Michigan elections in 2026
15 electoral votes · 13 House seats · Midwest · 2 statewide races on the 2026 ballot
Michigan US Senate: D 50.0 to R 50.0, tossup Republican, well sourced. Michigan Senate Race Tightens as El-Sayed Seeks to Unify Fractured Party
Michigan Governor: D 51.0 to R 47.5, lean Democratic, well sourced. Benson Holds Narrow Edge Over James in Highly Contested Michigan Open Race
House delegation as simulated: 6 D, 6 R, 1 tossup of 13 districts swept.
Model readings of live reporting, not polling. The full Michigan board, with sourcing and the county map where one exists, is on the Midterms 2026 tab of the homepage.
How Michigan votes
Michigan is a premier battleground built on the auto industry, organized labor, and the contrast between metro Detroit, mid-sized cities and its rural north. Manufacturing, wages and abortion have all been decisive there in recent cycles.
Its largest population centers include Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor. Where a state's people live, and what those places do for a living, is the starting point for how Electorate HQ simulations reason about it.
On the ballot in Michigan
Election day is November 3, 2026. Michigan has 2 statewide races and 13 House seats on the ballot.
Statewide races
House districts
Every House seat is elected every two years. Each district below is listed with the counties inside it, computed from the current Census boundary files, wherever those files give a clean answer. Not sure which district is yours? Use the address lookup below.
- Michigan 1st district: Alcona, Alger, Alpena, Antrim, Arenac, Baraga, Benzie, Charlevoix and 27 more counties (35 in all)
- Michigan 2nd district: Barry, Clare, Gladwin, Gratiot, Ionia, Isabella, Lake, Manistee and 8 more counties (16 in all)
- Michigan 3rd district: Kent, Ottawa Counties
- Michigan 4th district: Allegan, Kalamazoo, Van Buren Counties
- Michigan 5th district: Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Hillsdale, Jackson, Lenawee, Monroe and 1 more counties (9 in all)
- Michigan 6th district: Washtenaw County
- Michigan 7th district: Clinton, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Shiawassee Counties
- Michigan 8th district: Bay, Genesee, Midland, Saginaw Counties
- Michigan 9th district: Huron, Lapeer, Macomb, Sanilac, St. Clair, Tuscola Counties
- Michigan 10th district: entirely within Macomb County
- Michigan 11th district: Oakland County
- Michigan 12th district: entirely within Wayne County
- Michigan 13th district: Wayne County
Find your exact districts
Your address goes to the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoder to find your districts. It is not stored, and no AI sees it.
Which district am I in? Michigan districts by county
House districts follow population, not county lines, so a single county can hold several districts and a single district can span many. Each county is listed under the district that holds its center, so if your county appears once above, that district holds most of it and is probably yours. If it appears under several, or if you live near a district line, use the address lookup for the exact answer.
Before you vote in Michigan
Registration deadlines, early voting windows, mail ballot rules and identification requirements are all set at the state level and change between cycles, so the authoritative source is your own election office rather than any national site. The federal directory at vote.gov links to every state's registration system, and your county election office publishes the sample ballot that includes local contests.
The ballot section above covers the federal and statewide offices on the Michigan ballot for November 3, 2026. Each statewide race links to a page with current coverage and an AI-generated simulation of the contest, always labeled as a simulation rather than a poll.
Local races
Local councils and commissions, school boards, judges, sheriffs and municipal offices are also on many Michigan ballots, and they vary block by block. Your county election office publishes the authoritative local sample ballot.
Michigan's weight in Washington
Michigan carries 15 electoral votes, which ranks it 10 of 51 by that measure, and sends 13 voting members to the House.
That arithmetic is why the same national argument lands differently here than in a state of another size: a candidate courting Michigan is competing for a specific share of the map, and the issues below are the ones that share actually turns on.
How Michigan is represented
Michigan is divided into 13 House districts, each drawn to hold roughly the same number of people, while its two Senate seats represent the state as a whole. A campaign here therefore runs two different arguments at once: a local one shaped by whichever district a voter lives in, and a statewide one that has to hold together across all 13.
Electoral votes follow the same arithmetic, House seats plus two, which is why Michigan carries 15 in a presidential year and why small states carry proportionally more weight there than population alone would give them. The district list above shows every district on the 2026 ballot and the counties the boundary files place inside each one.
Issues that weigh heavily in Michigan
Based on the state's industry mix, geography and cost of living, these issues tend to carry structural weight in Michigan elections:
Latest Michigan political headlines
Michigan Election 2026: Key Races and Historical Presidential Election ResultsJocelyn Benson outraises John James. See top donors in Michigan governor raceMichigan 2026 Poll: El-Sayed and Rogers Locked in Close ElectionMidterm Megadonors, Candidate Character & Rural VotersHuman Rights Campaign Announces Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as…Voting Rights Advocates and Election Officials Assure Voters that Michigan Elections are Secure, Transparent and AccuratePolls Show Advantage for Incumbent Parties in 4 Governor’s RacesI was a Resident Advisor for two years. Michigan Housing needs to change.Simulate Michigan
In the Electorate HQ simulator, Michigan is one of 51 delegations that reads current reporting and decides a presidential race issue by issue. Results are AI simulations, clearly labeled, with the reasoning shown for every call. See the methodology for what that does and does not mean.
Analysis covering Michigan
Twenty-six states elect a senator and a governor on the same day in 2026
The overlap between the Senate class and the gubernatorial cohort is a coincidence of two unrelated calendars, and it decides where money goes.
The 2026 Senate map covers 62% of the country and 70% of the states
Thirty-five of fifty states vote for Senate this year. Weighted by people rather than states the share drops, and that gap is the design of the chamber.
Election night is reported in 3,142 counties and decided in 435 districts
The unit America counts votes in and the unit America allocates House seats in are different shapes, and they do not nest inside each other.