President Barack Obama defeats Mitt Romney in Michigan - Fox 2 News Headlines

DETROIT (AP) -- President Barack Obama won Michigan in his bid for a second term Tuesday, and fellow Democrat Debbie Stabenow was re-elected to a third term in the U.S. Senate.
 
Obama developed a reservoir of good will in the state by championing federal assistance to General Motors and Chrysler, which were on the brink of bankruptcy when he took office in 2009. Republican challenger Mitt Romney was a vocal opponent of rescuing the car companies.
 

Obama benefited from strong ties to organized labor and heavy support from black voters in Detroit and other population centers. He also carried Michigan in 2008.
 
William Mullins, 62, of Lansing, said he had been raised Republican but voted for Obama because "he comes across as an honest man."
 
"Obama had a lot to deal with when he came into office," Mullins said. "You can't change everything overnight."
 
No Republican presidential nominee has won the state since 1988.
 
Stabenow defeated former Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra after pre-election polls had shown her with double-digit leads. She ran television ads portraying herself as a bipartisan champion of Michigan industries, particularly manufacturing and agriculture. As chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, she won a rare endorsement from the Michigan Farm Bureau.
 
Voters in some Michigan communities waited more than an hour Tuesday to get their hands on a ballot crammed with candidates for major offices as well as a series of amendments to the state constitution that ranged from alternative energy to union rights and bridges.
 
Poll workers passed out sample ballots for people to study as they stood in a line that snaked through the halls at a Grosse Pointe Woods school in suburban Detroit. The secretary of state's office predicted turnout likely would be around 66 percent, the statewide figure in the 2008 presidential election.
 
Besides president and Senate, the Michigan ballot had numerous U.S. House, state Legislature and state Supreme Court races. Tens of millions of campaign dollars also were spent on the proposals that had nothing to do candidates.
 
Proposal 6 called for changing the constitution to require a referendum on any plan for a new bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. The campaign was backed by billionaire Manuel "Matty" Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, in response to a competing bridge proposed this year by Michigan and Ontario.
 
"I don't have a problem amending the constitution if it's for the betterment of all the people. But Matty Moroun's monopoly has got to end," said Frank Yoakam, 38, a general contractor in Grosse Pointe Woods who voted against Proposal 6.
 
Porsha Wilburn, 29, of Lansing sat in her pickup truck for about an hour before polls opened at Bethlehem Temple Church. She said she supported Proposal 6 but voted no on the rest. She doesn't believe Gov. Rick Snyder's claim that a new bridge wouldn't eat up tax dollars.
 
"You can't say there's not enough money for police and fire protection, then go build a bridge," Wilburn said.