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.

You may think of rural West Michigan as Trump country. But Democratic voters live there too, even if they’re outnumbered.

My journey started with Austin Marsman, Democratic candidate for Michigan’s 42nd House District. He’s running against Republican incumbent Matt Hall.

I joined him in August as he knocked on doors in a small lakeside neighborhood southeast of Kalamazoo.

The 42nd district is a targeted seat for the state Democratic Party, meaning it’s a seat they think they can flip, but that means getting Marsman’s name known in the community.

“They see me come to the door, someone new, a breath of fresh air, and they appreciate that for sure,” Marsman told me.

Signs advertising Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump were plentiful in the area. But all who opened their doors were polite, even if they just took a pamphlet and headed back inside.

It was with Marsman that I met the first rural Democrat for this story, Larry Morand.

Morand’s lived in this small neighborhood for over 30 years. He’s a retired mail carrier, and now spends his time as a driver for Meals on Wheels. The weather was fair, so we went outside to talk.

Across the road from Morand is his neighbor, who flies two Trump-style American flags and a sign that reads, “Raised Right.”

But Morand is friends with that neighbor and has been for a while. The secret? Just don’t talk about politics.

“Some people, right away, say something to annoy the other person, and then it starts. So, if you’re just not so confrontational, then sure you can get along.”

But that doesn’t mean Morand keeps his beliefs to himself. He’s got a sign for Marsman and a sign for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in his front yard. And he said he’s been seeing more Harris signs crop up in the area as of late.

“I think because the Trump voters, so many of them want to advertise their beliefs, that it’s forced the hand of other people to say, ‘hey, look, we’re here too.’”

My next stop was a farm just outside of Lawton. On the way, I passed by apple orchards and vineyards and the laborers harvesting the fruit.

Robin Beacham lives in front of one of these vineyards. In fact, her family used to own it.

She said that growing up, she “just kind of had fun with it, but I never worked that hard.”

But that brought us to the topic of migrant labor, which many rural areas rely on.

“If it wasn’t for the migrant — or help, we really wouldn’t be able to get the crop in,” Robin’s husband Charles Beacham said.

While they don’t currently run a farm, Charles said he tries to help his neighbors who do.

He added that Trump’s proposal to carry out mass deportations, which Trump claims will be the largest in the country’s history, have a real chance to hurt local farms.

But as Robin noted, many in the area still support Trump.

“People that make a lot of money off the backs of immigrants and don’t really respect that they deserve the same quality of life.”

Back in 2020, Robin’s father put up a billboard-sized tarp sign on his property a couple miles away, reading “Send A Message, Vote for Democrats.”

“He’d actually got some threatening phone calls when he put that up. So, this year, he asked them to put it in a different place.”

Robin said conflict over politics has also impacted a personal relationship.

“I did have a friend that I didn’t speak to for almost three years, and we’ve since made up, but we cannot talk about it.”

She said this divide never existed before Trump ran in 2016.

“I blame it on him, for spreading so much hateful rhetoric and dividing the country.”

Robin added that things have calmed down, they’ve had no threatening phone calls or lost friends this year. So much so, that the Beachams tentatively plan to put out a sign in support of Harris.

Jan Bloom is retired, but he keeps himself busy with dog sledding and crafting string instruments like banjos.

His huskies weren’t the quiet type, so we left them upstairs and headed down to Bloom’s basement workshop.

The place was littered with tools, extension cords, wood pieces, and handmade inlays for banjo fretboards, which Bloom makes himself.

Bloom said he’s been here since the ’70s. He’s a Democrat, but his congressman, state senator, state representative, county commissioner, and township supervisor are all Republicans.

“The best you could do is hope to get an old-fashioned centrist Republican,” he said.

And while some in the area think this is how things will stay, Bloom is hopeful for change.

“I can only hope, going forward, that it does. On the other hand, I’m not sure that I’m going to be around to see it.”

For now, the area remains under Republican control, and Bloom said that leaves him feeling unrepresented.

This is especially relevant when it comes to issues that matter to him, like climate change, which Trump tells people not to worry about.

As stated previously, Bloom is musher. He’s been racing his dogsled since 2018, and he’s won his fair share of races.

“I couldn’t do anything athletic in high school. Here I’ve got, I’ve got a silver medal, a national silver medal. Oh my gosh.”

But dog sledding is hard to do without snow.

“That first year I was racing, there were five or six sled races in Michigan.”

But that’s steadily decreased according to Bloom, with snow last winter being sparse.

Despite the dwindling races, Bloom’s staying right where he is. And that’s a sentiment shared by everyone I spoke with. That, even though many of their neighbors’ views are different, they’re proud to live beside them.

“If I needed help, they’d be there to help me. If they need help, I’m there to help them,” Bloom said.

Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program. WMUK also spoke with urban Republicans. That story is coming soon.