Preview only: Michigan's own model is not built yet. The county groups, map, what-if scenarios and past-race numbers on this page are Texas's, used as stand-ins. The polls and results are Michigan's.
The forecast
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Numbers as a table
Things to know
The race in two minutes
Read by Maren Holt, Pollitrack's anchor · Recorded October 24
Read the transcript
I'm Maren Holt, and this is your Pollitrack digest on the Senate race in Michigan.
The seat is open. Gary Peters is retiring, so on November 3 Michigan picks a new senator. On the ballot, in the order Michigan lists them: Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a doctor and former Detroit health director, and Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman.
The polling average has El-Sayed ahead by 2.1 points across eight recent polls. Pollitrack's forecast takes 1.5 points off that, because Michigan polls have overstated Democrats in most recent statewide races. That leaves El-Sayed ahead by 0.6, with a 55 percent chance of finishing first and Rogers at 45 percent.
That is about as close as a race gets. Either candidate could finish ahead.
In-person early voting opened on October 24 and runs nine days, through November first. Before it opened, nearly a million mail ballots had already come back. Michigan posts its counts in a dashboard Pollitrack cannot read day by day, so this page has no early-vote tracker, and the forecast rests on the polls until results arrive.
On election night, Pollitrack reads five bellwether counties, each standing in for a part of the state: Ingham, home to Lansing, for the biggest source of votes, Saginaw for Detroit and the old industrial towns, Muskegon on the lakeshore, a long-time swing county, Roscommon for blue-collar and rural Michigan, and Antrim for the outer suburbs and northern resort counties.
Polls close at 8 pm local time. Michigan's counties post results as their precincts and mail-ballot boards finish, so there is no early-vote batch first. As those counties report, the forecast starts reading votes. Scroll down to explore each county, or switch to What-if mode and play out your own night. I'm Maren Holt. See you on election night.
The recording plays on the Pollitrack site. The transcript is above.
Early voting
How to read this: the line adds up early votes day by day, in person and by mail. The amber line is 2026; the gray lines are past years on the same day of early voting, so a 2026 line above them means more early votes than then. Refreshed every morning and afternoon from the Michigan Secretary of State's early-vote counts.Numbers as a table
Numbers as a table
Cumulative early votes, in person and by mail, against the same day in 2022 and 2024.
In the news
How to read this: the headlines free news sources carry about this race, newest first, with who published each. The counts are how many stories named each candidate in the last seven days. Pollitrack reads the headlines; it does not judge them and they do not change the forecast.
The newest headlines about this race, refreshed twice a day.
This week: 72 stories name El-Sayed, 55 name Rogers, 85 name both.
- Oct. 25 — Sen. Adam Schiff, Mike Rogers, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
- Rogers skirts tariff, MAGA questions on 'Meet the Press'
- GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers greeted by supporters in Traverse City
- Mike Rogers on Trump calling Abdul El-Sayed a terrorist: ‘I've never called him a terrorist’
- Trump's midterm swing brings him to Michigan as Republicans aim to undermine El-Sayed in Senate race
- Opinion | How Abdul El-Sayed is trying to pull off the impossible in the Rust Belt
Five county groups
How to read this: every county joins the group whose bellwether county it has moved most like since 2016. The color is the group's margin in the view you pick: where its bellwether lands if the polls are right, its 2024 Senate result, or, on election night, how far each county has shifted since 2024. Darker means a bigger lead: 15 points or more, 5 to 15, or under 5. Tap a group or a county to light up its group.
Every county joins the bellwether it has voted most like since 2016.
Pick a group to light up its counties.
500 possible election nights
How to read this: the forecast is replayed 500 times, each with a different random draw of its uncertainty. Each dot is five possible nights, stacked by the statewide margin in 1-point steps: blue dots are El-Sayed wins and red dots are Rogers wins. The more dots on one side of the tie line, the likelier that candidate wins.
The forecast replayed 500 times, with every county group free to miss.
Wins per 100 nights · each dot = 5 nights
The five bellwethers
How to read this: each row is one county, on a scale from a big Rogers lead (left) to a big El-Sayed lead (right). The amber mark is the tie line: if every part of Michigan shifted as much as this county did, a result there would mean a statewide tie. A dot to the right of it is good news for El-Sayed, and to the left for Rogers; the colored bar shows how far each county is from the tie line, and toward whom. The gray ticks are the 2024 and 2018 results. The dot is where the polling average points until results post, then the real result. Drag a dot, tap anywhere on a row, or use the arrow keys to try your own numbers; the dot clicks onto the marks when you get close.
