2008 Michigan Republican Primary Results Map
There are two halves of Michigan: the McCain half, and the Romney half. Romney's keys to victory were that (a) his half had more people, and (b) he won it by a larger margin. The most pro-Romney counties were actually suburbs and exurbs of Detroit, rather than Detroit itself. McCain's base was the Youpers.
Both teams played hard.
Great data. Funny that McCain ran stronger in some of the more conservative areas of the state (western Michigan) while Mitt's strongest areas were around Detroit and Saganaw. I get the sense from MI and NH that Romney might be weak in rural areas.
Posted by: ikl | January 15, 2008 at 10:27 PM
But the exits show that McCain did better among moderates. The area is more conservative (votes more Republican), but the people think of themselves as more moderate ...
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | January 15, 2008 at 10:45 PM
I looked back at the exit polls, which had McCain doing the best in cities and Romney doing best in suburbs followed closely by rural areas. This seems to clash with the actual results posted above. Unless they are counting exurbs like towns in Livingston County as "rural." In which case that result might sort of make sense (a lot of the areas in Northern and Western Michigan won by McCain don't have all that many people).
Also note that the UP isn't that conservative despite being quite rural. I'm actually not surprised that McCain did well there - it is Western Michigan that doesn't seem to fit the pattern . . .
Posted by: ikl | January 15, 2008 at 11:04 PM
The problem of Romney is that he is too urban for rural voters. He lost two states without biggest cities and without the Metropolitan Area of Detroit, he would have lost Michigan.
He is the Republican Kerry.
Posted by: André Kenji | January 16, 2008 at 05:32 AM
Kerry actually did relatively better in rural areas than Gore did. So that is not entirely fair - its mainly a Democratic party problem not a Kerry problem.
If there is any silver lining for Romney it might be that the UP and northern NH aren't very representative rural areas (not sufficiently conservative). But this does look like a problem - if a Republican can't win big in the countryside, they have trouble making up for losing in the cities.
Posted by: ikl | January 16, 2008 at 09:28 AM
Another Ambinder link! I love how you're making us the go-to blog for election maps.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | January 16, 2008 at 12:37 PM
Looks like Romney ran strongest in the Livingston/Oakland/Macomb strip of counties, which are very conservative, perhaps more so than W. Michigan.
For you Eminem fans, that dividing line between dark brown and lighter brown you see over there on the east side of the state is the famous 8 Mile Road . . .
Posted by: rea | January 16, 2008 at 02:50 PM
Macomb county is sometimes called "home of the Reagan Democrats": suburban, lower-middle class / working class folks. Bush won there by a small amount in '04. I'm not sure how conservative it is (Kerry had rallies there in '04 if I recall correctly), but maybe the Republican voters there are really right wing.
Livingston county is really right-wing in some scary ways, I am told. I agree that this might be more conservative than Western Mich. Bush won big there.
Oakland County might be more affluent than the other two, though I'm not really sure. It is pretty suburban. Kerry won by a small margin in '04.
In summary, only Livingston County is really conservative, though it is possible that Republican voters in the other two counties are more right wing than would be predicted by general election results.
Posted by: ikl | January 16, 2008 at 08:42 PM