Houghton, MI · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Houghton, MI, by party and cycle.
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
Total registered voters, over time
Registered voters
Voter registration in Houghton, MI
Year
Total registered
2016
26,901
2018
26,291
2020
28,795
2022
29,240
2024
30,066
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
−11 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net −2,359 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Houghton, MI in Houghton, MI: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−169
2012
−274
2013
−287
2014
−376
2015
−418
2016
−45
2017
−246
2018
−324
2019
−296
2021
+300
2022
+164
2023
−199
2024
−178
2025
−11
Houghton's metropolitan area, centered on Michigan Tech, skews younger and more educated than its rural surroundings, producing turnout patterns that diverge sharply from the broader Upper Peninsula's blue-collar Republican lean.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 32.6 points in 1964 and a Republican high of 77.7 points in 1924. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 2.7 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 16.7 points.
A population of 39,826, a 91% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $58,561 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Marquette, MI and Vermillion, SD.
Akashic
Political twins — metros
The metros whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Houghton, MI, Michigan. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/26340/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Houghton, MI, Michigan voted Republican by 16.7 points (R+16.7), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 20,985 votes cast, 8,571 went Democratic and 12,077 went Republican.
When did Houghton, MI, Michigan last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Houghton, MI, Michigan voted Democratic was 1996.
How many people live in Houghton, MI, Michigan?
Houghton, MI, Michigan has a population of 39,826 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Houghton, MI, Michigan?
Median household income in Houghton, MI, Michigan is $58,561 — below the national median of $80,734. The Michigan state median is $72,875.
What is the political history of Houghton, MI, Michigan?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Houghton, MI, Michigan from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 7 went Democratic and 26 went Republican.