Drag a dot, or pick a scenario, to see who wins Michigan.
Fine-tune the assumptions
County guides
Why each county was picked and what to watch.
Outer suburbs and resort test
AntrimTie line: Rogers +24.0 · stands in for Ottawa, Livingston and the northern resort counties
- 2024 Senate
- Rogers +23.7
- 2024 President
- Trump +23.8
- 2022 Governor
- Dixon +13.5
- Compared with Michigan
- 22–29 points more Republican in every race since 2016
Why this county
Antrim County, on Grand Traverse Bay and Torch Lake in the northern Lower Peninsula, casts only 0.3% of Michigan's vote. It leads 15 counties that cast 12.0%: the growing Republican suburbs of Ottawa (west of Grand Rapids), Livingston (between Detroit and Lansing), Allegan and Clinton, plus Midland and the resort counties around Traverse City. Rogers won the group by 17.8 in 2024. With Antrim, the five bellwethers fit past statewide results best; Charlevoix and Livingston come close and are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Rogers +24: a wider Rogers margin favors Rogers, a narrower one El-Sayed. If the polls are right it should come in near Rogers +22. Rogers won it by 23.7 in 2024 while losing the state by 0.3. Dixon won it by 13.5 against Whitmer in 2022. Livingston's tie line is Rogers +21.4, Ottawa's Rogers +22.0 and Grand Traverse's Rogers +2.6.
When results come in
Antrim is small (16,732 votes in the 2024 Senate race). It became famous in 2020, when a clerk's error briefly showed Biden ahead in the unofficial count; a hand count in December confirmed Trump's win. This page doesn't read Michigan's results live: enter the county's margin in What-if mode.
Signals so far
Michigan doesn't register voters by party. Statewide, 983,101 mail ballots had come back by October 23 (the Secretary of State's dashboard), and early in-person voting started October 24.
Biggest vote source
InghamTie line: El-Sayed +31.4 · Lansing stands in for Oakland, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, 30% of the vote
- 2024 Senate
- Slotkin +31.7
- 2024 President
- Harris +29.7
- 2022 Governor
- Whitmer +39.9
- Compared with Michigan
- 26–31 points more Democratic in every race since 2016
Why this county
Ingham County holds Lansing, the capital, and East Lansing, home of Michigan State University. It leads the six counties that cast the most votes of any group, 30.1% of the statewide total: Oakland (Detroit's northern suburbs), Kent (Grand Rapids), Washtenaw (Ann Arbor), Kalamazoo and Marquette. Slotkin won them by 16.7. Ingham's swing has matched the group's best; Oakland (the group's biggest county by far) and Kalamazoo are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is El-Sayed +31: a result above it favors El-Sayed, below it Rogers. Slotkin won it by 31.7 and the state by 0.3; Whitmer won it by 39.9 in 2022. If the polls are right, Ingham should come in near 33.5. Oakland's tie line is El-Sayed +11.8 and Kent's El-Sayed +4.3: above them, El-Sayed is probably ahead; below them, Rogers is probably ahead.
When results come in
The big counties in this group count mail ballots at central counting boards and report through the night; Kent and Grand Rapids added late Democratic votes in 2020. This page doesn't read Michigan's results live: enter the county's margin in What-if mode.
Signals so far
By October 23, Oakland had returned 142,276 mail ballots, Kent 64,020 and Washtenaw 39,942 (the Secretary of State's dashboard). Michigan doesn't register voters by party, so these counts say where votes come from, not whom they favor.
Swing-county test
MuskegonTie line: Rogers +0.4 · Rogers won it by 49 votes in 2024
- 2024 Senate
- Rogers +0.1
- 2024 President
- Trump +1.8
- 2022 Governor
- Whitmer +8.3
- Compared with Michigan
- within 2.2 points of the state in every race since 2016
Why this county
Muskegon County, a port on the Lake Michigan shore, has voted with the state in every presidential race since 1972 except 2016, and in 2024 it was one of two counties Trump flipped. It leads 13 counties with 11.4% of the vote, Rogers +8.1 in 2024: Genesee (Flint), Calhoun (Battle Creek), Lenawee, Van Buren, Isabella (Mount Pleasant) and smaller counties along the lakeshore and in the southwest. Calhoun, St. Joseph, Isabella and Van Buren have tracked the group almost as closely; Genesee is the biggest stand-in.
