Your analysis of Michigan's blue vs red is flawed. Your color map makes the same mistake as a nationwide USA map does - reflecting LAND not PEOPLE.
Michigan has generally been leaning Democratic for most of my lifetime, with occasional swings over the red line. The problem, especially with the 2010 census, was that once in charge, the GOP gerrymandered the hell out of Michigan to lock in their hold on state government.
Our governorship often went back and forth (see link) but due to gerrymandering the GOP kept the state senate. [1] We had a Democratic state House via natural voting despte the GOP drawing districts in 2000.
In 2014, I did an analysis of the number of voted for our US House representatives. We had 15 representatives of which 9 were GOP and 6 Democrats. But if one added up all the votes for all representatives by party, total votes for Democrats was 52-53%! The GOP only sent more to the US House because of gerrymandering. In November 2018, two of the congressional districts flipped from GOP to Democratic by the will of the voters. My friends Haley Stevens and Elissa Slotkin both beat Republican incumbents.
And during that November 2018 election, Michigan voters decisively supported a constitutional amendment that makes a commission of 13 randomly selected citizens – not elected politicians, consultants or lobbyists – responsible for drawing fair and representative election districts for the Michigan Legislature and U.S. Congress. The commission created several district maps for not only US House but also state legislature and took citizen feedback before implementing the current districts which flipped our federal delegation to blue.
As further evidence of Michigan's 'lean blue' credentials, until 1978 we usually had a senator from each party. Since 1978, the GOP was able to get Spencer Abraham in for one term until ousted by Debbie Stabenow and we have now had two Dem senators for 23 years.
[1]
https://ballotpedia.org/Party_control_of_Michigan_state_government
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senators_from_Michigan
