Tony Grauslys, a 56-year-old merchandiser from Hudson, N.H., is upset that lawmakers focus on other countries’ problems when America can’t fix its own. Marvin Jenkins, 60, a retired state trooper in Saginaw Township, Mich., worries that both leading presidential candidates are too old. Juliet Will-Robinson, 38, a graduate student from Freemansburg, Pa., wishes there was a viable third-party alternative.
The three voters live in a trio of counties that will have outsize influence in deciding the winner of this year’s presidential election. Michigan’s Saginaw County, Pennsylvania’s Northampton County and New Hampshire’s Hillsborough County are three of just 25 U.S. counties that have backed the presidential winner in each of the past four elections, making them rare enclaves of partisan flexibility in a country where most places are firmly red or blue. They are among the seven such counties that sit inside hotly contested battleground states that will decide who wins the White House this year, places where the victor can hinge on a few hundred votes.
Collectively, Americans in the 25 counties that have swung with the electorate on average have lower median incomes and lower levels of education than the U.S. on the whole, census data show. They are older, more likely to be white and disproportionately live in smaller cities and rural areas. A greater share are age 65 or over and draw retirement income as compared with the total U.S. Nearly half of these counties have seen their populations shrink in recent years.
What most of these counties have in common is they are largely removed from America’s major economic and cultural power centers. They are home to a graying America where residents worry that the country’s best days are behind it instead of ahead. These voters want a candidate who will propel America forward but instead see flawed options and few fresh ideas.
Interviews with dozens of voters in Saginaw, Northampton and Hillsborough counties reflect a broader frustration with America’s trajectory and a desire to break the logjams that impede progress on the country’s economic and social problems. They suggest that to win re-election, President Biden must convince voters he would get prices under control if given a second term and prove he has the stamina for another four years in office. For Donald Trump, the former president and leading Republican candidate, his path to victory in these places rests on showing he can restore the smoothly functioning economy that America enjoyed before the pandemic upended it while keeping his impulsive personality in check.
Tim Smith, a 53-year-old draftsman from Bethlehem, Pa., who isn’t registered with either party, said he backed Biden in 2020 and feels like the president hasn’t done much to help him.
“I’m paying $28 for a bag of cat food," Smith said. He would consider supporting a moderate Republican over Biden, but said that Trump’s “authoritarian tendencies worry me." He’s likely to pick Biden if it comes down to a choice between the two front-runners.
Local lawmakers from both parties say that candidates need to directly address voters’ economic concerns, including about the high cost of housing. State Rep. Milou Mackenzie, a Republican who represents Northampton County, said she has heard from a lot of senior citizens whose energy costs have gone up. “I think a lot of people will and do vote with their pocketbooks," she said.
The 2024 presidential contest likely will pit an 81-year-old Democratic incumbent with historically low job-approval ratings who is dogged by persistent worries about his age and leadership against a 77-year-old Republican former president who was rejected by voters in 2020 and now faces 91 criminal charges across four separate cases. Although Biden is running in a relatively strong economy, with low unemployment and wages that began to outpace prices in the past year, voters remain sour about decades-high inflation under his watch and consider Trump better able to handle the economy, polling shows.
The winning presidential candidate also needs support from key demographic groups that help decide elections: Black voters whose enthusiasm helps power Democratic wins, Latino voters with whom Republicans have made inroads and suburban women who have been drawn to Democrats’ support for abortion rights since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
In these pivotal counties, many voters described their expected presidential pick more as a vote against the other party’s front-runner than one in favor of the candidate himself.
That is reflective of a broader national sentiment. Presented with those choices, just over half of Americans who plan to vote for Biden this year, or 51%, view their choice as a vote against Trump, a recent Wall Street Journal poll found, while just 21% viewed their pick as a vote for the incumbent. Among those planning to back Trump, 32% viewed it as a vote against Biden, while 40% saw it as a decision in support of the GOP front-runner. A handful of independent and third-party candidates will also be on the ballot, though history suggests they have little chance of success.
The economic malaise weighing on voters is palpable in Saginaw County, located about 100 miles northwest of Detroit, where a once-robust auto industry and manufacturing sector has withered and the region has lost population in recent decades. At the turn of the last century, incomes were near the national midpoint. Now, median household income, at roughly $57,000 a year, lags behind the U.S. median of $75,000.
