Tuesday's election will all come down to turnout as well as voter sentiment, experts say.

The depressing part of that equation: In 2014, only 42 percent of Michigan's voting-age population cast a ballot. In 2016, it was 63 percent.

The good news for candidates: Those numbers mean there is lots of wiggle room to change the composition of the electorate -- a big reason that Donald Trump became president.

It's hard at this point to predict a "blue wave" that will help Democrats, or a "red wall" that will protect Republicans.

Two factors will be at work Tuesday, according to Mark Grebner, a Democratic strategist. One is the turnout and the composition of the electorate. The other is the general mood of the voters, and how they shift between the Democratic and Republican parties.

This year, turnout is expected to be set a record for a mid-term election, which should help Democrats, he said.

In terms of voter sentiment, he sees two shifts occurring: More-educated voters are becoming more Democcratic, while less-educated voters are becoming more Republican.

This post looks at the Michigan electorate in 2014 and 2016, based on surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau.

That data finds that Michigan's electorate is, on the whole, is older, whiter, more female, more educated and more affluent than Michigan's population as a whole.

Below is a closer look at what happened in 2014 and 2016.

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Map of 2014 gubernatorial election

We'll start with an interactive map on the 2014 election, which Gov. Rick Snyder was re-elected.

Snyder took 51% of the vote over Democrat Mark Schauer, who took 47%. Third-party candidates took 2%.

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Source: Michigan Secretary of State

You can put your cursor over a county to see the underlying data.

Although the map is overwhelmingly red, remember that Snyder took only 51% of the vote. That's because heavily populated urban counties tend to be more Democratic. Wayne County alone had more voters in 2014 -- about 510,000 -- than the collective total in 55 Michigan counties.

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Map of 2016 presidential election

Next is an interactive map of the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump took 47.5% of the vote in that contest compared to 47.3% for Hillary Clinton.

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Source: Michigan Secretary of State

Once again, you can put your cursor over a county to see the underlying data.

One take-away in comparing 2014 to 2016: Although Trump won a smaller share of the vote than Snyder, he won more counties, thanks to relatively narrow margins of victories in counties such as Kent, Saginaw and Eaton.

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Voter turnout in 2014

Now let's look at who voted in those elections, starting with a map showing turnout in November 2014. About 3.2 million ballots were cast that year, which equates to 42% of Michigan residents age 18 and older. Percentage-wise, that was the lowest turnout for a mid-year election since 1992.

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Source: Michigan Secretary of State

Isabella, the county that includes Mount Pleasant, had the lowest turnout in 2014 -- 29%. The highest was Leelanau County, at 62%. About 38% voted in Wayne, the state's largest county.

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Voter turnout in 2016

About 4.9 million voted in 2016, about 63% of the state's voting age population. That was up slightly from 4.8 million in 2012, but below the record of 5 million set in 2008.

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Source: Michigan Secretary of State

Once again, Isabella had the lowest turnout, 44%, and Leelanau had the highest, at 83%.

Ottawa County, a Republican stronghold in metro Grand Rapids, had the biggest change in turnout between 2014 and 2016 -- it went from 43.3% to 70.8%, up 26 points.

Women are more likely to vote than men

In both 2014 and 2016, women were about 54% of the electorate in Michigan.

Below is a look at the male and female turnout rates based on the number of U.S. citizens in the state age 18 and older.

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Source: U.S. Census

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Whites are more likely to vote than people of color

In 2016, whites were 80% of Michigan's U.S. citizens age 18 and older, but they were 83% of the electorate -- numbers that were about the same in 2014.

Below is a look at turnout numbers in 2014 and 2016 for each racial group. The percentages compare the number of voters to the number of U.S. citizens age 18 and older by race.

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Source: U.S. Census

Below is the the makeup of the 2014 and 2016 electorate by race. (The composition both years was about the same.)

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Senior citizens have the highest turnout

Turnout increases with age, as shown by the chart below, which indicates a senior citizen was three times more likely to vote in 2014 than a Michigan citizen age 18 to 24.

Once again, this shows the number of voters compared to the number of U.S. citizens in that age group.

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Source: U.S. Census

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Below is a second chart looking at Michigan voters by age, which indicates each age group's share of the electorate.

For instance, it shows that voters age 65 and older were 31% of the 2014 electorate, even though they were only 22% of the voting-age population.

At the other end of the spectrum, voters age 18 to 24 were 5% of the 2014 electorate, although they were 12% of the voting-age population.

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Source: U.S. Census

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Voter turnout goes up as household income increases

The next four charts are a deeper dive into voter demographics, courtesy of U.S. Census Burea survey. Note these numbers are for the U.S. population as a whole, not just Michigan voters.

The first chart looks at 2014 voter turnout by household income.

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Source: U.S. Census

Turnout increases with educational attainment

Turnout also increases with educational attainment: A person with a graduate degree is three times more likely to vote compared to a high-school dropout.

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Source: U.S. Census

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By employment status, government workers have the highest turnout

Americans with a government job are more likely to vote than those who work for a private company or are self-employed.

Incidentally, "not in the labor force" category includes people who don't have jobs and are not looking for work. This would include retirees, stay-at-home mothers and other caretakers, full-time students and people with disabilities.

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Source: U.S. Census

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Married people much more likely to vote than never-marrieds

Maybe it's an age thing, but married Americans are twice as likely to vote as those have never married, while divorced and widowed Americans fall somewhere in between.

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Source: U.S. Census

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Polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, and there's still time to vote absentee

If you can't make it to your polling place on Tuesday, there is still time to vote by absentee ballot.

Just go to your city or township hall to get a ballot. You can take it home or fill out on the spot.

Michigan's city and township election clerks are required to hold office hours until 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, specifically to hand out and collect absentee ballots

The deadline for obtaining an absentee ballot is 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5. However, ballots picked up on Monday from local clerks must be fill out and turned in immediately; they can not be taken home.

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