Michigan
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.
Justin Patterson and Brandy Jones in downtown Evart, Mich.
(Connor Sheets / Los Angeles Times)
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 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.
A Trump flag flies outside a home on a country road in Macomb County, Mich.
(Connor Sheets / Los Angeles Times)
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.
Mickey Kraft, right, and Kristy Kitchen sit in a Mount Clemens, Mich., park with Kraft’s dog.
(Connor Sheets / Los Angeles Times)
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.”
Raffy Castro fishes in the Clinton River at a park in Mount Clemens, Mich.
(Connor Sheets / Los Angeles Times)
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.”
2025 MI marijuana excise tax revenues drop for local governments
In 2025, local government retail license share dropped $4,211 from Michigan marijuana sales for the tax year. New taxes could cut it more in 2026.
Michigan municipalities and counties that allow recreational marijuana dispensaries are set to receive far less money this year than last in their annual portion of tax revenue collected from cannabis sales.
Sales declined in 2025 for the first time since legal recreational marijuana sales started in December 2019.
A total of 114 cities, 39 villages, 81 townships, 75 counties and four tribes will receive payments from the Marijuana Regulation Fund, according to a March 3 news release from Michigan’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency. They will get about $54,000 per retail store or microbusiness, based on nearly $94 million collected.
Last year, each eligible government entity received a little more than $58,000 per business based on a total of nearly $100 million in marijuana tax revenue.
Detroit, once again, will receive the most money of any municipality. There are 61 active retailer licenses in Detroit, so the city will get nearly $3.3 million in tax revenue.
State law determines how the money is split. The Michigan Transportation Fund gets 35% of the revenue, which is used for the repair and maintenance of roads and bridges, and another 35% goes to the School Aid Fund to be used for K-12 education. The other 30% is split between municipalities, counties and tribes.
The payments come from revenue collected from the 10% recreational marijuana excise tax. This tax is separate from a new 24% wholesale tax that went into effect Jan. 1. The revenue from that tax will go to fixes for local roads.
Sales at recreational marijuana dispensaries declined by 3% last year to $3.17 billion, down from $3.28 billion in 2024, according to figures from Michigan’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency, leading to the smaller payouts. More government entities also split the revenue compared with last year.
Payments to municipalities could get smaller if sales continue to decline. Recreational marijuana sales in Michigan plunged nearly 16% in January compared with December as heavy snow, cold temperatures and fears of higher prices due to the new 24% wholesale cannabis tax kept consumers at home.
While recent trends indicate a cooling period, a February report from Headset, a cannabis market intelligence firm, said the market — one of the largest in the country — has shown resilience over the last two years.
Below are the municipalities that received the most tax revenue:
- Detroit: $3.3 million
- Grand Rapids: $1.5 million
- Lansing: $1.4 million
- Ann Arbor: $1.2 million
- Kalamazoo: $1 million
- Flint: $648,000
- Traverse City, Hazel Park and Adrian all will receive $594,000.
For a full list of municipalities, counties and tribes that will receive marijuana tax revenue, go to www.michigan.gov/treasury.
Contact Adrienne Roberts: amroberts@freepress.com
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping everything from classroom conversations to social media, and leaders at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) say West Michigan is positioning itself to help determine how the technology is used, responsibly.
The university’s College of Computing is launching the West Michigan Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) Consortium, aimed at helping businesses, researchers and the community better understand how to use artificial intelligence.
Right in the heart of Grand Rapids, along the Medical Mile, the consortium will meet at the Daniel and Pamella DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health (DCIH) every week, with quarterly meetings open to the general public.
The effort is aimed at helping West Michigan industries adopt AI that fits their specific needs, while problem-solving for security, bias, privacy, and ethical concerns.
Right in the heart of Grand Rapids, along Medical Mile, the consortium will meet at the Daniel and Pamella DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health (DCIH) every week, with quarterly meetings open to the general public. (Abigail Taylor/WWMT)
Marouane Kessentini, Ph.D, Dean of the GVSU College of Computing told News Channel 3 that a wide range of companies in the region are bringing forward questions of where, and how, to ethically integrate artificial intelligence into their practices.
“Here in West Michigan, we have a high concentration of many industries, health, manufacturing, and of course high-tech companies,” said Kessentini. “The first questions are about security, privacy, ethics and bias. It’s not just about deploying tools. It’s about deploying them responsibly.”
Kessentini said the consortium will focus on training, research and community education, with a heavy emphasis on data privacy, cybersecurity and misinformation.
“There are many examples where AI systems were trained on data that wasn’t diverse,” he said. “That can lead to inaccurate results. That’s why testing and training are critical.”
