Michigan

She was a one-woman protest in Michigan’s Trump country, but not alone

Published

1 month ago

January 25, 2026

She was a one-woman protest in Michigan’s Trump country, but not alone

On a warm June day, as crowds of thousands gathered in Detroit and Grand Rapids to protest the policies of President Donald Trump, a lone woman marched up and down the few blocks that make up her city’s downtown.

Sign in hand, 70-year-old Cindy Hull was a one-woman No Kings Day protest in Croswell, a roughly 2,000-person city seated in the longtime, deeply red Sanilac County in the Thumb of a state that Trump won in 2024.

Half a year later, about 90 protesters gathered on a freezing day in Howell, a nearly 10,000-person city in the Republican stronghold of Livingston County.

Anti-Trump protests in a red county can be both subtly and distinctly different than those in liberal haunts, smaller in size but seemingly subject to more obvious — and, in at least one case, dangerous — objection.

Yet increasingly across the country, they appear to be taking place.

Researchers from the Crowd Counting Consortium, a joint project by Harvard and the University of Connecticut that collects data on crowd sizes, have found a sustained reach into Trump country that wasn’t seen during his first term.

Protests, on average, were held in counties that went to Trump across the majority of months the consortium analyzed on the topic, confirmed consortium co-founder and University of Connecticut political science professor Jeremy Pressman.

“Nationally, there are more protests, they are more spread out, and more people are turning out,” he said.

For some protesters, demonstrating near home simply makes them feel safer.

For others, protesting in red areas feels more important than marching in bigger protests in more liberal areas.

“They need to hear it more than anybody,” Hull said of those in her red county.

A changing model for protests

Data shows there has been some movement away from a model of going to Washington, DC, or other big cities for protests, said Pressman of the Crowd Counting Consortium.

Since the Women’s March in 2017, the consortium has collected reports on crowd sizes from sources that include news groups and social media posts. They then make it available to the public, listing both the high and low estimates for a crowd’s size.

It’s not exact work. If sources use general terms, like “dozens” or “hundreds,” to describe a crowd, the team takes a conservative approach, translating that into “24” or “200” in their listing, Pressman said. They’ve also improved their method over time, meaning exact comparisons can’t always be made between earlier recordings and the present day.

But the consortium has deduced that protests have moved into previously unreached counties.

Hull’s protest wasn’t included in the 2025 data, but neither were any prior anti-Trump protests in her county. Trump won there by a margin of more than 45 percentage points in 2024.

And John Llewellyn, chair of the Newaygo County Republican Party and a former state representative, said he hasn’t seen such protests in his area since the end of the Vietnam War.

Newaygo County, another longtime Republican stronghold, also voted for Trump by a margin of more than 40 percentage points in 2024.

Still, Llewellyn wasn’t surprised to see the gatherings.

He said the participants are solid Democrats who everyone knows, an idea with which organizers for Indivisible Newaygo County disagreed.

Not just one-offs

Protests aren’t just reaching Trump country but sticking around, according to the data.

Hull hasn’t marched solo in Sanilac County again, opting to travel elsewhere because she had a ride, but the swath of land in front of the historic Livingston County Courthouse saw multiple protests in 2025, and Indivisible Newaygo also reported multiple demonstrations.

Trump’s first term saw protests reach deep into Trump country at select times, but the instances were one-offs instead of a holding trend, the consortium found. In 2025, that reach, indeed, became a trend.

Additionally, the size of the crowds increased.

As of August 2025, counties where Trump won by at least 5 percentage points in the 2024 election had seen more protesters come out as compared with 2017, according to data from the consortium.

The average grew from two to seven protesters per 10,000 residents.

Lonely in a red community

Hull was disturbed that immigration arrests in her area didn’t result in protests. She wants her neighbors to know there are people in the community who will stick up for them.

She carried a sign that day in June that read, “Hands Off,” with a list including immigrants, free speech, SNAP and LGBTQ+ individuals. A photo of her and the sign wound up in the Sanilac County News.

Organizing group Indivisible Newaygo County also held protests in their red county as opposed to heading to the bigger, bluer Grand Rapids, said Michelle Petz, part of the group’s planning team.

“We need to show up in this county, so people don’t feel alone,” she said. “For too long, it has felt like there is just one party here, and it is red, and that is not the case. And so, this is a bringing together of community and like-minded people that are very distressed about what is going on.”

Sara Lane, chair of the Alpena County Democratic Party, reported seeing about 300 people come out for their June and October 2025 gatherings in the county that went to Trump by a margin of 29. Some counterprotesters came out, too.

Lane doesn’t see her work as coaxing over Republicans, but if staunch Republicans want to see another side, her group is there.

“I can show you something different than you’ve been exposed to before,” she said. “If you go through all that and you stay through that and you stay where you are … that’s OK.”

