We’re one day away from the 2024 election, and more than three million votes are in from Michiganders who chose to vote early or absentee. That makes up 43.9% of the state’s active registered voters.
More than seven million people are registered to vote in Michigan, and candidates are spending a lot of time trying to win over voters.
“This is not normal politics happening in Michigan,” said Local 4 Pollster Richard Czuba. “Michigan is the epicenter of the political universe.”
In the final, grueling steps in the race to the White House, every candidate, from Vice President Kamala Harris to former President Donald Trump, Tim Walz, and JD Vance, is making sure they’re stepping into the epicenter and often, Czuba, the political pollster and founder of the Glengarriff Group, says Michigan represents all the divisions taking place in this election.
“Male, female, percentage of Black voters to white voters, college non-college voters,” Czuba said.
In the last month alone, both presidential and vice presidential nominees visited Michigan at least a dozen times, making multiple stops.
Harris stopped by a Detroit restaurant and a Pontiac barbershop and spoke in East Lansing.
Trump made stops over the weekend in Warren and Dearborn and plans to finish in Grand Rapids on Monday (Nov. 4) night, just as he did in 2016 and 2020.
“There are two counties that are going to have an inordinately large role in what happens in Michigan,” Czuba said. “One is Oakland, which has increasingly shifted to the democratic side, but the other is Kent County Grand Rapids.”
With Michigan becoming a significant swing state, Trump took it in 2016, and President Joe Biden took it in 2020.
“You have these dynamics playing out in the state right now,” Czuba said. “It’s going to be close.”
