Don't Lie to MeMichigan's 4th District in Congress, on the record
MI-4 · Allegan & Van Buren Counties, and parts of Berrien, Calhoun, Kalamazoo & Ottawa

Is MI-4 getting the representation it needs in Congress? Here's the record.

This site weighs the evidence on whether Michigan's 4th District is well served by its member of the U.S. House, whoever holds the seat. Today that's Rep. Bill Huizenga. The evidence is the member's record: roll-call votes, sponsored bills, committee work, and public statements, checked against who lives here and what the district's economy depends on. The presidency, the U.S. Senate, and the state legislature come in only where they connect directly to that record, such as a federal law that shifts costs onto Michigan's budget, or a vote on whether to end a president's tariff emergency. Every claim links to its source, and the parts of the record that hold up get stated as plainly as the parts that don't.

Read the articles How I source

Last reviewed Sept. 25, 2026 · Corrections log

South Haven · Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress (public domain)
Allegan, Van Buren & parts of four more counties

Michigan, at a glance

Statewide context
10.1M
Residents statewide (2025), the 10th-most populous state, about 3% of the U.S. population.
Source: USAFacts, state population data
5.0%
Statewide unemployment rate (August 2026, seasonally adjusted), above the national rate of 4.1%.
Source: BLS, State Employment and Unemployment, released Sept. 18, 2026
$72,389
Median household income statewide (2024), trailing the national figure of $81,604 by more than $9,000.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year estimates, table DP03
13.4%
Statewide poverty rate (2024), above the national rate of 12.1%.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year estimates, table DP03
The district

MI-4, at a glance

The district Bill Huizenga represents.

Map of MI-4. The district covers all of Allegan and Van Buren counties, southern Ottawa County, most of Kalamazoo County, western Calhoun County, and the northern part of Berrien County, along the Lake Michigan shore.
MI-4, 119th Congress. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 cartographic boundary files
785,367
District population (2024).
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year estimates, table DP05 (margin of error ±7,132)
$73,702
Median household income in the district (2024), slightly above the statewide figure. The gap is within the survey's ±$3,100 margin of error for the district, so the two are effectively level.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year estimates, table DP03
R+3
Cook Partisan Voting Index (updated Nov. 2025). Heading into 2024, the district was rated R+5.
Source: Cook Political Report, MI-4 (nonpartisan election analysis, not a government source); prior rating via Ballotpedia (secondary)
55.1%
Huizenga's share of the 2024 general-election vote: 234,489 of 425,817. He was first elected to Congress in 2010 and represented the old MI-2 until redistricting moved him to MI-4 in 2023.
Source: Clerk of the House, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of Nov. 5, 2024
Why this matters: recent presidential and congressional results indicate a Republican-leaning but competitive district. Within the current lines, the President carried it by about 4 points in 2020 (51%–47%, per Ballotpedia) and about 6 points in 2024 (per the Cook Political Report). Both are secondary calculations; district-level presidential results aren't published officially. Cook notes that Ottawa County was one of the few Michigan counties where the 2024 Democratic ticket improved on its 2020 margin, and the district's Cook PVI has shifted from R+5 to R+3. That makes documented district priorities particularly useful for evaluating representation independently of party identification.

The Four-Part Test

Full dashboard

We evaluate the record through four questions: whether congressional activity addresses documented MI-4 needs, whether the policies are durable, whether Congress's institutional responsibilities are exercised consistently, and whether consequential decisions are explained to constituents. The dashboard summarizes the evidence; it does not assign a political grade.

Representation

Institutional Performance

Evidence describes how complete the record is, not how Huizenga performed. Record describes the pattern in the evidence, and Trend describes how the evidence has changed. None of them is a grade, and no overall score is calculated. How to read the dashboard · Open questions · Reviewed Sept. 25, 2026

Recent analysis

What changed, and when

What's here

Full article index
The west front of the U.S. Capitol
Photo: Architect of the Capitol (public domain)
Articles

The record, vote by vote

Huizenga's roll-call record against House Clerk data, his committee assignments and legislative output, and what specific laws and votes mean for MI-4's manufacturing and agriculture base.
Rows of grapevines with a clover cover crop in Van Buren County
Photo: Lynn Betts, USDA NRCS (public domain)
Priorities

What this district should demand

What MI-4's makeup should demand of its representative. Where the record holds up, I say that too. A source that only reports the bad news isn't one worth trusting.

How claims are sourced

  • Primary government data first
  • Every statistic carries a data year
  • Fact, inference and judgment marked
  • Advocacy estimates labeled as such
Read the methodology