Michigan Republican unseated after losing to Democrat by 20 points

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.

BakedGoods,

Good. Now unseat every conservative and tell your elders that their vote will decide if they end up in a shitty home or not.

TokenBoomer,

He’ll have to take it lying down.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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.

RalphFurley,

Should we tell him?

rbesfe,

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.

mlg,
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar

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.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Telodzrum,

Not really, this is the damage to your brain that insufficient evidence can cause. Michigan has a storied history of large “Uncommitted” votes in uncontested primaries. For example, “Uncommitted” picked up 16.08% of the vote against Obama in 2012. If anything, this is evidence that support for Biden is stronger that would be expected in Michigan.

Also, you claim it’s evidence that registered Democrats are abandoning Biden; Michigan has an open primary.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Michigan has a storied history of large “Uncommitted” votes in uncontested primaries.

For example, “Uncommitted” picked up 16.08% of the vote against Obama in 2012.

They picked up 10% and in an election year with 70% lower turnout. And Obama shed 300k votes from his 2008 high. Incidentally, Hillary shed 300,000 additional votes relative to Obama’s 2012 performance. A state that was safely blue decayed to red thanks to growing dissatisfaction in the Dem base. It wasn’t until 2020 that Dems recovered.

Also, you claim it’s evidence that registered Democrats are abandoning Biden

If voting against the incumbent isn’t a sign of abandonment, I’m not sure what else is. Certainly the Nikki Haley Republicans are a shot across Trump’s bow.

Perhaps Dems are just banking on a historically low turnout year overall. But no matter how you slice it, Biden’s support has waned considerably from 2020. He’s not going to hit that 2.8M mark again.

Leviathan, (edited )

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.

Tyfud,

That’s not how recounts work. It has to be close, and this wasn’t even close. Recounts address a margin of error. What you’re doing is dog whistling voter fraud, and I very, very seriously doubt you’re actually a staunch leftist.

You’re just a bad actor trying to give the illusion that our voting system shouldn’t be trusted.

Well.

You can fuck right off.

stevedidwhat_infosec,

Appreciate you saying this.

Anonymity means you can’t validate who anyone is or how they lean. All we have is logic and rhetoric.

Leviathan,

I was truly just kidding and poking fun at republicans, no need to hurl insults.

Tyfud,

Ah, fair enough, fair enough.

Yeah, you got me then. I missed the /s in there. It’s been a long, long 8 years, so my patience has run thin for people who aren’t just making a joke.

Appreciate you clarifying. Cheers! :)

pyre,

i don’t think miscounting can account for a 20 point difference. recounts make sense for close elections.

Leviathan,

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.

pyre,

oh ok, while I missed the intent I’m glad I avoided assuming malice at least.

reverendsteveii,

do you have any evidence of impropriety other than “hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔”?

JonEFive,

Wait… you need more than that to demand a recount?

reverendsteveii,

I mean, anyone can demand anything…

Leviathan,

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.

reverendsteveii,

forgive me then, your voice got lost in a sea of idiots who simply cannot accept having lost under any circumstances.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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.

JonEFive,

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.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

But then how are news sources going to make otherwise mundane events sound noteworthy?

Flipping the county is absolutely noteworthy, both because it was a recall election and because it flipped parties. Might want to fixate on the actual policy changes promised by the incoming administration, rather than the pure horse-race aspect of an election that’s six months off.

BTW, 100% of person making this reply voted Democrat, therefore everyone in the country will also vote democrat.

Unless they’re betrayed by the Fifth Columnist Trump-Loving Idiot Leftist College Muslims Who Hate America, of course.

JonEFive,

I assume you meant Zionist, but columnist is pretty funny given the surrounding context.

Leviathan,

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.

SuperSpaceFan,
@SuperSpaceFan@kbin.melroy.org avatar

By 20 points?! Oof!

randon31415,

Here is the wikipedia article on Ottawa Impact for people’s information

TheRealKuni,

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.

DogWater,

Is this Holland michigan? With the windmills and shit?

TheRealKuni,

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.

DogWater,

Ha I just went to see the tulips there

Rob,

As someone who’s never heard of the place: Ottawa county honestly sounds like a shit place to live.

TheRealKuni,

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.

TropicalDingdong,

Well a 31 point swing is a promising signal.

athos77,

A. It was a recall election (though still good).

B. Was this district affected by redistricting?

frezik,

It’s a county office, which usually means the “district” is the whole county. Unless it happens to work differently in this specific case.

