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I got family up north as well. The UP is not that conservative. It is on social issues outside of Marquette, but the main industry there is government. The mines are closed. The timber industry isn't the same. What's left? Prisons. Corrections. That's the dominant industry up there.

The UP isn't as democrat as it used to be. It voted for Dukakis, and later for Bush twice, but still has a lot of its democrat heritage on the state level. Much of that has to do with Dominic Jacobetti and Joe Mack who represented the UP in Lansing. They were the Senator Byrds on the state level.

As for Stupak, he's pro-life, and recently kissed and made up with the NRA so he's popular with them again. On economics, the UP leans center-left. Stupak fits the profile.