Five takeaways from the general election

By Greg Rathje

1. Turnout was interesting.
After the August primary I predicted the turnout for the November election. “I think we’ll have a higher turnout than the last gubernatorial election in 2022. We’ll have about 55% this year, compared to 53% four years ago.”

My estimate was a bit high – the actual turnout was two points less at 51%.

And then looking into the data got interesting…

There was a large difference in turnout. Lakefield led the county with 60%, while McMillan was the lowest at 43%. Columbus and Pentland were in between, with 50% and 53%, respectively.
I don’t know why there was such a big difference. Does anyone have an idea?

2. Luce County is still very Republican
Looking at how the U.P.’s 15 counties voted in the Governor’s race, Luce County was the most “red” county, with 68% of votes going for the Grand Old Party (GOP). The second highest county was Menominee at 61%.

Not only that, but Luce County is also one of the reddest counties in the entire state, being in the top 10 (out of 83 counties) for GOP votes for governor in Michigan. The highest was Missaukee County at 73%.

3. Two interesting takeaways from the TAS school board elections
There are four seats up for election this year to the school board. Two candidates ran. They won of course. But one of the candidates received 21% more votes than the other. Interesting!

And the two other seats? No one ran as a write in. The remaining school board members will choose who will fill those seats.

If you care about our school district – get involved! Serve on the school board!

4. The state proposals – no on one, yes on two.
There were two statewide proposals.
One was to call a convention to write a new constitution for Michigan. Our current version was approved by the voters in 1963 and has a “clock” that asks voters every 16 years if they want a new one (yes, voters can trigger a convention earlier if they want).

The vote failed in Luce County – 33% yes, and 67% no. It also failed statewide (26% to 74%). Notice that there was more support for yes here than the rest of the state.

(This is the fourth time since 1963 voters have decided to not call for a new state convention, and each time the vote has never been close. The second statewide proposal was to limit natural gas and electric utilities from making campaign contributions for state and local races. This would be an amendment to Michigan’s constitution.

This vote passed in Luce County – 77% yes, 23% no. It also passed statewide (82% to 18%).

I wouldn’t be surprised if there if a legal challenge to this based on the First Amendment. Stay tuned!

5. Voting matters
I’ve said this before: to those who think voting doesn’t make a difference – you’re wrong.

Alger County had two candidates running to fill a county commissioner seat. The difference was four votes: 394 to 390.

Out of almost 4,700 votes cast, voters in Gwinn turned down a $24 million dollar bond for their schools by 14 votes: 2,364 no to 2,350 yes.

Voting matters.

As always – a massive thanks to Luce County Clerk Sharon Price and her team for the election results!