It is true that a large number of Democrat voters have moved to Northern Michigan since the last map was drawn in 2001, but the map isn't as good as it should have been.

Another factor has been the Republican Party's total disregard for Northern Michigan. The party has made Oakland County and Grand Rapids a major focus in every election since 2004 even those these communities are trending Democrat. If there was a little bit of a focus on Northern Michigan, the increase in votes for Republican candidates in these generally GOP-friendly counties would offset losses in Oakland County and elsewhere.

One also has to remember that many of the Democrats that have moved into Northern Michigan aren't blue-collar Joes. They are college-educated, upper middle-class yuppies. Think Traverse City, Leelanau, Petoskey, Bellaire, Elk Rapids, Manistee, Charlevoix, Harbor Springs. These are all trending Democrat in part because there are few Republicans moving in compared to Democrats and also because there is virtually no local Republican infrastructure. With the exception of Traverse City and Grand Traverse County, the county Republican parties in most of these Northern Michigan counties exist in-name-only and do little to build the party.

I own a summer house in a town in Northern Michigan. I remember the local Republicans didn't have an office open until after Labor Day last year and the office was only open twice a week. The Democrats had a paid Obama campaign staffer and tons of local volunteers (most of them college-educated retirees and yuppies) staffing an office six days a week. Not only was the local GOP decimated at the polls in local offices, they just never saw it coming. The local Republicans were bunch of locals who had lived there all their life and didn't know you couldn't do things the way it had always been done. I think only one of their county elected officials had a college degree; the rest were just local Bobs and Janes that didn't know anything.