Election Results 2024: Nation Leans Red, But Leelanau Goes Blue
Former president Donald Trump looked likely to win the presidency as of 3am Wednesday morning, defeating Democratic challenger (and current vice president) Kamala Harris.
Despite a shift to the right in national politics, though, Leelanau County got a blue wave in Tuesday’s election. In a race that saw all seven seats on the county Board of Commissioners contested, six of the seven winners are Democrats. Leelanau tilted left in other races, too, including the presidency, the state legislature, and U.S. congressional races – though, due in part to uncontested races, many of the county’s leaders remain on the Republican side of the aisle.
Read on for a rundown of results and projections for numerous local, state, and national races, as of press time early Wednesday morning.
County Commission
In 2022, Leelanau County voters selected a county board with a split of four Democrats and three Republicans, making it the only county board in northern Lower Michigan to have a left-leaning majority in recent years. That majority evaporated in July when District 1 commissioner Jamie Kramer, a Democrat, resigned her seat, leaving the board with a 3-3 partisan deadlock. Commissioners even opted not to appoint a replacement due to both sides’ unwillingness to hand a majority to the opposing party.
Now, Leelanau voters have given liberals an unprecedented majority on the board, with all three incumbent Democrats winning re-election, another Democrat reclaiming the vacant Kramer seat, and two other candidates flipping their districts from red to blue. And thanks to a recent change in state law, each of those victors will serve four-year terms on the board, rather than the two-year terms that have historically been typical in Leelanau and other Michigan counties – something that could spell a long-tail progressive shift in Leelanau County politics.
The races are detailed below.
District 1: Republican Tim McCalley; Democrat Rick Robbins
Though he previously held this seat as a Republican – and lost it to Kramer in 2022 – Rick Robbins swapped party affiliation this year and came away with a victory in Leelanau’s first district. Robbins beat Republican Tim McCalley by a little less than 200 votes.
District 2: Republican Mark Walter; Democrat Scott Perry
Reports show Scott Perry edging out Mark Walter by just 11 votes – 968 ballots to 957 – with all District 2 precincts reporting. If those numbers hold, Perry will succeed James O’Rourke, who did not seek re-election this year. Perry’s victory would represent a partisan flip for the District 2 seat, as O’Rourke is a Republican.
District 3: Republican William Bunek; Democrat Lois Bahle
The District 3 commissioner seat will also flip Republican to Democrat, with Lois Bahle beating Republican challenger William Bunek 1,114 votes to 973. That race was a rematch of a 2022 recall election, where Bahle toppled Bunek out of the District 3 seat after voters recalled the latter over his attempts to zero out the county’s early childhood services millage. Bahle then lost the seat to Republican Doug Rexroat in the November 2022 election. Rexroat had initially filed papers to seek re-election this year, but withdrew from the race days later, leaving Bunek without a challenger in the August primary.
District 4: Republican James White; Democrat Ty Wessell
District 4 incumbent Ty Wessell, a Democrat and the sitting chairperson for the board of commissioners, scored a landslide two-to-one victory against Republican challenger James White. White, a military veteran and a recently retired financial advisor, had been one of the loudest voices in the entire county commission race, landing headlines for his ardent opposition to the county’s proposed solar energy project.
District 5: Republican Alan Campbell; Democrat Kama Ross
Democrat Kama Ross, a first-term incumbent, held on to the District 5 seat with a little over 51 percent of the vote, beating Republican Alan Campbell 1,097 votes to 1,037. Campbell, the former owner and longtime publisher of the Leelanau Enterprise, ran a campaign that was highly critical of the current board of commissioners, particularly its handling of the county administrator position.
District 6: Republican Mark Roberts; Democrat Gwenne Allgaier
Also keeping her seat on the board of commissioners is Democrat and District 6 incumbent Gwenne Allgaier, who easily beat Republican challenger Mark Roberts 1,470 votes to 999.
District 7: Republican Steve Yoder; Democrat Tim Dowd
The lone Republican on the Leelanau Board of Commissioners for the next four years – barring any resignations or departures – will be Steve Yoder, who won a decisive 1,121-to-791-vote victory over Democratic challenger Tim Dowd. Yoder’s ascendancy marks the first time in 30 years that someone new will be sitting in the District 7 seat; he beat longtime incumbent Melinda Lautner by a 160-vote margin in the August primary. At 33, Yoder will also be the youngest member on the Board of Commissioners.
