1y ago

Michigan Republican unseated after losing to Democrat by 20 points

www.newsweek.com

Republican county commissioner has been unseated in Michigan after losing to her Democratic challenger by 20 percentage points.

Chris Kleinjans won an Ottawa County election on Tuesday with 60 percent of the vote share, while the Republican incumbent Lucy Ebel lost, having received 40 percent.

Michigan is a battleground state that will be key to November's presidential election. Donald Trump won the county with 61 percent of the vote in 2020.

58 comments

More of this please and thank you.
- You can definitely expect more. Democrats are consistently over-performing versus the polls.
  Polling is kinda broken right now.
  
  I blame phone companies for that. They've had the ability to block scam calls for a while but haven't because it makes them money. Now people don't even bother answering their phones anymore, especially if it's an unknown number, so the only people who respond to polls aren't representative of the population.
  
  sadfsdfasfasf
  
  Its funny right? Polling has been broken since basically post 2012.
Holy shit. I’m not sure people understand how big a deal this is for Ottawa County.
Ottawa County contains the town that voted to close its library over LGBT books. Ottawa County is where Betsy DeVos lives. Ottawa County had their commission taken over by a far right group called Ottawa Impact that tried to oust the county health officer and replace her with someone completely unqualified because of mask requirements.
Ottawa County is home to a congressional district that hasn’t gone Democrat since the civil rights movement.
This is kind of huge.
- Is this Holland michigan? With the windmills and shit?
  
  Is this Holland michigan? With the windmills and shit?
  Yes. I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. Specifically this commissioner represents parts of Holland Township and Park Township, apparently.
- As someone who’s never heard of the place: Ottawa county honestly sounds like a shit place to live.
  
  It’s a gorgeous county, with bike trails and lakeshore all over the place, but yeah, politically it’s awful. When I was buying my house there was one I looked at that happened to be just over the line into Ottawa County and that was one of the reasons I decided against it.
Well a 31 point swing is a promising signal.
Michigan is a battleground state that will be key to November’s presidential election.
Friendly reminder that, thanks to the US-backed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, we saw fully 13% of Democrats refuse to support Joe Biden in the Michigan primary
This, in a state where Democrat primary turnout was 768,158 relative to Republican primary turnout of 1,113,719.
This war is going to Jimmy Carter the Democrats in November, if they don't change course in a hurry.
- 13% of democrats submitted a protest vote. That is not the same as refusing to vote for Biden in November. I hope that anyone who supports the Palestinian cause can recognize just how much worse it will get under a Trump administration.
  
  That is not the same as refusing to vote for Biden in November.
  That's a clear signal by registered Democrats of their abstention of support for Biden.
  House Reps aren't seeing these huge protest votes.
  I hope that anyone who supports the Palestinian cause can recognize just how much worse it will get under a Trump
  I hope that Biden realizes he can't wait until 2025 to change course in Palestine. Not when 1.4M lives are on the line.
  
  Lol unless Biden changes course, SE Michigan alone will ensure his loss of the state.
  Dearborn does not screw around and will happily take 4 years of Trump if their demands are not met. They were very aware of Hillary's sketchy past as Secretary of State when she ran in 2016 and she lost Michigan because only 10k people didn't vote for her.
  And iirc the total turnout was already like 400k less compared to Obama.
- Should we tell him?
A. It was a recall election (though still good).
B. Was this district affected by redistricting?
- It's a county office, which usually means the "district" is the whole county. Unless it happens to work differently in this specific case.
  
  Nope, Ottawa County is still just a county. However, in the last election, the county commission got taken over by Ottawa Impact, a group of extremely far right activists that have proven very popular to a smaller segment of the population, and wildly unpopular with the majority of people in and around the county. It appears that there’s starting to be a backlash to their idiocy and hatred from the folks with any sense, it’s good to see
A democrat won by 20 points in Michigan?? I'm pretty staunchly leftist and I think that deserves a quick recount.
Edit: this was very much a joke, you guys are understandably passionate but civility is still appreciated.
- I was truly just kidding and poking fun at republicans, no need to hurl insults.
  
  Appreciate you saying this.
  Anonymity means you can't validate who anyone is or how they lean. All we have is logic and rhetoric.
- i don't think miscounting can account for a 20 point difference. recounts make sense for close elections.
  
  I was really just kidding and poking fun at the calls for recounts republicans always make. I really don't believe a 20 point margin can be the result of a miscount. Sarcasm is difficult to convey via text. I'll leave it, though, I'm a good sport.
- do you have any evidence of impropriety other than "hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔"?
  
  I was being very sarcastic and that was obviously a failure. I was poking fun at the right's constant calls for recounts. There's no way a 20 point spread can be due to a miscount.
  
  Wait... you need more than that to demand a recount?
- A county commissioner was defeated in a low-turnout out-of-cycle election by 20-pts.
  Chris Kleinjans 2502 votes (60%)
  Lucy Ebel (incumbent) 1665 votes (40%)
  By contrast, in 2020, Ottawa County voted
  Biden 64,705 38.4%
  Trump 100,913 59.8%
  So, a huge reversal. But in an election in which only 2% of Republican Presidential regulars turned out relative to 3.8% of Democrats.
  I absolutely would not use this as a bell weather for the 2024 election.
  
  I was kidding and poking fun at republicans always demanding recounts. I'm actually quite happy and surprised a dem won. I truly don't actually want a recount.
  
  But then how are news sources going to make otherwise mundane events sound noteworthy?
  BTW, 100% of person making this reply voted Democrat, therefore everyone in the country will also vote democrat.
He’ll have to take it lying down.
Here is the wikipedia article on Ottawa Impact for people's information

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