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.

  • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      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.