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Michigan
Electoral Votes: 17 (-1 since 2000)
2000 Results: Gore 51%, Bush 46%, Nader 2%
Recent Polls
Zogby International: Kerry 52%, Bush 45%
(Oct. 28-31; margin of error +/-4.1%)
Survey USA: Kerry 50%, Bush 47%
(Oct. 28-30; margin of error +/-3.9%)
Mason-Dixon: Kerry 47%, Bush 45%
(Oct. 27-29; margin of error +/-4.0%)
Population: White 78.6%, Black 14.1%, Hispanic 3.3%, Asian 1.8%
Urban Population: 74.7%
Rural: 25.3%
Median Income $44,667
Unemployment: 6.7%, as of August
Forecast: The Democrats thought they had this state locked up. But it's a tossup again.
Less than three weeks before the election, Bush started moving most of his resources elsewhere. Kerry seemed to have the state locked up. But then new polls showed a dead heat with less than a week to go, so both candidates have made more visits and poured more resources into the state.
When traditional Democrats in suburban Detroit voted for Ronald Reagan in the '80s, it was a huge change. Now the pendulum has swung the other way. Michigan voted for Gore by a solid five points. Michigan saw an economic boom in the '90s, but it was small businesses and manufacturing that led the way. The past four years have been hard for those businesses too; unemployment is higher than the national average. The state is still home to a large union population, but now the members are just as likely to be municipal employees or hospital workers as auto workers. Gore won in 2000 by taking not just Detroit but other big cities like Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw and even Marquette on the Upper Peninsula. He narrowly won the suburbs. Bush will have to win back those voters to upset Kerry here.
Counties to Watch: Oakland, Macomb, Kalamazoo, St. Clair, Shiawassee, Isabella.
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