Peters Wins Reelection In Michigan; More Election Results

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters was declared the winner of another term in Michigan Wednesday, defeating Republican challenger John James. 

Peters earned an estimated 50 percent of the vote compared to James’ 48 percent in the state with 99 percent of votes counted. While James was leading on Election Night, absentee ballots had not been counted in many parts of the state, with Peters saying he would wait until Wednesday to see the final results. Absentee ballots ultimately helped swing Michigan to presidential candidate Joe Biden Wednesday and to earn Peters another term.

“Michigan, thank you,” Peters posted on his Twitter account. “It's an honor to serve you for another six years in the U.S. Senate. To all who believed in us, gave your time and effort in our fight: thank you for putting your trust in me. I'm so grateful and energized to keep working to move our state forward.”

Other Republican candidates with early leads on Election Night in Michigan held onto them, however, including John Roth, who defeated Democrat Dan O’Neil to win the 104th District seat in Grand Traverse County. While many media outlets initially held off calling the race due to its close nature, O’Neil conceded early Wednesday, writing on Facebook that “while being on the short end is never easy, I truly believe that there are now more people who believe change is possible if we are willing to work for it.” Roth said it was a “great honor to be given the opportunity to represent Grand Traverse County in Lansing” and that he would “work hard to represent all of the people of Grand Traverse County whether you voted for me or my opponent.”

While the outcome of all other local races and ballot proposals as projected by The Ticker early Wednesday were confirmed later in the day, there was at least one results-related snafu in the region. Antrim County posted Wednesday that it was “working diligently to review the results and identify the source of discrepancies discovered early this morning” after the conservative county skewed strongly Democratic in its first unofficial results. Antrim County cited a potential reporting software glitch as the cause of the problem and said it would manually count each printed tabulated tape from each precinct and revise its unofficial results. “Antrim County is committed to ensuring that each and every valid ballot cast is accurately counted,” the county posted.

More than 5.2 million people voted in Michigan this election, according to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who said the turnout was “more than in any election in our state in modern history.” An estimated 3.3 million of those votes were cast absentee. In comparison, a total 4.87 million people voted in Michigan in the 2016 presidential election.