Swing time The county that could decide the election

A local law says that residents of Saginaw Township in Michigan cannot publicly display political signs in support of a presidential candidate until 30 days before the US election, even on their own front lawns.

- Chris McGreal MICHIGAN

You wouldn't know it while driving through this neat midwestern town in the most closely contested county also called Saginaw - of a battleground state that Donald Trump won in 2016 when he took the White House and then lost in 2020 when Joe Biden wrested it from his control.

With more than six weeks until what many Americans regard as the most consequential US presidential election in decades, some Saginaw residents defied the ban. Trump campaign signs outnumbered those for Kamala Harris but scattered among them are posters proclaiming the former US president is a convicted felon who belongs in prison and not the Oval Office.

For Saginaw's population there is the added weight that not all votes are equal thanks to the vagaries of the electoral college system - and theirs count for more than most. The county is crucial to who wins Michigan and the state looks likely to be pivotal in deciding the next occupant of the White House.

In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Saginaw county by just 1.1% of the ballot as he took Michigan by less than 11,000 votes. Four years later, Biden won back the county for the Democrats by 303 votes.