Politics
See also: Elections in Michigan and Political party strength in MichiganVoters in the state elect candidates from both major parties. Economic issues are important in Michigan elections.
The three-term Republican Governor John Engler (1991–2003) preceded the former two-term Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm (2003–2011). The state has elected successive Republican attorneys general twice since 2003. The Republican Party currently holds a majority in both the House and Senate of the Michigan Legislature. Michigan supported the election of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. The current Governor Rick Snyder (2011–present) is a Republican.
| Year | Republicans | Democrats |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 45.20% 2,112,673 | 54.80% 2,561,911 |
| 2008 | 40.89% 2,048,639 | 57.33% 2,872,579 |
| 2004 | 47.81% 2,313,746 | 51.23% 2,479,183 |
| 2000 | 46.14% 1,953,139 | 51.28% 2,170,418 |
| 1996 | 38.48% 1,481,212 | 51.69% 1,989,653 |
| 1992 | 36.38% 1,554,940 | 43.77% 1,871,182 |
| 1988 | 53.57% 1,965,486 | 45.67% 1,675,783 |
| 1984 | 59.23% 2,251,571 | 40.24% 1,529,638 |
| 1980 | 48.99% 1,915,225 | 42.50% 1,661,532 |
| 1976 | 51.83% 1,893,742 | 46.44% 1,696,714 |
| 1972 | 56.20% 1,961,721 | 41.81% 1,459,435 |
| 1968 | 41.46% 1,370,665 | 48.18% 1,593,082 |
| 1964 | 33.10% 1,060,152 | 66.70% 2,136,615 |
| 1960 | 48.84% 1,620,428 | 50.85% 1,687,269 |
However, the state has supported Democrats in the last six presidential election cycles. In 2012, Barack Obama carried the state over Mitt Romney, winning Michigan's 17 electoral votes with 54% of the vote. Michigan's two U.S. Senators are both Democrats, while Republicans hold nine of the state's fifteen U.S. House seats. In 2000, the current Democrat U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow won narrowly over Republican U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham. Michigan's senior U.S. Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat, has been elected to six terms since 1979, after he defeated the Republican U.S. Senator Robert P. Griffin. Carl Levin serves as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Congressman Fred Upton, a Republican, serves as Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Congressman Mike Rogers, also a Republican, serves as Chairman of U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. John Dingell, a Democrat, is the Dean of the United States House of Representatives.
Republican strongholds of the state include the western, northern, cental and rural parts of the state, especially the Grand Rapids metro area. Republicans also perform strongly in most of suburban Detroit, which includes Oakland, Macomb and Livingston counties as well as Grosse Pointe in Wayne County.
Democratic strongholds include Wayne County, which includes the city of Detroit, Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor), Ingham County (Lansing), and Genesee County (Flint).
Historically, the first county-level meeting of the Republican Party took place in Jackson on July 6, 1854, and the party thereafter dominated Michigan until the Great Depression. In the 1912 election, Michigan was one of the six states to support progressive Republican and third-party candidate Theodore Roosevelt for president after he lost the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft.
Michigan remained fairly reliably Republican at the presidential level for much of the 20th century. It was part of Greater New England, the northern tier of states settled chiefly by migrants from New England who carried their culture with them. The state was one of only a handful to back Wendell Willkie over Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, and supported Thomas E. Dewey in his losing bid against Harry S. Truman in 1948. Michigan went to the Democrats in presidential elections during the 1960s, and voted for Republican Richard Nixon in 1972.
Michigan was the home of Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States. He was born in Nebraska and moved as an infant to Grand Rapids and grew up there. The Gerald R. Ford Museum is located in Grand Rapids, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library is located on the campus of his alma mater, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Michigan does not recognize or perform same-sex marriages or other unions involving same-sex couples under a 2004 state constitutional amendment.
Read more about this topic: Politics Of Michigan, Government
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)