A majority of voters casting midterm election ballots in Michigan said the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a wide-ranging survey of the American electorate.
As voters cast ballots for governor, U.S. Senate and members of Congress in Tuesday’s elections, AP VoteCast found that 38 percent of Michigan voters said the country is on the right track, compared with 60 percent who said the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Here’s a snapshot of who voted and why in Michigan, based on preliminary results from AP VoteCast, an innovative nationwide survey of about 138,000 voters and nonvoters _ including 3,911 voters and 644 nonvoters in the state of Michigan _ conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.
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TOP ISSUE: HEALTH CARE
Health care was at the forefront of voters’ minds: 29 percent named it as the most important issue facing the nation in this year’s midterm elections. Others considered the economy (20 percent), immigration (18 percent), gun policy (8 percent) and the environment (7 percent) to be the top issue.
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STATE OF THE ECONOMY
Voters have a positive view of the nation’s current economic outlook _ 67 percent said the nation’s economy is good, compared with 32 percent who said it’s not good.
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TRUMP FACTOR
For 40 percent of Michigan voters, President Donald Trump was not a factor they considered while casting their vote. By comparison, 59 percent said Trump was a reason for their vote.
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CONTROL OF CONGRESS
Tuesday’s elections will determine control of Congress in the final two years of Trump’s first term in office, and 61 percent of Michigan voters said which party will hold control was very important as they considered their vote. Another 25 percent said it was somewhat important.
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AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate in all 50 states conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for The Associated Press and Fox News. The survey of 3,911 voters and 644 nonvoters in Michigan was conducted Oct. 29 to Nov. 6, concluding as polls close on Election Day. It combines interviews in English or Spanish with a random sample of registered voters drawn from state voter files and self-identified registered voters selected from opt-in online panels. Participants in the probability-based portion of the survey were contacted by phone and mail, and had the opportunity to take the survey by phone or online. The margin of sampling error for voters is estimated to be plus or minus 2.0 percentage points. All surveys are subject to multiple sources of error, including from sampling, question wording and order, and nonresponse. Find more details about AP VoteCast’s methodology at http://www.ap.org/votecast.
