Meet the urban Republicans of Southwest Michigan

Editor’s note: This story includes a reference to sexual assault.

In a follow-up to our story about rural Democrats, we ask four Republicans in Kalamazoo what it’s like to be a red drop in a blue pond.

At the edge of a wooded lot on a busy street in Kalamazoo, there’s a collection of Republican signs. What’s unusual is that some are not on the ground.

“I put all my signs up on Howard Street, up in the trees, because I had 25 Trump signs stolen in the last election,” Ron Wiser, the owner of the signs, said.

I met Ron at his office at the financial group he founded in 1960. Wiser actually votes in South Haven, but he works and has a home in Kalamazoo. Trump supporters were relatively rare in the city in 2020; in the city’s best precinct for the then-president, just three in 10 voters cast their ballot for him. In half of city of Kalamazoo precincts, Trump got 20% or less of the vote, and in one he got just 5%.

Wiser said he supports Trump because like him, Trump’s a financial conservative and a businessman.

“I want somebody who’s actually worked and ran a business, and their livelihood depended on what they produce.”

Wiser thinks Trump would spend more prudently than his rival, Democrat Kamala Harris. His focus on government spending made him the most traditional of the Republicans I talked to. But Wiser suggested that he doesn’t think the former president is perfect.

“I would like to see Trump tone down some of his rhetoric. I hope some of the Democrats would tone down some of the rhetoric, and we could get back and — to a point where we can talk.”

And though Wiser’s a financial conservative, he doesn’t want the U.S. to pull its support for Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion.

Trump has been less than resolute in his support of Ukraine. And while Wiser said he’s fine with nudging the country toward a negotiated peace, he would not support abandoning it to Russia.

“We did this with Hitler. We let him have one country after another and waved our finger at him. And he kept going, kept going and going and going.”

Wiser’s wife Ruth also supports Trump, and like her husband, she supports him for economic reasons, but her other core issues vary from Ron’s.

I met Ruth at the Wisers’ home south of downtown. She said people don’t always see the nuances in her views.

“I think people look at me because I’m voting for Trump, and they think that she’s against abortion or something. No, not at all.”

But Ruth said it’s okay with her that the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing states to set their own abortion policies.

“That is our democracy, that we have the opportunity as citizens to vote and our representatives to represent us, to make those laws for your state.”

Trump critics say he could restrict abortion nationally by changing Food and Drug Administration rules, enforcing the Comstock Act or signing a ban. But Ruth doesn’t think he’ll go against the states.

Before she retired, Ruth was an engineer, then a business executive. Now she tutors at a dual-language school in Kalamazoo. Some of her students are from immigrant families.

Trump said if he’s reelected, he’ll mass-deport undocumented people, and end some forms of legal immigration.

Ruth said she would be heartbroken if her students or their families were deported, but she added the law must be followed.

“The idea that our border is open and people are coming across, criminals, rapists, murderers, but rapists primarily is terrifying.”

Ruth said she survived rape as a child, informing this belief.

“I heard on the news today, 420,000 criminals have come across our borders and are living around the US. Of those 13,000 have committed murders.”

There are more than 400,000 convicted criminal immigrants in the US, including 13,000 convicted of homicide, according to an NBC report. But most did not just arrive in the US. Some came as long as four decades ago. And many of them are serving jail or prison sentences, the Department of Homeland Security told NBC.

Additionally, the Department of Justice released a report last month looking at how often undocumented people are arrested in Texas.

It found that the rate was less than half that of American-born citizens for violent and drug crimes, and even lower for property crimes.

In Ruth’s view, the media gives Democrats a pass while unfairly scrutinizing Trump. She’s not the only one who thinks so.

‘They get away with it’

“The whole thing is to take him out. And it’s not working so far. And I pray to God it doesn’t work,” Patricia Melluish said.

Patricia and her husband Jim live in the Winchell neighborhood, about a five-minute drive from the Wisers.

Patricia was a stay-at-home mom; Jim is a retired ophthalmologist.

In their yard they have signs for Trump, state and local Republican candidates, and one more, which Jim reads: “Do you like law and order, secure borders, prosperity for all? Then vote Republican.”

Jim said he feels accepted by his Harris-supporting neighbors. But he recalls confronting a group of teenagers back in 2020 after they knocked down his Trump sign.

“They were very ashamed, and they were, said they wouldn’t do it again and all that. And I think they learned a little bit of a lesson, but it’s, I don’t see any Democrat signs get getting damaged.”

Patricia Melluish says that Trump says things that are true but uncomfortable.

“I think he says, a lot of times, the things that people agree with but won’t say.”

And the Melluishes said the media, government and Democrats are the ones pushing lies, not Trump.

Myriad investigations found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, but Patricia said that’s just another one of the lies.

“There was a lot of research done, and there was total evidence of it. But the mass media, the mainstream media, as my understanding just refused to cover it.”

In Jim’s view, Democrats are rarely checked on what they say.

“Because they’re saying it nicely and they’re happy, and they don’t throw in personal digs, they get away with it.”

And Jim thinks the media is unfair to Trump over the things he does say.

The recent baseless claims by Trump and his running mate JD Vance that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio? Jim said he doesn’t see it as racist, or even necessarily false.

“If you go back to their island that they came from, they live in dire poverty, and they do have to sometimes resort to that sort of eating. Those people are starving, and so it’s not, it’s not putting the Haitian down,” Jim said.

“Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know. I don’t really care,” he added. “It’s a small point when I think about how many wars have started with Trump versus with Biden, the Biden-Harris administration.”

And a New York jury finding Trump guilty in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records? Jim said it shows the courts are corrupt.

“It tells me it’s all the more reason to elect him so he can clean at least the federal judiciary up and the prosecutors and all that.”

With people so divided on what is true and what isn’t, Jim doesn’t see the political divide healing any time soon.

“I don’t think it’ll ever happen. I don’t think we’ll get back together for a couple hundred years or whatever it is.”

Campaigning in Battle Creek

Steve Frisbie has not given up on talking across the divide. He can’t afford to.

Frisbee’s a Republican running for Michigan’s 44th house district against Democratic incumbent Jim Haadsma. It’s a seat Republicans think they can win.

I followed Frisbie as he knocked on doors in Battle Creek’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

On his front steps, Wendell LaGrand told Frisbie he’s a teacher, and a fan of his opponent. But he and Frisbie ended up talking for nearly 20 minutes.

“I can say I’ll remember you. I’ll look down that list of people, I’ll see Mr. Steve Frisbie, and Mr. Steve Frisbie might get a vote,” LaGrand said.

Frisbie said he appreciated that LaGrand was open to the idea of voting for him.

LaGrand said he liked the interaction, and Frisbie’s “boots on the ground” campaigning.

“He’s got to care about something, because go door to door in this neighborhood is, well, that’s impressive.”

Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program.

WMUK also spoke with rural Democrats. That story can be found here.