What to look for
The tie line here is Rogers +0.4, almost a tie: a Rogers margin above it favors Rogers, anything less El-Sayed. Slotkin lost it by 49 votes while winning the state; Whitmer won it by 8.3 in 2022. If the polls are right it should come in near El-Sayed +1.7. Genesee's tie line is El-Sayed +7.4.
When results come in
Muskegon cast 93,438 votes in the 2024 Senate race. In 2020, Flint's mail ballots were among the late votes that moved Michigan to Biden on Wednesday morning. This page doesn't read Michigan's results live: enter the county's margin in What-if mode.
Signals so far
Michigan doesn't register voters by party. Mail-ballot requests statewide were running 17% ahead of 2022 on October 20.
Blue-collar and rural test
RoscommonTie line: Rogers +31.0 · stands in for Macomb and 42 more counties, a quarter of the vote
- 2024 Senate
- Rogers +30.7
- 2024 President
- Trump +32.9
- 2022 Governor
- Dixon +16.3
- Compared with Michigan
- 25–33 points more Republican in every race since 2016
Why this county
Roscommon County, home to Houghton Lake and Higgins Lake in the rural north, is among the oldest places in Michigan: its median age is 56.6, and a third of its people are 65 or older. It leads the largest group by number of counties: Macomb (Detroit's blue-collar northern suburbs), St. Clair, Monroe, Bay, the Thumb, most of the rural Lower Peninsula and much of the Upper Peninsula, 43 counties and 25.1% of the vote, Rogers +23.4 in 2024. Macomb, Shiawassee and Bay are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Rogers +31: a wider Rogers margin favors Rogers, a narrower one El-Sayed. If the polls are right it should come in near Rogers +29. Trump won it by 32.9 in 2024 and Dixon by 16.3 in 2022. Macomb's tie line is Rogers +10.0: Slotkin lost it by 9.7 and won the state. While Roscommon hasn't reported, the forecast's likely range is wider than for any other missing bellwether, because this group's swing is the hardest to guess from the others.
When results come in
Roscommon is small (15,841 votes in the 2024 Senate race) and posts unofficial results on a Clarity results site, as Macomb, the group's biggest county, does. This page doesn't read Michigan's results live: enter the county's margin in What-if mode.
Signals so far
By October 23, Macomb had returned 86,505 mail ballots (the Secretary of State's dashboard). Michigan doesn't register voters by party.
Detroit and old-industry test
SaginawTie line: Rogers +0.3 · Slotkin won it by 9 votes in 2024
- 2024 Senate
- Slotkin +0.0 (9 votes)
- 2024 President
- Trump +3.3
- 2022 Governor
- Whitmer +7.6
- Compared with Michigan
- from 2.9 points more Republican to 0.6 more Democratic since 2016
Why this county
Saginaw County, once a major industrial center, has voted for every Michigan presidential winner since 1992: Trump by 1,074 votes in 2016, Biden by 303 in 2020, Trump by about 3,400 in 2024. It leads six counties with 21.3% of the vote, Slotkin +19.9 in 2024: Wayne (Detroit and Dearborn), Berrien, Jackson, Eaton and Houghton. Wayne casts most of the group's votes, but Saginaw's swing has matched the group's best; Wayne, Jackson and Houghton are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Rogers +0.3, almost a tie: a Rogers margin above it favors Rogers, anything less El-Sayed. If the polls are right it should come in near El-Sayed +1.8. Wayne's tie line is El-Sayed +31.2; Slotkin won it by 31.5. Harris won Wayne by 29.0 in 2024, when Trump carried Dearborn.
When results come in
Wayne County comes last: Detroit counts mail ballots at central counting boards, and in the August 2024 primary its results didn't post until about 7:30 the next morning. Until Wayne is in, a statewide Rogers lead says little. This page doesn't read Michigan's results live: enter the county's margin in What-if mode.
Signals so far
By October 23, Wayne had returned 152,694 mail ballots, the most of any county (the Secretary of State's dashboard). Michigan doesn't register voters by party.
Timeline
When results usually arrive, Eastern time.
Early voting. Every city and township offers at least nine days of early in-person voting, October 24 through November 1. Mail ballots went out in late September: by October 20, 2.12 million had been requested, 17% more than at the same point in 2022, and 789,476 returned. Larger cities and townships may start counting mail ballots up to eight days before Election Day, but no totals can come out before polls close. Mail ballots must reach the clerk by 8 pm on Election Day, and voters can still register in person that day. Michigan doesn't register voters by party, and this page doesn't read the state's early-vote counts yet.