Rebecca Hilla, 46, of Hartland, felt safer going to protests in Howell with her son than going elsewhere. It’s not that there’d be more danger in a big city given the political vitriol everywhere, but she felt comfort being surrounded by those already willing to put a target on their backs in a red community. Livingston County went to Trump with a margin of 24 percentage points.

“They’re out there to protect everybody’s kids,” Hilla said of the protesters there.

Smaller, local rallies matter to residents, said Kate Naden, the organizer of an October 2025 No Kings Day rally in Macomb County’s Romeo.

A key swing county, Macomb gave Trump a win by a margin of 14 percentage points over Harris in 2024 and served as the venue when Trump marked his first 100 days in office.

There were still more than 300 people present as Naden’s October rally wound down, and elsewhere in the county, in Sterling Heights, thousands gathered the same day.

Through the eyes of Republicans

Speaking shortly after those Macomb County rallies in October — which saw two men on opposing sides seek out a possible friendship — the chair of the Macomb County GOP expressed a belief that protesters were bused into the area by the Democratic Party. He also raised concerns about protesters being paid.

“I don’t know that anybody is participating from our county,” Gus Ghanam said. “If they are, I’d be shocked; our county’s doing very well.”

No protesters reported to the Free Press getting payments or being bused in.

Llewellyn of the Newaygo County Republican Party said both that trying to rally people is what political parties do and that “people like to do trendy stuff.”

And while protests aren’t new to Howell, which saw both Ku Klux Klan rallies and pushback in the ‘90s, an acceleration in protests isn’t shocking, said longtime resident and Livingston County Republican Party Chair Deb Drick.

Trump is aggressive, and every action has an equal and opposite reaction, she said.

She thinks protesters are aiming to convince swing voters and the independents in her county to join their cause, but she thinks their message isn’t helping them.

“Half those signs are just silly,” she said. “When you’re protesting a woman’s death, saying ‘(Expletive) Trump’ is not the way to do it. That’s not the message that you’re trying to get across. It could be ‘ICE needs training’ or ‘ICE needs to back off.’ … Every single time a Democrat loses their mind and flies off the handle, they send another independent or swing voter my way, so have at it, people.”

A change of heart?

Neither Drick, in Livingston County, nor Monroe County Republican Party Chairman Todd Gillman believes that the protests in their area are indicative of locals being swayed away from their support of the Republican Party or Trump.

Trump won Monroe handily in the last three elections, but Gillman said it used to be more purple than it is now.

“I don’t think it’s a representative of Monroe, I think it’s a representative of a small part of Monroe,” Gillman said of the anti-Trump protests.

It’s the beauty of being an American that people can peacefully protest whatever they want, he said. Good or bad, Trump elicits a lot of emotion.

Thy neighbor

Stepping back slightly from the curb shortly after a silver truck swerved toward the crowd of protesters in the median in Howell, Rachel Bennett, 31, apologized for being a bit distracted. She was still shaken up.

Bennett loves her city. She thinks it’s a beautiful place with a close-knit community.

“But Howell can be so nasty, I think it’s really important I’m here,” she said outside the historic Livingston County Courthouse that day in January.

She knows Republicans, knows that they are not evil and wants to try to reach those on the fence.

Protesters in red counties shared similar mixed reviews of living there. Many said they loved their neighbors, but some said they disliked raising a family amid toxic politics. Several said they had friends who were Republican, but some also said they didn’t talk politics with those friends.

Hull was surprised to get so many thumbs up when she did her solo protest in Sanilac County. Of course, some “yahoos” sent black tailpipe smoke her way, and the husband of a fellow churchgoer got “blustery” over not needing a handout himself, she said.

In Howell, the level of friction wasn’t as obvious standing back near the 19th-century courthouse, but, from the median, drivers in about every third car could be seen flashing obscene gestures, giving a thumbs down or otherwise showing their displeasure. A man parked in front of the island and walked around filming the crowd; some protesters blocked his path and called him names.

A week later, Bennett was still shaken by the truck that swerved at her and was fighting feelings of defeat. The day it happened, however, she sought to give the driver the benefit of the doubt. She thought back to times she’d had to watch her language while protesting in her own community.

“It was probably heat of the moment,” she said. “I hope he’s regretting it.”

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Michigan

Wojo: May’s Wolverines complete rivalry sweep and historic Big Ten run, rile Izzo

Published

2 hours ago

March 9, 2026

Press Room

Wojo: May’s Wolverines complete rivalry sweep and historic Big Ten run, rile Izzo

Ann Arbor – The Wolverines were pushed, pushed hard. As they have all season, they pushed back even harder.

