The 1884 United States presidential election in Michigan took place on November 4, 1884, as part of the 1884 United States presidential election. Voters chose 13 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Benjamin Butler received the nominations of both the Greenback and Anti-Monopoly parties in Michigan. Butler initially hoped to organize fusion tickets with the minority party in each state in the election, a strategy designed to capitalize on the cross-partisan popularity of many elements of the candidate's program. The Greenbacks succeeded in negotiating fusion arrangements with the Democratic Party in Michigan, wherein they were balloted separately but shared 12 of the state's 13 electors. The fusion electors agreed to divide their votes between Butler and Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in proportion to the statewide popular vote for each candidate, had their combined vote been sufficient to achieve a plurality in the state.
Michigan was won by the Republican nominee James G. Blaine over Cleveland and Butler in a close race by only 3,308 votes, a margin of less than 1%.
Barry and Newaygo counties have voted Democratic only once since this election, in 1964.
Results
Results by county
The fusion between the Democrats and Greenbackers presents difficulties when interpreting the results. On one hand, it would be easy to use the votes for Flanders and Field separately for Cleveland and Butler, respectively. This does cause Butler to appear to have run ahead of both Cleveland and Blaine in Arenac County, for instance. However, splitting the Cleveland and Butler votes in this manner masks how close the election actually was; the Republican electors only narrowly ran ahead of the 12 Fusion electors by about 3,300 votes. Using Flanders' figures for Cleveland makes it falsely appear that Blaine easily won the state by double digits. Additionally, the combined total for Flanders and Field exceeds that of the highest fusion elector (Harshaw), although it is still less than that of the lowest Republican elector (Steketee). The 1885 Michigan Manual lists the county results for all three of Harshaw, Flanders, and Field, with a note implying that the results for the latter two are to be interpreted separately from the rest. Based on the split between Democratic and Greenbacker vote, had the Fusion ticket been elected, the electoral votes from Michigan likely would have been nine for Cleveland, three for Butler, and one for Blaine.
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Alpena
- Barry
- Bay
- Berrien
- Cheboygan
- Clare
- Clinton
- Emmet
- Gratiot
- Huron
- Ingham
- Ionia
- Jackson
- Kent
- Livingston
- Manistee
- Newaygo
- Oakland
- Shiawassee
- St. Clair
- St. Joseph
- Wayne