The consortium will bring together faculty researchers, students, and industry leaders, with weekly meetings planned to develop guidance for using AI at scale.
The goal is to help companies validate AI outputs, clean and manage data, and identify bias before systems are put into real-world use, especially in high-risk industries like healthcare and manufacturing.
Some projects will involve software design, others will focus on creating public data sets that are reliably sourced, but anonymized for safe use, and many more are yet to be ideated.
Some projects will involve software design, others will focus on creating public data sets that are reliably sourced, but anonymized for safe use, and many more are yet to be ideated. (Abigail Taylor/WWMT)
The initiative is backed by $1,031,000 in federal support, through the Community Project Funding (CPF) process, resources that U.S. Representative Hillary Scholten (D-MI-03) said she advocated for among members of congress in Washington.
“West Michigan should be leading the way in how artificial intelligence is developed and used, and that starts with investing in people and institutions we trust,” said Rep. Scholten. “This funding will help GVSU bring together educators, industry, and public partners to build AI systems that are ethical, secure, and transparent while preparing students for good-paying jobs and strengthening our region’s economy. I’m proud to support this work and to continue delivering federal investments that ensure West Michigan remains at the forefront of responsible innovation.”
It’s important that AI is useful, but also safe…
GVSU also launched an online certificate portal that is open for community members interested in learning about ethical AI use, for free.
Kessentini said the training is for the general public to learn how to navigate the technology, including the risks and limitations.
“It’s important that AI is useful, but also safe,” said Edgar Cruz, master’s student with a badge in cybersecurity.
Cruz is currently researching how AI systems can be attacked or manipulated with poisoned data, specifically as it relates to vehicle-to-vehicle communication, where AI helps self-driving cars exchange information like speed and position.
“We want to ensure that the system is robust and safe,” he said. “Because obviously people are involved.”
Kessentini said the consortium is designed to be a public resource, not just an academic project.
Quarterly community meetings will be open to the public, and training materials are available online through the College of Computing website.
“This is innovation with purpose,” he said. “We want to start here in Grand Rapids, but we want to make a global impact.”
Jim Harding, Michigan’s new offensive line coach, has one goal coming out of spring practice: he wants to have a set starting five plus a solid sixth lineman for good measure.
Michigan begins spring practice March 17 and concludes with the spring game on April 18.
Harding, appearing on the Michigan in-house podcast, “In the Trenches” hosted by Jon Jansen, joined new Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham’s staff from Utah, where Whittingham was head coach the last 21 years. Harding spoke about a number of topics, including returning to the Midwest — he grew up in Maumee, Ohio, and his wife is from Farmington Hills — and his love for the Detroit Tigers, but most important was his discussion about building the Wolverines’ offensive line.
“I’d like to establish the starting five where you feel good that when you go into fall camp,” Harding said on the podcast that posted Wednesday. “Those are the guys that are working together immediately from Day 1.”
Harding said he uses a sixth lineman — he terms that player the “rhino” — quite a bit and would like to have at least two ready to go. The Wolverines also need depth at center considering only Jake Guarnera has snapped in a game.
“And then just having that physicality, nastiness of the offensive line,” Harding said. “Just kind of develop that.”
Since arriving earlier this year at Michigan, Harding said he’s been impressed by the linemen and their desire to work hard on conditioning and developing their craft by asking questions and wanting feedback. They have gone to dinner as a group to get to know each other away from the facility, and Harding has enjoyed the process.
“The things that you can’t measure right now is our physicality or our toughness, things like that,” Harding said. “I’m confident that it won’t be an issue, but that’s kind of the next step once we get pads on, (finding out) who are kind of the Alpha dogs in the room that are going to set the tone for the unit, and then, obviously, the offense. But really pleased with what I’ve seen so far.”
Harding shared offensive coordinator Jason Beck’s approach to installing the offense.
“The way (Beck) runs it, everything’s on the table Day 1 in practice,” Harding said on the podcast. “So we’ll get a script with, if you count red zone, probably 60 or so plays, and any play can be called. It’s really unique, and I’d never done it this way, but Coach Beck, actually calls it like he does in the game. There are no scripts, and so we’ll just move the ball down the field, and if it’s a third play and it’s third and 3, well he’s going to call a third-and-3 call.
“So you really have to have the kids prepared for all 60 of those. And then the next day there’ll be maybe different formations and things like that once we get the concepts down in the O-line room for the run game. Now it’s just a matter of dressing up different things. It’s a lot of stuff early on, because every run scheme we have could be called on that first day, every pass protection we have could be called on that first day. So it’s a front-loaded installation.”
achengelis@detroitnews.com
@chengelis
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