2024-11-01
32 分钟The Guardian US writer Chris McGreal reports from his time in Saginaw, Michigan – the county that has backed the winning candidate in every US presidential election since 2008 – to find out which way America might vote on 5 November. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
This is the Guardian today.
Six weeks in Saginaw, the most closely divided county in one of the most closely divided swing states in the American presidential election.
Saginaw is a small, post industrial town in the middle of Michigan.
If you recognise the name, it might be because it made it into a couple of songs back in the 1960s.
It took me four days to hitchhike.
From Saginaw, but now the folk singers are gone and so have most of the factories and many of the jobs that went with them.
It's a place that doesn't often make the news at all, except for once every four years.
Hello, Michigan.
I love to be in Michigan when.
The circus comes to town, when we.
Undo understand who we are as a nation.
We take great pride in being a leader on so many things.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump know how important the voters in this state are.
For both of them, the clearest path to victory in next Tuesday's election is if they can win in Michigan along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
All of which, for Guardian writer Chris McGreal, made Saginaw the perfect place to base himself in the lead up to November 5th.
I chose Saginaw because Michigan's a crucial swing state.
Whoever wins Michigan may well win the election.
And I wanted to find somewhere inside Michigan that was representative of the narrowness of the vote.
For six weeks, Chris has been living in and reporting on Saginaw, getting to know people in the community there, and trying to understand what could be about to happen when Americans go to the polls.
Because if past elections are any guide, as goes Saginaw, so goes the entire country.