McCain abandons his efforts to win Michigan

Denver, Oct 2 : Republican presidential nominee John McCain has given up on his efforts to win the state of Michigan, his campaign has said.

Ceding Michigan is a major blow to the McCain campaign and is the latest sign that the faltering economy has reshaped the presidential race and cost McCain support in crucial states, the New York Times reported.

The McCain Campaign had spent heavily on television commercials there and. McCain had campaigned repeatedly in the hopes that he could appeal to enough blue-collar voters, so-called Reagan Democrats and independent voters, to bring the state back into the Republican column in November.

But as the rippling financial crisis shook up the presidential election, and McCain's somewhat unsteady response to it appeared to cost him support in a number of recent polls of battleground states, his campaign decided to pull out of Michigan and redirect its resources to other swing states where they felt McCain had a better chance.

The McCain campaign has spent nearly 8 million dollar on ads in Michigan, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.

McCain had long made it clear that the state was central to his presidential hopes, returning there to campaign again and again and bluntly telling a crowd at a factory in Belleville this July that "the state of Michigan, as it has in many elections in the past, will determine who the next president of the United States is."

His campaign announced its retreat on a day that the news of his ceding the state was almost sure to be drowned out by the buzz created by the much-anticipated vice-presidential debate.

The McCain campaign's withdrawal will free the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, to redirect some of his resources from Michigan to several states that President Bush won in 2004 but where recent polls show. Obama gaining ground, including Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

ANI