Its really a lot more complicated than who did or didn’t show up.
Here in Michigan Debbie Stabenow got more votes than Obama.
2,594,617 Stabenow to 1,708,256 Hoekstra
2,432,113 Obama to 2,040,175 Romney
To further skew things, the unions who largely turned out for the democrats were crushed on their ballot proposals.
“Here in Michigan Debbie Stabenow got more votes than Obama”
yes in many races, “all politics are local” reigns over party affiliation, party loyalty or party-line voting
without detailed analysis, it could appear as if either Hoekstra lost some GOP votes to Stabenow, or Obama lost some Dim votes to Romney, or some part of both of those things happened; suggesting some component of chosing NOT to vote the party-line on all the races