Where MI Senate's mail vote is, 23 days out
Seven exhibits, all public data, refreshed daily from the state's voting dashboard. Under each one is the reason it locates reach, and the numbers. Data as of October 10.
Michigan U.S. Senate sits in 11 television markets: Alpena (17,230 TV homes) and Marquette (89,550 TV homes) and Grand Rapids (801,030 TV homes) and Traverse City (266,960 TV homes) and Flint–Saginaw–Bay City (458,710 TV homes) and South Bend (331,800 TV homes) and Lansing (265,830 TV homes) and Duluth (179,710 TV homes) and Detroit (1,940,750 TV homes) and Toledo (424,050 TV homes) and Green Bay (478,970 TV homes). A broadcast point is bought for the whole market. The counties in Marquette never see a Alpena buy, and the campaign cannot afford a second market for a corner of the district. Streaming is bought by the impression, by ZIP, so the corner costs what the corner costs.
Nielsen market assignment by county, TV homes 2024–25 via USTVDB. District from the Census Bureau's 119th Congress boundaries.
2,035,585 absentee ballots requested across the district's 81 counties. Michigan has no party registration, so the file carries no party split; the 2024 precinct margins below carry the partisan story. Ballots must reach the clerk by 8 p.m. on November 3, and nine days of early in-person voting run October 24 to November 1.
Absent-voter applications on file with the clerks, from the state's voting dashboard; counts under 10 are suppressed by the state.
The city or township is the finest grain the state publishes for this file. All voters requested: 2,035,585 across the district.
- Detroit City · Wayne103,774 · 5%
- Grand Rapids City · Kent32,892 · 2%
- Livonia City · Wayne27,737 · 1%
- Canton Township · Wayne27,002 · 1%
- Ann Arbor City · Washtenaw26,978 · 1%
- Warren City · Macomb24,781 · 1%
- Lansing City · Ingham24,238 · 1%
- Sterling Heights City · Macomb24,085 · 1%
Hover or tap any shape for its number. ZIP and precinct boundaries from the Census Bureau; precincts are 2020 voting districts.
Michigan publishes the daily series statewide only. Most of the file is the permanent mail-ballot list, which gets a ballot automatically; the slope is new requests coming in.
Statewide absent-voter applications on file, by day, from the state's voting dashboard.
Share of requested ballots already returned, by days before the election. At 23 days out in 2024, 24.8% of the district's mail ballots were back. That year 2,386,922 were requested and 2,190,306 were counted. The gap between the grey line and the green one, on any given night, is the chase: the ballots a campaign can still move, by district.
The state's dashboard counts returns by day only statewide, so both lines take the statewide shape: 2024 scaled to the district's 2024 requests, 2026 ending on the district's own count in the latest file.
Rogers had $4.47M in the bank on June 30 to El-Sayed's $2.55M. Cook rates it Toss-up. Money asymmetry is the argument for precision: the side with less cannot afford 17,230 homes to reach the ones inside the line.
FEC candidate totals through June 30, 2026. Polls and ratings as published; independent expenditures not included here.
| Unit | All voters · requested | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Detroit City Wayne | 103,774 | 5% |
| Grand Rapids City Kent | 32,892 | 2% |
| Livonia City Wayne | 27,737 | 1% |
| Canton Township Wayne | 27,002 | 1% |
| Ann Arbor City Washtenaw | 26,978 | 1% |
| Warren City Macomb | 24,781 | 1% |
| Lansing City Ingham | 24,238 | 1% |
| Sterling Heights City Macomb | 24,085 | 1% |
Weights are tonight's file. They change every night as ballots come back, and the flight follows them: the streaming buy re-aims to the districts with the most ballots still out, by ZIP, at frequency, with every impression returned as a line item: the app, the show, the city, the hour, the price paid.
Antebyte buys streaming TV, online video, web and in-app impressions from one account, by ZIP and by polygon, prepaid by the week, cancel any day. If any of this is useful, reply and I'll send tonight's file for any district you name.