However, Obama started to pull away in the polls during the last few months due to the worsening of the state's economy, causing McCain to stop campaigning there.

Here are their last predictions before election day: Very early on, polling was tight as Obama was having a difficult time getting support from the pessimistic state.

However, the state's 17 electoral votes had been continually a prime target for Republicans, and the Democratic margin of victory incrementally decreased from 1996 to 2004.

In 2008, Republican presidential nominee John McCain put an early effort into winning Michigan, hoping to convert blue-collar voters disaffected by Obama's unfamiliarity as a liberal African-American from Chicago.

Obama removed his name from the ballot after state officials moved up the primary in violation of party rules.

This led to the McCain campaign focusing heavily on winning Michigan in the general election.

[19] After the September financial crisis, however, McCain's general campaign fell into trouble.

Polls showed Michigan, a state especially affected by the economy, turning away from McCain.

Macomb County, which McCain had focused so intensely on, voted Democratic by a comfortable margin of 9%.

Obama also carried Kent County (home to Grand Rapids and former President Gerald Ford) by a very narrow 0.5% margin of victory, or 1,573 votes, the first time that a Democrat had done so since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Republican support in the state collapsed; McCain was only able to win two counties with margins of more than 10,000 votes.

Barack Obama won 46 Michigan counties compared to 37 for John McCain.

This is also the last presidential election in which the Democratic candidate won the Upper Peninsula, or a majority of congressional districts in the state.