There were a lot of “firsts” and broken records in the 2026 election. Turnout data is incomplete, but the numbers definitely show that a larger portion of Michiganders cast votes in the midterm than they usually do.
Here’s what we’ve learned so far about how people made themselves heard.
Michigan is still breaking turnout records, but not everywhere
This year’s election was loud. More money was spent on advertising than any prior midterm. Debates, particularly in the U.S. Senate race, were intense. Ballot questions at the state and local level offered voters opportunities to make massive changes that would immediately impact their lives.
Michigan State University Political Science Professor Corwin Smidt said we’re seeing communities becoming more politically active.
“What we know about voting is its habit-forming,” said Smidt, who used to direct the university’s public polling arm. “Once you do it, you're more likely to do it again, and Michigan's had all these competitive elections, and different issues, and as more people sort of participate it sticks with them.”
Turnout increased significantly in many places that may not be surprising, such as Wayne, Kent, and Washtenaw counties.
Preliminary data also suggests there were large increases in rural Oscoda and Ogemaw counties. But unlike other counties that saw big increases, voters in Oscoda and Ogemaw only slightly shifted toward Democrats compared to the 2024 presidential election, keeping the Republican margin of victory across the top of the ballot strong in both counties.
There is an exception: in the U.S. Senate race, preliminary data suggests Ogemaw is the only county that shifted more toward the Republican candidate relative to the 2024 presidential race.
However, a comparison to a presidential election year is not enough.
Looking at past midterm races in Oscoda, Ogemaw and many other rural counties, U.S. Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed and Governor-elect Jocelyn Benson actually underperformed compared to past U.S. Senate and gubernatorial candidates from their own party.
Benson outperformed fellow 2026 Michigan Democrats in statewide races
The governor-elect saw more people vote for her than Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate (El-Sayed), attorney general (Eli Savit) and her replacement for secretary of state (Garlin Gilchrist) in this election. She outperformed them in every county, too, according to preliminary results.
As political parties pick apart results to argue for or against “centrist” platforms, an overperformance like this is being held up as evidence about where voters stand.
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In three of the last five midterm elections in Michigan, the winning governor candidate outperformed all other members of their party who were running for statewide office.
Benson is responsible for the most recent exception. She outperformed Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by less than 1% when she ran as the incumbent for secretary of state in 2022.
The same thing happened to Republican Gov. Rick Snyder in the 2014 midterm, when he was outperformed by Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. But Snyder still did better than the Republican U.S. Senate and attorney general candidates on the ballot.
Benson’s overperformance in the 2026 election may partly be explained by people “splitting” their tickets: voting Democrat for governor, then choosing Republicans or third parties for the other races.
But overperformance is not a good measurement of ticket splitting on its own. Preliminary data also suggests about 1% of people who turned in ballots skipped the governor’s race. A slightly smaller number of voters skipped the U.S. Senate race.
Around twice as many voters skipped the attorney general and secretary of state races.
The data doesn’t show how many voters skipped all of these races or just one of them. Sometimes, voters submit ballots that are entirely blank.
Not long ago, Michigan’s midterms only saw a small portion of the state go to the polls. About 40% of Michigan’s voting age population participated in the 2010 and 2014 elections.
General elections represent more of Michigan's population, but primaries fall short
The result: Candidates got votes from about a fifth of the state’s population and still became governors, attorney generals and senators.
The record-breaking 4.8 million votes cast in the November 2026 midterm are enough for about 60% of the state’s voting age populace.
Some counties saw even higher participation. Leelanau, a county near Traverse City with just over 20,000 residents, saw over 80% of its voting age population turn out.
But Nov. 3 wasn’t the only election this year. The August primary election saw a "bruising" competition on the Democratic side for the U.S. Senate seat, between El-Sayed and Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
Plus, Democrats and Republicans had open primaries for governor. That last time that happened was 2018.
2018 was also the last time the midterm primary saw half as many voters as the general election.
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“We know when you vote in the primary, you’re very likely to vote again in the general,” Smidt said. “So that’s usually why people focus on it a lot.”
But, he said, low participation means primaries “don’t give the full picture.”
Plus, research suggests primary voters tend to be the more engaged, partisan and older. Their reasons for choosing one candidate or another may have less to do with a candidate’s platform and more to do with perceptions of electability in the upcoming general.
In the U.S. Senate primary, Stevens got almost twice as many Detroit votes as El-Sayed.
That led some to question whether El-Sayed had a “Detroit problem”; not that El-Sayed would lose the city, but that he might lose the state if enough Black voters drifted toward Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers or did not turn out.
“That narrative didn’t really make sense,” Smidt said, pointing to multiple polls that showed a clear majority of Black voters supporting El-Sayed.
In the end, El-Sayed did about as well as any Democrat running for U.S. Senate in the city. Turnout was normal for a midterm; El-Sayed won with a larger percentage of the Detroit vote than Elissa Slotkin had in 2024, as well as a similar percentage as Gary Peters in 2020 and Debbie Stabenow in 2018.
Absentee ballots and Election Day polling centers are popular. Early in-person voting? Not so much
At least 40% of Michiganders turned in a ballot by dropping it off or mailing it in, preliminary data suggests. That can happen on Election Day, but most absentee voters submitted their ballots early.
Smidt said early voting changes the dynamics of a campaign. An October or November “surprise” such as Stevens endorsing Rogers at the last minute used to be potentially devastating.
"How big of a deal can it be,” he said, "if more than half of people have already voted?"
Absentee ballots are not the only way to vote early. This is the second statewide election in which state law required early in-person polling centers available to the public across the state. It was opt-in for communities that wanted it in previous years.
But preliminary data suggests that a small group of voters took advantage of that option.
"We're testing the limits of our clerks right now, by having a lot of options," Smidt said. "It's great for the voter. It's hard for the clerks."
Even with the options presented by absentee and early voting, preliminary data suggests a huge chunk of voters showed up to vote in person on Election Day.
"And so maybe this [is a] downplay in early voting, maybe there was some novelty," he said. "But also maybe we're going to have to look at whether we're funding all these different forms of election administration correctly given the level of popularity they might have."
A governor-elect who used to be the state's top election official might help, he said.
Regardless, Michigan's election system is set to be tested again in 2028, as the state is fifth in line for the Democratic presidential primaries that year.
Turnout was a mixed bag for Michigan cities — but one stands out
On Election Day, officials for Michigan’s two largest cities had very different expectations for turnout.
Detroit Clerk Janice Winfrey anticipated a record-breaking 40-45% turnout for her city. Grand Rapids Clerk Joel Hondorp expected a “normal” turnout for a midterm.
“It doesn’t feel like turnout is extremely high, but it doesn’t feel like it's lower, either," he said on Election Day.
Hondorp was more correct.
Detroit’s turnout of 39% beat the city’s 2022 total, but fell just shy of the 2018 midterm in percentage (41%). More votes were cast this year, but more people were registered to vote in the city.
A similar pattern played out in Grand Rapids, resulting in a nearly 53% turnout this year.
But Dearborn smashed its past turnout with nearly 57% of registered voters turning in ballots. That’s a larger percentage than the 2022 and 2018 midterms, as well as the 2024 and 2020 presidential elections.
“I think what got them to the polls are candidates who centered the issues of working class families, like many of the American and Muslim American families right here in the city of Dearborn," Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud told NPR.
President Donald Trump was credited with “winning” Dearborn in 2024. But of the people who cast ballots, less than half voted for him. Remaining votes were split between third parties and people who skipped that race.
Abdul El-Sayed got two times as many votes in this year’s U.S. Senate race.
Votebeat's Election Expert Desk contributed to this story.