This was Dusty May’s vision of his Michigan program bathed in maize, in a packed, loud Crisler Center. The Wolverines completed one of the most dominant regular seasons in Big Ten history by going 29-2, 19-1 in the conference. And almost as important, 2-0 against their rivals.

May brought Yaxel Lendeborg for this reason and this season, and specifically for this game. Roughed up last year by Michigan State, the Wolverines toughened up and loaded up, and completed a season sweep of Tom Izzo’s squad with a 90-80 victory Sunday.

The outcomes – 83-71 in East Lansing in January – belied the competitiveness of the games. The Spartans battled and led by four midway through the second half Sunday, but UM came in waves, led by Lendeborg’s 27 points and 5-for-6 shooting from 3.

Michigan deserves its plaudits for a historic run, and MSU (25-6) deserves credit for setting the standard and stoking the motivation. This is how rivals can push each other when they’re not busy pounding each other and swearing at each other. In his second season, May has picked up quickly on what the game means, and how it’s won.

The Wolverines will head to the Big Ten Tournament as the No. 1 seed, and assuredly a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. After the confetti fell and the Big Ten championship banner was raised, May took a moment to relish it. Just a moment, though.

“This journey, everything comes at you so fast,” May said. “We just did something incredibly difficult together, so rewarding and gratifying. And our journey is only three-fourths of the way done.”

UM among national title favorites

Michigan will be one of the favorites to reach the Final Four and win the national championship. Especially if Lendeborg elevates as he did on this day, taking over the game just when the Spartans seemed primed to wreck UM’s fun.

That’s what should be extracted from a rivalry that gets needlessly toxic at times. Of course there were more flashpoints, including yet another technical foul on Jeremy Fears Jr., after a leg kick to the groin of UM guard Elliot Cadeau. Izzo defended his star by saying there was no intent, but there have been too many incidents to dismiss. Izzo should be as miffed at Fears as anyone, although he insists it wouldn’t have become an issue if May hadn’t publicly pointed it out after the first meeting.

You can’t just call it rivalry gamesmanship when there’s ample video evidence. UM also has been called for several technicals – notably by Aday Mara – without disagreement.

If the Spartans made the Wolverines tougher and angrier, perhaps UM is returning the favor. While Michigan has risen in remarkable fashion under May, Izzo certainly isn’t retreating, as fired up after the game as he was during it. At the end, the student section serenaded the Spartans with “Little Brother!”, an old taunt that was especially biting this time.

It’s what happens in a rivalry, no different than the jeers the Wolverines have endured at the Breslin Center. Izzo has had so much control, he’s not accustomed to the other side getting edgy too.

“I guess the crowd didn’t watch the game because I’m nobody’s damn little brother, and neither is my team,” Izzo snapped. “I’m at Michigan State, and no matter what those people think, we’ve done it longer and better than most. … They’ve had a hell of a year. We’ve had a hell of a year.”

Izzo hasn’t encountered a UM coach willing to play the rivalry game as smoothly and passive-aggressively as May, so perhaps the tension was unavoidable. After this game, they shook hands for about two seconds, approximately 1.5 seconds longer than the postgame encounter in East Lansing.

“I didn’t know how big this rivalry was,” May said. “Rivalries are awesome for sports. When they swept us (last year), they earned it, they kicked our butt. They made us better. … Trust me, they’re gonna be coming after us next year, and we’re gonna be coming after them.”

It actually could happen sooner if they collide in the Big Ten tourney. Frankly, it might be better if they go their separate ways for now, because both teams have bigger goals than settling rivalry scores. Both can do significant damage in the tournaments.

The Spartans have a battle-tested threesome – Fears, Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper – and a physical, tenacious defense. The Wolverines have an imposing frontline of Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr. and Mara (when he’s not in foul trouble), and a physical, tenacious defense. This was a terrifically combative clash, with the Wolverines not pulling away until the final minutes.

Lendeborg and Fears are the favorites for Big Ten Player of the Year, and the best player on the best team seems the logical choice to me. Lendeborg made the big plays at the big moments, 8-for-12 from the field and 6-for-6 from the free-throw line. His season numbers aren’t overwhelming – 14.3 points, 7.3 rebounds – partly because UM has a deep nine-man rotation. It’s down to eight with the loss of L.J. Cason, which requires more from others.

More from Yaxel? He didn’t need to be asked twice.

“There’s no way in heck I was letting the seniors come out and lose their last game here,” Lendeborg said. “We all had goals and hopes of being the best Michigan team ever assembled, but now that we’re in the middle of pretty much accomplishing that, it’s amazing. Nobody has any selfish motives. It was just my time to be aggressive.”

Lendeborg ‘has a lot more in his tank’

Lendeborg, a pricey 6-9 portal addition who chose UM over the NBA, said he came here with three goals: Win the Big Ten; win Player of the Year; win the national title. For it to happen, he has to be the engine.

