How Joe Biden gained an edge in Michigan
Four years after President Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes, Joe Biden is ahead by nearly 150,000 votes with 99% of the expected vote counted.
As of Friday morning, the margin separating Biden and Trump was 146,896 votes, with some ballots still outstanding.
New data shows that Biden successfully did what Hillary Clinton couldn't four years prior. He boosted turnout in Detroit, a city that is nearly 80% Black, according to Census data.
In 2012, President Barack Obama won Wayne County, which encompasses Detroit and its surrounding areas, with 595,253 votes. In 2016, Clinton won just 519,444 votes in the county. Biden surpassed Clinton's performance and is approaching Obama's 587,074 tally.
On Wednesday, 863,382 votes were counted in Wayne County, nearly 75,000 more votes cast than 2016's 788,459.
Biden also added to Clinton's performance in Detroit's suburbs. In Oakland and Macomb Counties, Biden earned about 95,000 more votes than Clinton had in Oakland, while in Macomb he won nearly 50,000 more votes than Clinton.
He also won back Democratic territory that slipped from the party’s grip after 2008. In Kent County, home to Grand Rapids, Obama won there only once, in 2008, but lost it just four years later. Trump narrowly won it for Republicans again in 2016, but Biden brought it back to the Democrats' column.
The former vice president also cut into Trump's margins in areas he relied on most. In 2016, one of Trump's stronger performances was in Livingston County, winning by a solid 30-point margin (with 62% of the vote). This year, Trump only carried Livingston, between Detroit and Lansing, by 23 points -- a deficit that hurt his overall margin.
Elsewhere in the state, Biden also reclaimed Saginaw, one of Michigan's 12 pivotal counties, for Democrats by 284 votes, with 99% expected votes counted.
In Marquette County, which Clinton won in 2016, Biden's margin over Trump is more than 4,000 votes. Clinton only won it by 1,396 votes.
