Nikki Haley may have endorsed Donald Trump, but her campaign lieutenant Jimmy Greene, a fixture in Michigan’s local party since Ronald Reagan, has not.
So when Donald Trump took the stage in his hometown of Saginaw on Thursday, the 62-year-old was nowhere to be seen. He was at home watching “Gray’s Anatomy.”
“In recent years the party was a bit of everything under Bush, McCain, Romney, we were really the big tent,” he told DailyMail.com
‘There is no big tent at the moment. It’s a MAGA tent. And if you’re not in it, you’re not in it.’
Greene was part of Nikki Haley’s leadership team in Michigan when she was the last candidate to oppose Trump in the Republican primaries.
Former President Donald Trump appeared in Saginaw, Michigan on Thursday. It is one of the most swinging provinces in the country. Joe Biden won it in 2020 by 101 votes
He and another key supporter of Haley announced last week that they would vote for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, even though Haley had endorsed Trump for president.
He thinks thousands of Republicans who can’t stomach Trump’s chaotic campaign and his embrace of policies that run counter to conservative norms, like tough tariffs, are secretly planning to do the same.
His location, in one of the swingiest counties in a swing state, makes his opinion worth listening to.
In 2016, Trump claimed Saginaw County by just 1,000 votes (or 1.1 percent) over Hillary Clinton, ahead of Michigan by just 11,000 votes.
(Clinton even mentioned the place in her memoir “What Happened,” while defending her strategy. “Some critics have said it all depended on whether I campaigned enough in the Midwest,” she wrote. “And I suppose it’s possible that a few more trips to Saginaw or a few more ads in Waukesha, Wis., could have netted a few thousand votes here and there.”)
In 2020, it was Joe Biden, with 303 votes, as he won back the state.
The economy and politics are the economics and politics of Michigan, writ large. The area was closely linked to the state’s automotive industry. Parts manufactured here would be assembled into cars in Detroit.
But the decline of the industry brought ruin to Saginaw.
And Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party is more evident here than anywhere else in the country. “The Trump Shoppe,” which sells MAGA-branded merchandise — from T-shirts and hats to cookie-cutter profiles of Donald Trump and “Deplorable coffee” — serves as GOP headquarters.
Jimmy Greene has been a Republican since 1980, but says he cannot vote for Trump this year
The Trump Shoppe is located in a strip mall next to a nail salon
Trump merchandise available for purchase in-store includes Deplorable and #45 Blend coffee
Every day, recruits sign up to volunteer for pageant work, in addition to attendees who pay for MAGA hats ahead of the rally.
Debra Ell opened the store nearly a decade ago, when Trump was just one of more than a dozen runners seeking the Republican nomination.
Last year she led a Trumpian takeover of the party, recruiting like-minded populists to the board. Her husband took over the chairmanship of the provincial party.
It was an ill-tempered affair. Opponents accused her of intimidation and chasing away moderate conservatives who showed any sign of dissent.
Greene said the result was a party that was out of step with Saginaw.
“It’s liberal on one side of the river and it’s conservative on the other side of the river, and the rest is all pretty moderate,” he said.
“And so we look like America.”
Colleen Ribble is a board member of the Republican Party
Trump made a pitch on the auto industry to Michigan voters, promising to restore auto production in the state with a combination of threats and tariffs
Nonsense, said Colleen Ribble, outreach chair of the local party and an ally of Ell. She said the party was more united than their critics claimed.
“They don’t come into our store, they just sit back and criticize,” she said outside the store as supporters came and went.
‘I think we have achieved so much. I think we are close to the record number of donations that have gone to our local candidates.”
The presidential race in Saginaw, she added, was too close to call.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’ll be so close.”
As does Michigan, where the RealClearPolitics polling average gives Harris a lead of just 0.7 percentage points.
Kamala Harris just needs a few thousand Nikki Haley supporters to break for her and she could win the key swing state of Michigan in the November election
Early voting has already started in Michigan
Robert Schwartz, director of Haley Voters for Harris in Michigan, said Republicans disenchanted with Trump could be the key to the election.
It only took a small portion of the 300,000 people who supported Haley in the primaries to vote for Harris or not vote at all to move the state into the blue column.
“We say, fine, even if she were further to the left, there’s probably going to be a Republican Senate, and would you rather have Trump in full control of the Republican Senate, or Harris and a divided government?” he said.
Greene, who plans to vote Republican, said he knew what he was getting with Harris. This is less the case with Trump.
“The bottom line is, I can live with her, and I’ve lived under Democratic rule here in Michigan,” he said.
“So even though the shoes may be a little tight, I can still walk in them.”