Michigan Republican Unseated After Losing to Democrat

(ConservativeSense.com) – A Republican county commissioner has lost her seat to a Democratic challenger in a Michigan recall. Democrat Chris Kleinjans won the Ottawa County election with 60% of the vote, ousting Republican incumbent Lucy Ebel. The contest resulted when 3,000 voters demanded a recall following Ebel’s decision to vote to remove health official Adeline Hambley from her post.

The election came under unusually high media scrutiny due to Michigan’s status as a crucial swing state and observers’ curiosity about whether the state is leaning more toward Democrats or Republicans at this point in the White House race.

Immediately before the vote, Ebel expressed confidence that she would remain in office. She said voters in the area were “very conservative, and I think that they will want to keep Ottawa County conservative.” Nevertheless, she lost convincingly to her Democrat challenger by 2,502 votes to 1,665.

While some experts believe Michigan could be the state that wins or loses the Presidency for Trump or Biden, others suggest this result is no indicator either way. Politics professor Mark Shanahan said that the small turnout in such a small community cannot be read as an endorsement of either Presidential candidate. He noted, however, that Ebel is considered an arch-conservative, and Democrats may hope that the result indicates a drift away from the “right-wing grassroots” in local politics.

Michigan’s status as a swing state was cemented in 2016 when it opted for Donald Trump by 11,000 votes. Having been reliably blue for decades, it returned to the Democrats in 2020 and elected Joe Biden.

Other states considered crucial in determining who will enter the White House include Arizona, which voted for Trump in 2016 but for Biden in 2020, and Georgia, a previously solid GOP state that opted for President Biden in 2020. The last time a Democrat took the Peach State was Bill Clinton in 1992. While North Carolina is generally considered Republican, Donald Trump only won there by 1.3% in 2020.