“I could have run as a Republican,” Ms. Sparks said. But, she said, she fits better with Democrats, and “when I look at President Trump and what he does and says, I would not want to represent that. Period.”
The Lubbers, who are Republicans, feel the same. So when they voted in 2016, they wrote in Mitt Romney and John McCain. It was the first time since 1972 they had not voted for the Republican candidate for president.
“I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d voted for Trump,” Mrs. Lubbers said.
They were not alone. About 326,000 voters in Michigan in 2016 either wrote in a name, picked a third-party candidate or chose nobody at all. That is about 1 in 15 people who voted and about 30 times Mr. Trump’s margin of victory here.
Suburbs Where Republicans Still Rule
Democrats may be advancing in the inner-ring suburbs, but that does not mean they have conquered the suburbs over all. In many cities, the inner-ring advantage is not enough to counteract the powerful force of Republican voters in the outer ring.
Republican firewalls have held, at least so far, in many places with this outer-ring advantage — Charlotte, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. In others, Democrats have gotten very close. Houston, a metropolitan area of nearly 7 million, went for Mr. Trump by just 21,000 votes. In contrast, Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate, won by 216,000 votes.
In Kent County, where three-quarters of voters live in suburbs, Republicans still have the majority. In 2016, Mr. Trump lost the inner ring by six points but won the outer ring by 23. Pam Hooker moved to the distant suburb of Byron Center with her husband in 1979 after visiting on a church hayride. She loves that her house is still close to fields of corn and squash. The area has many churches and a school system that Mrs. Hooker describes as conservative, just what she was looking for in a place to raise her family.
“I believe we escaped the big city because of the liberal influences,” said Mrs. Hooker, who is involved in the anti-abortion movement. “The less interference of government, the better off we are. Out here, we have more opportunity for that.”