“Yaxel has a lot more in his tank,” said Roddy Gayle Jr., who scored 15. “It’s kind of my responsibility to keep pushing him. He’s an incredible player, especially when he’s out of his head and playing ball freely. I truly believe Yaxel is the best player in the country.”

Lendeborg is part of a four-man portal class that turned the Wolverines from a good team into a powerhouse. They haven’t been bashful about their ambitions, ever since they launched an incredible run with three November victories in Las Vegas – by 40 over San Diego State, by 30 over Auburn, by 40 over Gonzaga. They’ve won 24 games by double-digits,10 by 30-plus and seven by 40-plus (Big Ten record).

May doesn’t fire back often, but he does chafe at the notion the Wolverines simply bought a bunch of talent. Some have called the Wolverines “mercenaries” and questioned his program-building methods, an odd complaint in the world of NIL and rampant transfers.

“We’ve heard a lot about this super team we had,” May said. “But we looked at (the analytics) – KenPom had us 11 preseason, AP had us No. 7. Not typical for a super team. Our secret sauce is how great of teammates these guys are. Period.”

He doesn’t waste time worrying about it, but his boss has something to say. AD Warde Manuel stood at the edge of the Crisler Center court as the team celebrated and was asked if he hears the gripes.

“That bothers me,” Manuel said. “There’s a lot of people across the country spending a lot of money not having the success we’re having. You have to look at why. And the why is the pieces of the puzzle that have come together, and the way Dusty leads.”

May led them from 8-24 the year before he arrived to 29-2 and the Big Ten championship. He’s shown he’s willing to take on all challenges, including from a storied rival and an iconic coach. Sure, it can get caustic at times, but wherever the Wolverines and Spartans go from here, they’ll know what helped push them.

bob.wojnowski@detroitnews.com

@bobwojnowski

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Michigan

Michigan trooper hospitalized after car hits patrol vehicle on Detroit’s west side

Published

14 hours ago

March 8, 2026

Press Room

Michigan trooper hospitalized after car hits patrol vehicle on Detroit’s west side

Nick Lentz

March 8, 2026 / 3:47 PM EDT
/ CBS Detroit

A Michigan State Police trooper is recovering after the patrol vehicle they were in was hit by a car on Detroit’s west side Sunday morning, the state agency said.

Troopers were investigating a fatal collision on Interstate 96 near Outer Drive when a crash involving a semitruck and an SUV happened at a nearby exit ramp, officials said.

The trooper who was hurt was sitting in the patrol car with its emergency lights on during the investigation into the exit ramp crash when the car hit the passenger side of the law enforcement vehicle, according to the state agency. The trooper was taken to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

Officials said the driver of the car that hit the patrol vehicle, identified as a female of undisclosed age, refused medical treatment. Troopers determined while interviewing her that she was “impaired by both alcohol and narcotics,” according to the state agency.

The female was arrested and taken to the hospital for a blood draw, according to officials.

“Please slow down, focus on the roadway, move over for emergency vehicles,” Michigan State Police First Lieutenant Mike Shaw said in a written statement.

Charges against the female are pending.

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Michigan

How to watch Michigan vs. Michigan State as the rivalry continues

Published

1 day ago

March 8, 2026

Press Room

How to watch Michigan vs. Michigan State as the rivalry continues

The Detroit News
| The Detroit News

Michigan and Michigan State conclude their regular seasons with another game in their long and intense men’s basketball rivalry.

Tip-off is Sunday at 4:30 p.m. at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, and the game will be televised by CBS.

No. 3 Michigan (28-2, 18-1 Big Ten) has already clinched the Big Ten regular-season championship outright, but No. 8 MSU (25-5, 15-4) will look to put a blemish on the Wolverines as both teams head to conference and NCAA Tournament play.

In the first meeting this season, Michigan prevailed 83-71 at the Breslin Center on Jan. 30, snapping a four-game losing streak in the series. It was UM’s first win in East Lansing since January 2018. Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg had 26 points and 12 rebounds, while Jeremy Fears Jr. scored a career-high 31 for the Spartans.

The Michigan vs. Michigan State rivalry began in 1909 and the Wolverines lead the all-time series 98-92.

Michigan State at Michigan

▶ Tipoff: 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Crisler Center, Ann Arbor

▶ TV/radio: CBS/760, 94.7

▶ Records: No. 3 Michigan 28-2, 18-1 Big Ten; No. 8 Michigan State 25-5, 15-4

▶ Outlook: This is the regular-season finale for both teams. Michigan won the first meeting, 83-71, on Jan. 30 in East Lansing and is seeking its first sweep since 2014. The Wolverines will celebrate senior day and their outright Big Ten regular-season title during a postgame ceremony.