National and State races
In addition to the county commission races, Leelanau voters also cast their ballots strongly in favor of Democrat candidates on the state and national front.
In the presidential race, the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket carried the county with 53 percent of the vote, compared to 40.3 percent for Trump and running mate JD Vance. As of press time, Leelanau looked to be the only county in northern Lower Michigan that Harris had won, though the race – both at the state level and nationally – was still too close to call.
Leelanau voters also went for Democrats in state and national races, supporting Elissa Slotkin for U.S. Senator (over Republican challenger Mike Rogers), Callie Barr for U.S. Representative (over Republican incumbent Jack Bergman), Betsy Coffia for State Representative (over Republican rival Lisa Trombley), and both Kimberly Ann Thomas and Kyra Harris Bolden for the Michigan Supreme Court (over Republicans Andrew Fink and Patrick William O’Grady).
Projections for those races statewide were more mixed. Bergman scored a decisive 20-point victory against Barr, and Rogers was leading Slotkin as of 3am. Coffia, meanwhile, won a six-point victory against Trombley, and Thomas and Bolden both clinched their seats, flipping the state court to a 5-2 Democratic majority.
Nationwide, Republicans won control of the Senate, while the House of Representatives was still too close to call.
County races
As the Leelanau Ticker previously reported, most high-ranking county officials were running unopposed and thus easily kept their seats on Tuesday. Those officials – Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Hubbell, Sheriff Mike Borkovich, County Clerk Michelle Crocker, Treasurer John A. Gallagher, and Register of Deeds Jennifer Grant – each scored 97 or 98 percent of the vote, with a few hundred voters in each race supporting write-in candidates. All are Republicans.
The two major countywide roles that did see contested races this election – road commissioner and drain commissioner – were both virtual dead heats. In the road commissioner race, Democrat Garth Greenan defeated Republican incumbent James Calhoun by about 250 votes.
In the drain commission race, Democrat Faith Hoekstra beat Republican Timothy O’Non by a similar margin. Hoekstra succeeds Steve Christensen, who clinched his first term as county drain commissioner in 1999 and has been in the role ever since. Christensen opted not to seek re-election this year.
Township leadership races
Similar to county leadership positions, many township supervisors in Leelanau won re-election thanks in part to running unopposed on the November ballot. Those include Marian Werner in Bingham Township, Ronald Schaub in Centerville, Tim Stein in Cleveland, Jeff Shaw in Elmwood, Tom Laureto in Glen Arbor, Greg Julian in Kasson, and Doug Periard in Suttons Bay.
Republican Christopher Comeaux also ran unopposed for (and won) the Solon Township supervisor seat, after defeating incumbent James Lautner in the August primary.
The three township supervisor seats that were actually contested all turned in favor of newcomers rather than incumbents. In Empire Township, Democrat David Hendricks will take the helm after beating Republican incumbent Carl Noonan. In Leland Township, sitting supervisor Susan Och, a Democrat, lost to Republican opponent Clint Mitchell. And in Leelanau Township, Democrat Barbara Conley prevailed over Republican incumbent Michael McMillan.
In terms of village president races, Daniel Davis (Empire), Chris McCann (Northport), and Steve Lutke (Suttons Bay) were the victors.
Ballot proposals
Voters approved an $8 million bond from Glen Lake Community Schools – a significantly scaled-down version of a $36 million proposal that failed a year ago. Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) also got voter approval for a millage renewal.
Elsewhere, Leelanau Township residents overwhelmingly supported millage renewals for the township’s general fund and its fire protection and emergency services. And in the City of Traverse City, a pair of proposals that could affect the future of tax increment financing (TIF) plans also passed.
Voter turnout
Leelanau County famously led the entire state of Michigan in voter turnout in the November 2022 election, with 71.9 percent of the county’s 21,681 registered voters casting ballots. The next-highest voter turnout that election came in Keweenaw County, with 66.9 percent.
Leelanau seems likely to keep its crown this year: Out of 20,094 registered voters, 15,716 of them cast ballots, for a whopping 78 percent turnout.
UPDATE 1: Updated Wednesday morning totals indicate an even higher voter turnout than what is cited in this story. Per county records, 16,253 registered voters in Leelanau cast ballots, good for an 81 percent turnout.
UPDATE 2: Since this report, bipartisan canvassing of Leelanau County's unofficial election results has determined that a batch of early votes was unreported in initial election night totals, changing the results of multiple races and reversing much of the county's 'blue wave.' You can read the Leelanau Ticker's ongoing reporting on the matter here and here.