By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff

CQ Politics Presidential Race Rating: Leans Democratic

Electoral Votes: 17

Democrats have carried Michigan in each of the past four presidential elections, but the home state of Republican Gerald R. Ford has a heritage as a battleground, and the past two elections there were so close that Barack Obama would have to work hard to hold it under the best of circumstances. His degree of difficulty was ratcheted up by the long-running dispute between the state and national Democratic Party organizations over Michigan’s rule-breaking Jan. 15 primary.

Obama’s ability to win the state depends primarily on three things: building the advantage he had over McCain in polls on the economy; offsetting concerns about his degree of experience on defense and foreign policy; and getting every possible African American voter to the polls. They make up is 14 percent of the state population.

Pocketbook issues are central to voters nationwide, but the situation in Michigan is more dire because of its dependence on a domestic auto industry that has taken a sharp downturn. The state’s unemployment rate was 8.5 percent in June, the highest in Michigan since October 1992.

Polling early this summer by the Lansing-based firm EPIC-MRA showed McCain with some of the same advantages over Obama that he held nationally, especially on defense-related issues. McCain polled better than Obama on the issues of terrorism and national security, and he had higher favorability ratings than Obama. “Putting aside how those undecided voters feel about issues or anything else, just that fact alone would suggest that at this point it would probably break toward McCain,” said Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA.

Both major party nominees incurred some bruises in the state-mandated January primary, which was three weeks before the threshold date set by both the national Democratic and Republican parties as the starting point for most states.

McCain lost the GOP primary to Mitt Romney, but at least the national GOP didn’t discourage McCain from campaigning in Michigan. Obama not only agreed not to campaign, but joined most other Democrats in scrambling to pull his name off the ballot. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was the only major candidate who left her name on the ballot, and she went on to finish with 55 percent of the vote to 40 percent for an “uncommitted” line.

The DNC, as threatened, barred the entire Michigan delegation from the convention and resisted demands from the Clinton camp to reinstate the delegates based on the primary results. The party’s eventual decision to restore half a vote to each of the state’s delegates left some Clinton supporters feeling short-changed.

Obama, however, has made gains in polling soon after he began actively campaigning in the state. “It’s very close,” said Michigan political analyst Bill Ballenger.

With five-term Democratic Sen. Carl Levin a pretty safe bet to win re-election, the focus on Michigan’s congressional campaigns is on the takeover bids Democrats are staging for two Republican-held House seats.

Democrats are targeting GOP incumbents Tim Walberg and Joe Knollenberg in their effort to reverse the 9-6 advantage Republicans have held in the state’s House delegation since the implementation of a pro-GOP redistricting plan prior to the 2002 elections.

The suburban Detroit district in which Knollenberg is serving his eighth term is no Republican stronghold, as Bush edged Kerry there by just 1 percentage point in 2004. And the career low of 52 percent Knollenberg received in 2006 against a little-known challenger boosted him on this year’s target list for Democratic strategists, who recruited a top-tier challenger in state Sen. Gary Peters. CQ Politics rates the race Leans Republican.