When Barack Obama racked up big victories in Michigan in the 2008 and 2012 elections, Saginaw’s results mirrored his winning margins. But in 2016, the county narrowly backed Trump by about 1% over Hillary Clinton. Four years later, the county saw a boost in turnout and gave Biden a 303-vote winning margin over Trump out of more than 100,000 votes cast. About 10,000 additional votes were cast in 2020 compared with 2016.
The city of Saginaw, with a large community of Black and union workers, has traditionally elected Democrats while the more rural communities outside the city have backed Republicans.
Longtime elected leaders and political observers here said many voters in the county have felt betrayed by unkept promises by Washington, tougher economic conditions and turned off by comments such as Clinton’s 2016 reference to many Trump supporters as “deplorables."
“They don’t take kindly to nonsense," said Ken Horn, a former Republican state lawmaker and county commissioner from Saginaw.
The ballot here and in other states could end up including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West running as independents, as well as Green and Libertarian party nominees and a possible candidate from the centrist group No Labels.
Marshall Thomas, a Democrat who spent decades as basketball coach and athletic director at Saginaw High School, said during breakfast at the Bringer Inn, a popular Saginaw diner, that he plans to vote for Biden and could never vote for the GOP front-runner. “Trump scares me, and he scared me before Jan. 6." he said, referring to the 2021 riot in the U.S. Capitol following Biden’s election.
Thomas said he worries that a Biden-Trump rematch could lead to voter apathy. “There are a lot of people saying because it’s possible it’s going to be Trump and Biden, they won’t vote," Thomas said. “My look at that is that’s automatically a vote for Trump."
Northampton County is tucked in eastern Pennsylvania, about 70 miles north of Philadelphia. This manufacturing region hadn’t supported a Republican for president in over 25 years before backing Trump in 2016, part of the Great Lakes shift that helped deliver him the presidency.
In 2020 the county swung to Biden, who clinched it by just 1,200 votes out of just over 170,000 cast. Turnout was up in 2020, with 27,000 more votes cast compared with 2016.
Jeff Wiedecke, 61, a sales manager and registered Republican, said he would prefer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis because “people will vote against Trump because they hate him." He said he would like to see a ticket with DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, but he will back Trump again in 2024 against Biden. “If it wasn’t for the pandemic, he would have easily been re-elected," he said.
A prevailing voter sentiment in the county is frustration.
“I hate both sides right now. Neither of them are accomplishing anything," said Will-Robinson, the graduate student. “I would like another option, but only if it is a viable option. With how polarized everything is, every vote counts." If 2024 comes down to Biden-Trump, she will back Biden again as she did in 2020, she said.
New Hampshire’s Hillsborough County, with just under half a million people and located in the south and center of this small state, is home to Manchester and Nashua—New Hampshire’s two biggest cities—and surrounding suburbs, as well as large stretches of rural land. Nine out of 10 residents are white.
Voters here picked Trump in 2016 by just over 400 votes of nearly 211,000 votes cast. In 2020, they selected Biden by more than 40 times that, and 20,000 more people voted that year.
The prospect of a rematch has voters here looking for an alternative—and they get to see most of their choices up close since New Hampshire is the second state in the GOP presidential-nominating process. Presidential hopefuls have been making their pitch here for months.
Maureen Franklin, 70, a retiree and independent voter from Nashua, voted for Trump in 2020 but said she would write in a candidate if it was between Trump and Biden this time. “I agree with a lot of his policies, but it’s just too much," she said about Trump, concurring with a friend who described Trump as “chaotic." The women were attending a town hall for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is running a long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination.
Grauslys, the merchandiser, said he would vote based on whose policies have the best shot at working. The independent voter backed Trump in 2020 and wants to do so again but thinks a different Republican would have a better chance of winning.
“All I know is my 401(k) was doing great, gas prices were low. It seemed like the market, the economy was churning along," he said of when Trump was in office. “We need to start looking internally, fixing internal problems, not worrying about sort of these Third World countries that just hate us anyhow."
During Biden’s term, inflation reached 9.1%, its highest in more than four decades, but has since plummeted to 3.1%. The labor market has been strong with low unemployment, and wage growth began surpassing prices in the past year. Stocks have reached record highs.
Rep. Chris Pappas, a Democrat who represents the district, said voters were independent and willing to split their tickets. He said Democrats needed to focus on listening to voters about their concerns over the economy, even if recent data show an upswing. “I think this should not be about taking a victory lap," he said.
Write to Ken Thomas at ken.thomas@wsj.com, Catherine Lucey at catherine.lucey@wsj.com, Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com and Paul Overberg at paul.overberg@wsj.com
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