 About 1.5% of families and 16.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23.3% of those under the age 18 and 11.4% of those age 65 or over.Sanilac County has voted for the Republican nominee in every presidential election since the GOP's inaugural election in 1856, except in 1912, when the county supported Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party campaign.However, they had voted for the Republican nominee in 1912, William Howard Taft in the previous election (1908).