Northern Michigan Counties Lead The Way To Biggest August Primary In State History

Michigan set a new voter turnout record for an August primary election last week, with more than 2.5 million Michiganders casting ballots. The strong numbers were buoyed in part by robust turnout in northwest Lower Michigan counties, four of which ranked in the top 10 for the entire state.

Based on preliminary voter numbers from the Secretary of State’s office, the total number of ballots cast for last week’s primary was 2,571,933, or 30.7 percent of registered voters. It’s the highest number of voters ever for a Michigan August primary, handily beating the previous record of 2,520,850, from 2020.

Even more impressive, at least for northern Michigan, might be the performance of the counties in the Grand Traverse region. Leelanau County ranked number 1 of all Michigan counties in terms of voter turnout, with 10,523 ballots cast out of 22,027 registered voters, good for a 47.8 percent turnout. Benzie County came in second, with a 42.3 percent turnout (7,246 ballots cast, out of 17,135 registered voters), while Antrim County finish sixth (36.6 percent voter turnout) and Grand Traverse County ninth (30,806 votes cast out of 84,767 registered voters, for a 36.3 percent turnout).

Emmet and Charlevoix counties also ranked highly, finishing 11th and 13th, respectively, and both clearing 35 percent turnout.

The only comparable cluster of strong voter turnout in the state was the Detroit/Ann Arbor area, where Washtenaw, Oakland, and Livingston counties all saw top 10 rankings for voter turnout.

In terms of political party splits, Democratic voters dramatically outnumbered Republicans, with approximately 1.5 million ballots cast for Democratic gubernatorial candidates, versus about 930,000 for the Republican side.

A full county-by-county rundown of voter turnouts can be found on MLive.com.