Michigan Senate race puts Grand Rapids billionaire philanthropy in focus

I am pleased to report that Grand Rapids, Michigan, is an absolutely thriving mid-sized American city that almost feels like walking back in time. It has sidewalks full of people, streets full of cars and big beautiful buildings filled with businesses.

When I asked locals what the secret of this success was, a surprising number of people cited a handful of billionaire philanthropic families: the very same billionaires that Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed says should not exist in the Wolverine State, or anywhere in America.

Among these wealthy families with deep roots in Grand Rapids and broader Western Michigan are the Davos, Van Andel and Meijer families, whose names can be seen on institutions all over town — owing the billions they have donated.

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Joan is a docent at the splendid Grand Rapids Public Museum, just across from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, and she told Fox News Digital of the museum and Grand Rapids’ success, “We have a few families that really do a lot to fill gaps and help to make things happen.”

Inside the massive museum, which looks like it should be in a city with an NFL team, is a mini Grand Rapids from the 1880s with stores to poke into. It was at the chemist that I met Joan, and honestly, add a bit of glass and steel and the city today seems just as bustling.

At one point, I found myself in the museum, looking at the bones of a prehistoric mastodon. Through the window behind it, bright yellow construction machines worked along the waterfront, while beyond them stood the short, proud buildings on the other side of the Grand River, from which the town takes its name.

In this parallax, one can see a kind of continuity that most American cities lack: the past, present and future in a positive lockstep.

A prehistoric mastodon is pictured inside the Grand Rapids Public Museum. (David Marcus/Fox News Digital)

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Later that day, I asked a construction worker about how often he works on buildings attached to these wealthy families. He said, with that distinct Western Michigan accent, “All the time, half the big projects we work on have one of the names on it,” and laughingly added, “sometimes all the names.”

There are myriad reasons why Grand Rapids is doing so well, but to discount the impact of these wealthy local families’ philanthropy is to miss a huge plot point of the economic success story.

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This is not a new feature of American civic growth. From the Astors in New York City to the Carnegies in Pittsburgh, our cities have always benefited from the noblesse oblige of what El-Sayed, who himself owns foreign investment property, would call “the 1%.”

Today’s left has a very different vision of noblesse oblige, which was on display this summer as several high-ranking New York City Democratic Socialists of America members were exposed as rich kids living off of mommy and daddy’s wealth.

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For today’s left, noblesse oblige means marching through the streets and getting communists elected before retiring to your trust-funded million-dollar apartment. In Michigan, it still means building museums, libraries and medical centers.

Some Michiganders, such as Maggie, who is retired and lives near Grand Rapids, did express concern about income inequality.

“Where we live in Holland, there are houses that are maybe $60,000. You go two blocks away, and there are $6 million houses on the lake,” she said. “The haves and the have-nots are so pronounced.”

Supporters of Michigan Republican Senate candidate, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers rally outside the WOOD TV studios where the two candidates held a debate on Oct. 8, 2026, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A former public health director and firebrand progressive, Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been polling ahead of Rogers, but the lead remains within the margin of error. ( )

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But even Democrat Maggie and her husband Doug, who are safe votes for El-Sayed, do not express the kind of anger and condemnation toward billionaires that he and his fellow travelers — such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — regularly perform.

In El-Sayed’s ideal world, the money spent by the grand families of Grand Rapids on civic projects would go directly to the government instead, supposedly to mete out more equally. But this utterly discounts the economic power of a strong philanthropic community.

El-Sayed has famously said that he wants no billionaires, but the problem with this socialist hokum is on full display in beautiful Grand Rapids. In fact, on the ground, billionaires make the places they live much better, and plant the civic seeds that sprout the millionaires El-Sayed claims to want.

Republican candidate Mike Rogers would be wise to point out loudly that El-Sayed’s war on billionaires would have a devastating impact on Michigan. Rather than demonizing the wealthy, the government should be working with them to “fill the gaps,” as Joan put it, and get things done without the endless bureaucracy of government.