Honestly, if you spent any time on the internet in late 2020, you probably saw a map of Michigan that looked like a fever dream. One minute it was bright red, the next it was swinging toward blue, and then came the late-night "ballot drops" that launched a thousand conspiracy theories.
But when you strip away the social media noise and the shouting matches, the actual data tells a much more grounded—and frankly, more interesting—story about how the Mitten State actually votes. Michigan wasn't just a random flip; it was a massive collision of shifting demographics, high-stakes litigation, and a pandemic that changed the literal mechanics of how we cast a ballot.
The Final Tally That Mattered
When the dust finally settled and the Michigan Board of State Canvassers did their job, the numbers weren't even as close as 2016. In that election, Donald Trump famously took the state by a razor-thin 10,704 votes.
In 2020? Joe Biden won by more than 154,000 votes.
To be exact, the certified 2020 election results Michigan saw Biden landing 2,804,040 votes (50.6%) to Trump’s 2,649,852 (47.8%). That is a 2.8 percentage point gap. It’s not a landslide by historic standards, but in the world of swing-state politics, it’s a fairly definitive wall of voters.
Why the "Red Mirage" Fooled Everyone
You've probably heard the term "red mirage" by now. Basically, it’s what happens when the physical, in-person votes are counted first, followed by the mountain of mail-in ballots.
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Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan saw a record-shattering 3.3 million absentee ballots. That’s a huge jump from the 1.3 million cast in 2016. Under the state law at the time, clerks weren't allowed to start processing those mail-in envelopes until just before Election Day.
Trump supporters tended to vote in person. Biden supporters stayed home and mailed it in.
So, on Tuesday night, the map looked ruby red.
Then Wednesday morning happened.
As the massive tranches of votes from Wayne, Oakland, and Kent counties started hitting the system, the lead evaporated. It wasn't "fraud"—it was just the order of operations.
The Real Story in the Counties
If you want to understand why the 2020 election results Michigan went the way they did, you have to look at the suburbs. This is where the election was actually won and lost.
Wayne County (Detroit and its neighbors)
Detroit did exactly what people expected, delivering 233,908 votes for Biden compared to only 12,654 for Trump. But the real shift was in the suburbs like Livonia. In 2016, Trump won Livonia by about 4,000 votes. In 2020, Biden actually managed to flip it by a small margin (around 1,200 votes).
The Kent County Flip
This was a big one. Kent County, home to Grand Rapids, had been a Republican stronghold for decades. Trump won it in 2016. In 2020, Biden took it by 6 points. When you lose the second-largest metro area in the state, your path to 16 electoral votes basically vanishes.
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The "Boomerang" County
Saginaw County was the only "Boomerang" in the state—meaning it went from Obama to Trump and back to Biden. It was incredibly close: 51,088 for Biden to 50,785 for Trump. A difference of 303 votes.
Debunking the Antrim County "Glitch"
We have to talk about Antrim County because it’s still the "Patient Zero" for many election theories. Early on, the unofficial results showed Biden leading in this deep-red county.
Everyone knew something was off.
It turned out to be a human error by the County Clerk, Sheryl Guy. She hadn't updated the tabulator software across all machines, so when the data was merged, the columns for the candidates got scrambled.
A hand recount later proved the machines were fine. The audit showed that in the final, audited count, Biden actually lost one vote and Trump gained 11. It was a clerical mistake that got caught and corrected, yet it fueled months of litigation.
The Certification Chaos
Typically, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers is a boring, ministerial body. They meet, they look at the certified county totals, and they sign a paper.
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2020 was different.
There was immense pressure on the two Republican members, Aaron Van Langevelde and Norman Shinkle, to delay certification until a "full audit" could be done.
The legal reality? Michigan law is pretty clear. The board's duty is "ministerial and nondiscretionary." Basically, they don't have the legal power to investigate fraud; their only job is to certify the numbers provided by the 83 counties.
Van Langevelde eventually broke the deadlock, voting with the two Democrats to certify the results on November 23. He famously said, "We have a clear legal duty to certify... we cannot and should not go beyond that."
The Aftermath: Audits and Lessons
Since then, Michigan has conducted over 250 audits.
The state Auditor General and the Bureau of Elections have poked, prodded, and recounted.
The result?
The 2020 election results Michigan were confirmed as accurate. The "risk-limiting audit" (where they hand-check a random sample of 18,000 ballots) showed the machines worked exactly as they were supposed to.
Actionable Takeaways for Future Elections:
- Track the Rules, Not Just the Polls: Michigan has since passed laws allowing clerks to start pre-processing absentee ballots earlier. This means we likely won't see that massive "red mirage" delay in future cycles.
- Check the Secretary of State’s Dashboard: For the most accurate, non-partisan data, always go to the Michigan SOS website rather than relying on social media "live updates" which often lack context.
- Understand Certification: Certification is a legal requirement based on the canvass of votes. If you're concerned about accuracy, the time to engage is during the public canvassing process at the county level, where you can actually see the poll books being reconciled.
Michigan's 2020 story is really a story about a state in transition. It's a place where the old-school blue-collar union vote and the high-education suburban vote are currently pulling in the same direction, making it one of the most difficult states for any candidate to predict.