Politics

Battleground State Profile: Michigan

July 24, 2008 / 12:14 PM EDT / CBS

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State Data:

2008 Primary Results:

Hillary Clinton: 55%
Uncommitted: 40%
Mitt Romney: 39%
John McCain: 30%
Mike Huckabee: 16%

2004 Election Results:

John Kerry: 51.23%

George W. Bush: 47.81%

2000 Election Results:

Al Gore: 51.28%

George W. Bush: 46.15%

Racial Breakdown:

White: 78.6%

Black: 14.2%

Hispanic: 3.3%

Other: 4.0%

Income:

Under 25k: 26.5%

25-50k: 28.9%

50-100k: 32%

Over 100k: 12.7%

Education:

Less than H.S.: 16.6%

H.S. or Higher: 83.4%

BA or Higher: 21.6%

Grad/Prof Deg: 8.1%

Michigan

Michigan is generally counted among the states that Obama must win, in order to be elected in November. But after the extended primary season, it's a place where Obama may have a lot of work to do after skipping it during the primary season due to the state's battle with the national party over its early primary date.

Michigan is generally counted among the states that Obama must win, in order to be elected in November.

Perhaps nowhere in the country will the debate over the economy be as critical in November as it will be Michigan. The state's struggling automotive industry was the focal point of the Republican primary battle, where Mitt Romney defeated McCain in part by hammering the Arizona senator for saying that some of the jobs that the state loss would not come back. McCain and Obama have returned to the state again and again over the summer in hopes of taking this large prize and its 17 Electoral Votes.

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