Is The Michigan Primary Winner Take All?

The 2016 presidential candidates have not been skipping out on the opportunity to bring their campaigns to states just as residents prepare to head to the primary polls. And while localized campaigning undoubtedly helps boost the number of delegates a candidate is awarded, in most cases, the elections aren't all or nothing. Even in states where Donald Trump dominates on the ballots, a candidate like Ohio Gov. John Kasich can still snag a few delegates based on the percentage of the popular vote that they win. With another set of primary elections and caucuses scheduled to go down Tuesday in states like Michigan and Mississippi, presidential hopefuls are spending time where they see the most delegates available to them. So, is the Michigan primary winner take all?

The answer is yes and no. If a GOP candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in Michigan's primary election, all 59 of the party's delegates will be awarded to that candidate. But if no Republican candidate wins half the votes, each candidate who gets more than 15 percent of the vote will be awarded delegates proportionally.

On the Democratic side, there's no such threshold for winning all of the 130 delegate votes available in the primary, so you won't see Bernie or Hillary doing a clean sweep in the Great Lakes State. A 15 percent minimum still exists for either candidate to receive any delegates, but that's proven to be almost irrelevant in the contests between the two Democratic frontrunners.

These differing rules could have major consequences for the handful of candidates still in the campaign. With four major contenders from the Republican Party, the likelihood that one person could receive at least half of the votes drops dramatically. In fact, no GOP candidate has reached that threshold in the primaries so far, though Trump just missed the mark in Massachusetts and Ted Cruz came pretty close in Texas and Kansas.

However, Trump still has his eye on a winner-take-all victory. At a Macomb County, Michigan, rally on Friday, the billionaire asked voters to make it happen. "Just do me one favor Tuesday," Trump said. "Give me that big margin. I want the margin. Go out and vote. I love you."

And with that opportunity for a winner-take-all scenario absent within the Democratic Party, it's pretty likely Clinton and Sanders will come close to splitting the more than 100 delegates, despite Clinton's apparent popularity in the state.