a single billboard, all in support of former President Trump.

Several Michigan political experts agreed that it's far different from the nearly ubiquitous pro-Trump yard signs and flags that characterized even the early lead-ups to the last two presidential elections.

"I am beginning to see just a few here and there in the last couple weeks, but it has been noticeably different than 2016 or 2020," said Thomas Ivacko, the recently retired executive director of the University of Michigan's Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy, who travels frequently to largely rural Benzie County in the state's northwest.

In more than two dozen interviews last week, rural Michiganders chalked that gap up to a weariness of what they describe as a broken political system, fear of repercussions for sharing their views, and a lack of passion for the politicians at the top of both parties' tickets.

The result? In rural Michigan, the 2024 presidential election is all but invisible.

'Just not as big this time around'

Along a 42-mile stretch of hilly backroads in Ingham and Livingston counties, east of Lansing, dozens of signs advertised a local "U-Pick Festival," equestrian summer camps and down-ballot politicians, but only one flag and one sign for Trump was visible — and none for President Biden or presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

As Joan Saunders headed into Christians Greenhouse in rural Williamstown to shop for plants, she said she's "for Trump," but doesn't have a sign or flag supporting his candidacy outside her home.

The election is "just not as big this time around," said Saunders, who lives in an unincorporated community in Ingham County. She said she, too, has seen far less visible support for the presidential candidates this election cycle. "People know who they're voting for, and they are sick of the games."

Nicholas Valentino, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, cautioned that it's still too early to draw broad conclusions from the dearth of signs and flags.

He said much of the political emphasis in Michigan is focused on the Tuesday primary, which will help determine who will fill the state's open U.S. Senate seat, all of its 13 seats in the House of Representatives, and a number of state and local positions. There will likely be "a pretty dramatic change" after the primary, he said, with both political parties pouring money and energy into the presidential election.

"Salience and energy in the race is very important, and it's going to tell the tale when we find out who wins in November," Valentino said. "The outcome of the election will pivot not so much on how each campaign is able to persuade voters; it will be a matter of mobilization."

Michigan is one of a handful of battleground states — one with a recent history of hotly contested elections whose winner also claimed the White House. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Michigan by only about 11,000 votes; four years later, Biden won the state by more than 150,000 votes.

For months before Biden dropped out of the presidential race on July 21, polling consistently showed Trump beating the president in Michigan, typically by fairly slim margins. But a poll conducted by Bloomberg News/Morning Consult between July 24 and 28 showed Harris with an 11-point lead over Trump in the state.

Multiple Michigan political experts described the poll as an outlier, and said the race will be far tighter come November. While most Michigan voters live in big cities and suburbs, the rural vote could play a key role in an exceedingly close election.

Some experts expect high voting rates in the state again this year. Corwin D. Smidt, an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University, said via email that he "will know a lot more after Tuesday's primary," but "right now my models expect turnout will be very close to 2020."

'Some people are tired of his antics'

As the county seat of Macomb County, northeast of Detroit, Mount Clemens is home to more than 15,000 people — more a sleepy outlying suburb of the Motor City than a true rural small town like Evart. Trump carried Macomb County by just 8 percentage points in 2020, a far smaller margin than in rural counties such as Osceola, where Trump commanded more than 72% of votes, and Gratiot, where the former president defeated Biden by more than 28 percentage points.

In conversations with several people who were enjoying a greenspace in the shadow of Mount Clemens' City Hall on Monday, the overriding sentiment, as in many more rural areas, was that the 2024 presidential campaign season is uninspiring and passing by without much fanfare.

Mickey Kraft and Kristy Kitchen, both Trump supporters, said they believe many people's enthusiasm for the former president has flagged.

"People love Trump and everything, but some people are tired of his antics," said Kraft, 52.

Kitchen, 47, added that she's "not afraid to put a Trump sign in my yard" in nearby Roseville, but she thinks many people will opt out of that ritual this year.

"People don't care who the president is," she said. "They care who gives them money. They care about gas prices, how much groceries cost."

Some rural and suburban Michiganders also reported a general sense of unease and even fear, particularly those who say they were spooked by the attempted assassination of Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania last month. Kitchen said she "kind of shut down" her previously active Facebook account after the attack, because the political rhetoric got too heated.

Raffy Castro, 22, was fishing for bass from a dock over the Clinton River on Monday afternoon. Though this will be the first election the Sterling Heights resident has voted in, he recalled much higher enthusiasm in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

"I haven't heard people talking about it," he said. "I think people are scared, especially with the shooting. I guess people don't want to portray who they support."

In Clare, a rural town about 150 miles northwest of Mount Clemens, Gene and Cindy Gibson chalked up the lack of excitement to a broader malaise.

"I think a lot of people are voting for the lesser of two evils," Gene Gibson said of Trump and Harris. "And people don't want to vote for either of them. They're tired of all the fighting."

Whatever the reason, Matthew Grossmann, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University, said this year's level of public-facing political expression has a different feel.

"In 2016 and 2020, people didn't wait for the signs to be produced," he said. "They were making their own and painting the sides of barns, and we're seeing a lot less of that."

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