Michigan is one of the states that the DNC punished for moving up their primaries by not recognizing the primary and refusing to seat the delegates. The RNC took away half of the delegates. Hillary Clinton won the Michigan primary with 55% of the vote. There would have been a total of 157 delegates available. Mitt Romney won the Republican primary with 39% of the vote and John McCain came in second with 30%. Rasmussen Reports has just released their latest poll on the national election in Michigan matching McCain with both Clinton and Obama. Are the voters of Michigan striking back at the DNC for their actions?

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Michigan has voted Democratic in the last four Presidential elections. The 5 before that they went Republican. Now they are considered a swing state. The results of the latest Rasmussen poll show McCain and Clinton tied at 44% and McCain leading Obama 45 to 44%.

In the McCain/Obama match up, 6% said they would vote for a different candidate and 5% are uncertain. In the McCain/Clinton match up 9% said they would vote for another candidate and 4% are uncertain. McCain does better in Michigan than the current President who gets a 54% disapproval rating and a 32% good or excellent one.

What about the all important cross over vote? In the McCain/Clinton match up, McCain would get 10% of the Democratic voters and Clinton would get 12 % of the Republican.. With the independent voters, McCain would get 58%, Clinton 30%. In the McCain/Obama match up, McCain would get 17% of the Democratic vote and Obama would get 11% of the Republican. With the independents, McCain would get 50% and Obama 37%. Clinton does much better against McCain with Republicans and Independents than Obama and that is what makes the difference in the match ups. They are pretty close with the Democratic voters, but Clinton comes out in the lead here too getting 74% to Obama’s 70%.

So far, there does not seem to be much of a backlash because of the primaries, but then there is still a chance that they will be counted and at least some of their delegates seated. Michigan has 17 Electoral College votes which would be very valuable in a close election. Michigan is a state to keep an eye on. What will happen to make Michigan go one way or the other? It would be an indication of what matters in other states as well.