As the clock winds down on the 2016 presidential election, the question of whether Michigan will retain its longstanding status as a blue state in presidential years remains.

Although polls have consistently showed Democrat Hillary Clinton leading Republican Donald Trump in Michigan, the state was billed as a target by the Trump campaign, suggesting the state's demographics make it a possible Republican pickup.

Democrats have won the state's 16 electoral votes since the 1992 presidential election, but Michigan hasn't always been a Democratic stronghold.

Here are some highlights of county-by-county Michigan election data from 1980-2012, illustrated by interactive maps of each presidential election year.

To use the maps, scroll over or click on a county for information on the candidates and how many votes each received in the election. Counties won by Republicans are red, and counties won by Democrats are blue.

1. Michigan was a solidly red state during the Reagan years.

In the 1980 and 1984 general presidential elections, Republican Ronald Reagan did what many who followed him have tried and failed to do: dip into populous Democratic strongholds enough to tip the scales in his favor.

Reagan defeated incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter in Michigan 49 percent to 43 percent. Nationally, he swept the country, picking up all but six states and the District of Columbia.

Wayne, Washtenaw, and Genesee counties -- home to Detroit, Ann Arbor and Flint, respectively -- went for Carter, as did Lake County and five counties in the Upper Peninsula. Other populous counties in southeast Michigan and other areas of the Lower Peninsula gave Reagan a healthy majority.

The 1984 presidential election, when Reagan ran for reelection, went even better for Republicans in Michigan. Wayne County was the only county in Michigan's Lower Peninsula with a majority vote for the Democratic candidate, Walter Mondale.

Only four counties total -- Wayne, Gogebic, Keweenaw and Iron counties -- went to the Democrats that year. Statewide, Reagan walloped Mondale with 59.23 percent of the vote to Mondale's 40.24 percent of the vote.

2.That trend continued into 1988.

Although George H.W. Bush didn't have quite as commanding of a victory in Michigan against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis as Reagan had in past elections, he still took the state with an eight-point margin, defeating Dukakis with 53.57 percent to Dukakis' 45.67 percent statewide.

Dukakis picked up Wayne, Washtenaw and Genesee counties, as well as a few other metropolitan areas, but key counties such as Macomb, Oakland, Ingham and Kalamazoo went to Bush in addition to many of the state's more rural counties.

3) Michigan began trending Democratic in 1992, and hasn't stopped since.

With Bill Clinton's commanding Michigan win in 1992 -- 43.77 percent to Bush's 36.38 percent statewide -- the tides turned for Democrats in Michigan in that election and beyond.

Bush fared well in Oakland and Macomb counties in 1992, but Clinton had commanding leads in Wayne, Washtenaw, Genesee, Ingham and other populous counties.

Although he did not win any counties outright, independent candidate Ross Perot took 19.3 percent of the statewide Michigan vote in 1992, making significant inroads into many counties.

In 1996, Clinton displayed a similar victory against Republican Bob Dole, defeating Dole with 51.69 percent of the vote to Dole's 38.48 percent.

Ross Perot, running as a Reform Party candidate, took 8.75 percent of the Michigan vote in 1996.

4. Wide Democratic margins in high-population areas has helped Democrats keep their hold on Michigan.



Since the 1990s, Michigan's most populous cities and counties have trended heavily Democratic in presidential elections, which has helped Democratic candidates keep their hold on the state's electoral votes.

Eight of Michigan's 10 largest counties chose Democrat Al Gore over Republican George W. Bush by wide margins, leading Gore to win with 51.3 percent to Bush's 46.1 percent. Gore did best in Wayne County, taking 69 percent of the vote.

The 2004 election, which pitted Bush against Democratic candidate John Kerry, ended with Kerry winning 51.3 percent of the vote to Bush's 47.8 percent. Kerry won a similar amount of votes to Gore -- 70 percent -- in Wayne County.

8) When Obama was first elected in 2008, Democrats won Michigan with a 16-point margin.

Michigan's status as a blue presidential state continued into the latest two elections. In 2008, President Barack Obama handily won Michigan, taking 57.33 percent of the statewide vote to Republican John McCain's 40.89 percent, a 16-point margin.

A handful of staunchly Republican counties -- notably Kent County, home to Grand Rapids -- went to Obama in 2008 as well. Both Oakland and Macomb counties, eyed as prizes by both parties, went Democratic in both 2008 and 2012.

In the 2012 election, Obama defeated Republican candidate Mitt Romney by a slightly smaller margin of 54.21 percent to 44.71 percent, but retained his command over heavily populated areas, while Romney fared well in rural areas of the state.

Most of the counties Obama had wrestled away from McCain in 2008 returned to the Republicans in 2012, Obama's reelection campaign.

Search the database MLive created using election data from the Secretary of State's office to see a breakdown of how each Michigan county has voted in presidential elections since 1980.

The database can be searched by presidential election year, county, candidate name or political party. Select a presidential election year to filter candidates of a specific race.

The database includes third-party candidates and those who formally filed as write-in candidates.

Lauren Gibbons is a political reporter on MLive's Impact team. She can be reached at lgibbon2@mlive.com.

Data Mine is a regular feature by MLive that examines data relevant to Michigan.

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