Polls close. Anyone in line by 8 pm can still vote. Four Upper Peninsula counties (Dickinson, Gogebic, Iron and Menominee) are on Central time and close an hour later. Counties post unofficial results on their own websites as precincts and mail-ballot counting boards finish; there is no early-votes-first batch as in Texas or Georgia. This page doesn't read Michigan's results live: to follow the night, enter each bellwether's margin in What-if mode.
Smaller counties first. Rural and small-town counties usually finish first, and they lean Republican, so Rogers will probably lead early. In 2024 he "jumped out to a significant early lead" over Slotkin that lasted into Wednesday morning. Judge the night by the bellwethers against their tie lines, not by the statewide running total.
Wayne County and the big cities finish. Detroit counts its mail ballots at central counting boards, and Wayne County's results move by file transfer or by hand, so they come late: in the August 2024 primary Detroit's results didn't post until about 7:30 the next morning. In 2024 the Associated Press called the Senate race for Slotkin at 3:12 pm Wednesday, when she led by about 18,700 votes; in 2020 Biden took the lead shortly after 9 am Wednesday as Detroit's, Grand Rapids's and Flint's mail ballots came in. In 2024 the Secretary of State expected the full unofficial count within about 24 hours.
The last ballots. Military and overseas ballots count if they were postmarked by Election Day and arrive by Monday, November 9. Other mail ballots must have arrived by 8 pm on Election Day. If the race is within a point, those ballots and corrections in the county canvass can still move it.
The official count. County canvassing boards start by November 5 and must finish by November 17; the Board of State Canvassers certifies by November 23. Since April 2025, a statewide race goes to an automatic recount when the certified margin is 0.1% or less, about 4,500 votes at 2022's turnout, unless the trailing candidate waives it within 48 hours. The page doesn't model a recount.
Times are Eastern time. Counties post precincts and mail ballots together as they finish counting, and this page doesn't read them live. The method in six steps, then its track record on past races.
- All 83 counties are grouped by how they have moved relative to the statewide margin across eight statewide races (2016–2024). Each group is tied to one bellwether county.
- When a bellwether reports, its change from its 2024 Senate margin (Slotkin vs. Rogers) is applied to every county in its group, and each group is weighted by its share of the vote.
- Early-vote readings are moved toward the expected final count. That uses only the 2026 Election Day tilt (Michigan doesn't publish past results split by vote type), scaled by how much is still uncounted. Counties not yet in borrow the average change of those that are, pulled slightly toward the polls.
- Uncertainty combines the minimum uncertainty, how much of each county is still uncounted, and which counties haven't reported. The win chance and the 500 simulated nights both come from that.
- Until results post, the forecast is the polling average minus an allowance for how Michigan polls have leaned (1.5 points off El-Sayed unless you change it), with a 5-point spread, the typical size of a final Michigan poll-average miss since 2018. Where early votes are coming from trims nothing off it by default: each point the early electorate leans more Democratic than at the same point in 2024, measured by county, counts for the weight you set under "Fine-tune the assumptions", and in 2022 and 2024, measured against the election two years earlier, that lean did not predict how the polls missed. The five counties only start to matter on election night.
- Scheduled jobs in the cloud pull a Wikipedia poll table every morning and afternoon and write to this page's data store, which updates open copies of the page without a reload. Michigan's early-vote counts and election-night results are not read yet.
Track record: past races predicted from these five counties alone
| Race predicted | Baseline race | Actual | Model | Miss |
|---|
These misses flatter the model. The five counties were picked by searching for the set that best fits these same seven races. Tested on races it had not seen, the same search missed by about 0.6 points. If a tie falls inside the likely range, treat the race as a toss-up.
What's different in 2026
The model is built on 2016–2024. Here is what could make this race break from those patterns, and how the model handles each.
| Factor | What it could do | How the model handles it |
|---|---|---|
| An open seat, and Rogers's second try | Gary Peters is retiring. El-Sayed, a doctor and former Detroit health director backed by Bernie Sanders and the United Auto Workers, beat Representative Haley Stevens in the August 4 primary by 0.9 points (13,792 votes) after Mallory McMorrow withdrew. Rogers, a former congressman, was unopposed; he lost the 2024 Senate race to Elissa Slotkin by 0.3 points (19,006 votes). Through September 30, El-Sayed had raised $45.2 million to Rogers's $20.6 million, but Rogers had more in the bank ($6.5 million to $3.8 million). Forecasters rate the race from Toss-up to Lean Democratic. | Before results, the forecast starts from the polling average and takes 1.5 points off El-Sayed off it. Every county's starting point is the 2024 Senate race, so each county's swing measures how much better or worse El-Sayed runs than Slotkin did against the same opponent. |
| A governor's race on the same ballot | Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (Democrat) faces Representative John James (Republican) for the seat Gretchen Whitmer is leaving. Detroit's mayor, Mike Duggan, ended his independent run in May. Benson led by about 7 points on October 21, several points more than El-Sayed. Two statewide questions are also on the ballot: whether to hold a constitutional convention, and a ban on campaign money from some utilities and state contractors. | Voters who split their tickets show up in El-Sayed's county margins directly. In What-if mode, enter Senate margins, not governor's race margins. |
| A midterm with Trump in the White House | In 2018, the last midterm under Trump, Democrats won both statewide races by 6.5 and 9.6 points after Trump had carried Michigan by 0.2 in 2016. In 2022 Whitmer won by 10.5. Mail-ballot requests are running 17% ahead of 2022. | Pick a turnout pattern under "Fine-tune the assumptions" ("Like 2022" or "Like 2018"). The "2018 again" what-if replays each group's swing from that year. |
| Attacks on El-Sayed's faith, and Dearborn | El-Sayed would be the first Muslim U.S. senator. The Associated Press reported on October 17 that Rogers agreed with a post calling him a terrorist, and Trump claimed, with no evidence, that he belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2024 Trump carried Dearborn, the center of Michigan's Arab American community, with 42.5% to Harris's 36.3% and Jill Stein's 18.4%; Biden had won it nearly 3 to 1 in 2020. Dearborn's mayor called the attacks "very problematic." | Dearborn is in Wayne County, in the Detroit and Saginaw group. Saginaw is that group's bellwether; to watch Wayne itself, pick it as the group's county (tie line El-Sayed +31.2). |
| No record of early votes against the final count | Michigan's official returns don't split votes by how they were cast, and counties post precincts and mail ballots together as they finish, not early votes first. So there is no county-by-county record of how the count moves through the night. In 2020 and 2024 Republicans led early and Democrats caught up as Wayne County and the big cities reported. | The page uses its default spread for the move from first results to the final count. It doesn't read Michigan's results live, so on election night use What-if mode with each bellwether's reported margin, and wait for Saginaw and Wayne. |
| Early-vote turnout, but no party registration | By October 20, 789,476 mail ballots had come back, a little ahead of 2022's 771,967 at about the same point. Early in-person voting started October 24. Michigan doesn't register voters by party, so these counts say where votes come from, not whom they favor. | The early-vote tracker and its adjustment are off for Michigan for now: the state's dashboard has each county's counts by day, but this page doesn't read it yet. |
| Polls and Michigan's record | The page's average of 8 recent polls had El-Sayed ahead by 2.1 on October 24; other averages range from 2.0 to 3.5. RealClearPolitics's final averages overstated the Democrat in six of Michigan's seven statewide races since 2018, by 0.4 to 3.7 points, and understated Whitmer by 6.3 in 2022. | Michigan's final poll averages, taken the way this page takes them, overstated the Democrat in five of the seven statewide races since 2018, by 3.2 to 5.6 points (5.6 in 2020's Senate race), and understated Whitmer in both her races, by 6.1 points in 2022. Michigan's own average is 1.8 points toward the Democrat; the default of 1.5 points is that average pooled with the other states' midterm-year misses. The spread around the polling average is 5 points, and the allowance is adjustable under "Fine-tune the assumptions." |
| A new recount rule | Since April 2025 a statewide race goes to an automatic recount when the certified margin is 0.1% or less of all votes, about 4,500 votes at 2022's turnout. The old trigger was 2,000 votes. Slotkin's 2024 margin, 19,006 votes, was about three times the new line. | Not modeled. The forecast is the November 3 margin between El-Sayed and Rogers as a share of all votes cast. |
- County returns 2016–2024: the Michigan Secretary of State's county results files for each general election, saved from a browser because the site blocks automated downloads. Every race adds up to the certified statewide count exactly.
- County boundaries: us-atlas (Census cartographic boundaries)
- Early-vote turnout: not on this page yet. The Secretary of State's voter participation dashboard has each county's mail ballots and early votes by day.
- Polling average: Wikipedia, 2026 United States Senate election in Michigan (poll table)
- Election-night results: not read live on this page. Counties post first on their own sites; the state's Michigan Voter Information Center has the full unofficial count about a day after polls close.
- In the news: headlines and links from Google News, GDELT and the state's own news outlets, read twice a day. Pollitrack never fetches or stores the articles themselves.