SandbagTiara2816,

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

ProIsh,

More of this please and thank you.

kescusay,
@kescusay@lemmy.world avatar

You can definitely expect more. Democrats are consistently over-performing versus the polls.

Polling is kinda broken right now.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

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.

shalafi,

Blame the FCC. It used to be illegal to telemarket to cell numbers.

Kyrrrr,

You can blame congress as well. They could be making laws to help with this

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

I think I'll blame the people who actually have the capability of doing something about it. They could have done this years ago.

Monument,

There’s just no incentive. The market is going to dictate that carriers allow this to happen.

It has to be regulated. But “the market” also has its hand in congress’s underpants - the same congress that passes laws, and approves assignments, so only “approved“ people make their way to regulatory positions.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

I guess "It's just business" has been used to justify worse things

Clent,

I don’t think the phone companies have the power you imagine them to have.

If the entire global was controlled by a single entity they could stop this but that’s not the reality. There are tons of gateway providers that you have never heard of.

This is literally the job of the FCC and they are already working on it but it takes time to herd this many cats. The big ones have already done their part.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Phone companies could easily prevent call spoofing which would make it easy for them to block known scam numbers. They have chosen not to.

Clent,

You didn’t read anything I said or anything in the link.

You do not understand the problem and willfully do so.

CleoTheWizard,
@CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world avatar

As far as I’m aware, there is a website that allows you to sign up to stop receiving these calls in the US. It’s worked for me and I never get sales calls anymore.

Sign up here

shalafi,

Thanks for the reminder! Says I did it in 2018, but I registered again along with my 2nd number and my wife’s. We shall see…

barsquid,

I would like a federal law that allows me to receive $1 from any caller if I decide I didn’t like the call. If at any point there is a failure to trace the call back to the caller, that point of failure pays the dollar on behalf of the true culprit.

Corkyskog,

I don’t answer any call that’s not in my phone from anywhere that’s not in my work region of like a third of the country and my own area code. Most scams for me are either my area code or come out or California for some reason.

mkwt,

And really people are not making phone calls nearly as much as they used to. The pollsters need to find a reasonably unbiased method to sample people on other communication methods.

lobut,

I don’t see myself as too much of a loner or anything but I had a friend call me out of the blue during lunch and I just kept thinking.

Why oh why are you not texting me?

I’m horrible.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

For me it's "why are you not texting" followed quickly by "oh god who died?!"

MrPoopbutt,

I get texts about polls but I would rather jump on a live grenade than answer an unsolicited communication, be that a text or anything else, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Socsa,

I did a weekly email survey in 2016 for $5 gift cards each time. That definitely worked but I can’t imagine it’s sustainable. Paying people also probably comes with an entirely different sort of bias.

reverendsteveii,

my phone will actually tell me ahead of time if it thinks the call is spam, a scam, or if it’s a business what kind of business it’s likely to be. but yeah, still don’t answer anything that isn’t in my contacts or from my local area code. text me or leave a voicemail. or don’t, I don’t really wanna talk to anybody as a rule anyway.

Archer,

The name’s Likely. Scam Likely.

drzoidberg,
@drzoidberg@lemmy.world avatar

It’s been over a decade since I answered a call from a number that wasn’t programmed into my phone. I won’t return the call unless a voicemail is left.

bolexforsoup, (edited )

sadfsdfasfasf

themeatbridge,

Even if Dems are outperforming polls, I don’t want anyone feeling comfortable that Biden is going to win. Literally everyone needs to feel panic and dread about the upcoming election, and vote in downticket races as well.

bolexforsoup, (edited )

sadfsdfasfasf

TropicalDingdong,

Its funny right? Polling has been broken since basically post 2012.

Cybermonk_Taiji,

It’s a feature

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • politics@lemmy.world
  • DreamBathrooms
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • GTA5RPClips
  • tacticalgear
  • Youngstown
  • everett
  • slotface
  • osvaldo12
  • rosin
  • mdbf
  • kavyap
  • thenastyranch
  • ngwrru68w68
  • anitta
  • Durango
  • cisconetworking
  • modclub
  • khanakhh
  • normalnudes
  • ethstaker
  • cubers
  • vwfavf
  • provamag3
  • Leos
  • tester
  • megavids
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •