How the economy is influencing voters in a Michigan swing county

For most avowed Trump voters, it's the most important issue. For most avowed Harris voters, it isn't.

Kent County, Michigan — home to Grand Rapids — helped hand the state to former President Donald Trump in 2016. It flipped to President Joe Biden in 2020. We asked voters in this swing county in a swing state if their personal finances will affect how they vote.

The answer is an emphatic yes from Rob Dekker. He was searching for bargains at a Daily Deals grocery store in the town of Wyoming, Michigan, in south Kent County. He owned a plumbing company before he retired. Now, he focuses on stretching his dollar to cover the price of food.

“I watched what happened over the last three and a half years,” he said. “Am I blaming the last administration? No. It’s happened. I don’t think they can get us out of this.”

Dekker thinks Trump would do a better job on the economy, so that’s who he’ll vote for this fall. Dekker also cast his ballot for Trump in 2020.

Outside in the parking lot, Denise Gill was loading groceries into her car. She’s also retired and living on a fixed income. Gill wants prices to go back to pre-pandemic levels, and she blames Biden for inflation. Gill voted for Biden in 2020, but this year she’s backing Trump.

“It’s not somebody who I’d ask to dinner or date,” she explained. “But our gas prices were way down; our food was way down.”

The economy was the top issue for almost all of the Trump supporters I spoke to in Kent County, while voters backing Vice President Kamala Harris were mostly motivated by other things, even if their own personal economies weren’t so great.

Judy Walker, 56, was just finishing up her shift at Popeyes and heading to her second part-time job at Little Caesars. Walker is trying to go full time at Popeyes because her hourly wage there is better.

“Um, 14 and some change,” she told me. “So that’s not bad.”

Walker describes herself as Hispanic American. She’s afraid Trump would deport her mother, so immigration is a top issue for her.

“Economic, to be honest, is the last thing,” she explained. “The thing that matters to me is family.”

That’s why Walker, who says she’s an independent, will vote Democratic in November.

So will 34-year-old Skyelar Kavanagh. He’s headed into an Aldi grocery store in suburban Grand Rapids with a rainbow tote bag under his arm.

“I guess my own security and safety as a trans and queer individual, I put that above the economy, personally, as well as reproductive rights — those are honestly, my top issues,” he said.

Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are paying very close attention to the top issues of all of these voters. Because the communities I found them shopping, eating and working in are — for the most part — swing towns in a swing county in a swing state.