It looks like Pete Hoekstra will get a whack at Debbie Stabenow in the fall, winning 54-34 over Clark Durant with 67% in. Republicans won't be able to be as populist as some in the Peanut Gallery would like, but they have a solid conservative with gravitas to spare. If a left-leaning Michigan electorate is up to voting GOP, Hook-straw won't be a loose-cannon Tea Partier that will be easy to caricature; the best liberals could do is to make him some sort of neocon Bush clone, but that might look good compared to a Obama clone with the Y chromosome removed.
__________
The other race of interest saw the guy I voted for, Scott Stephenson, win the sheriff's race comfortably, 43% to 19% for his nearest challenger with 83% in. When I did a Facebook post, I was thinking of the IL Stevensons and misspelled his name. Barring a write-in foe in the fall, he's in, since no one bothered to file as a Democrat.
__________
Conservatives won't be thrilled to see Fred Upton get back in; he won 66-34 over a conservative challenger. The weather was a bit too warm for a good RINO hunt; here's a Politico piece on the failed hunt. He redeemed himself this session by being a fairly good soldier and not going bipartisan on the budget supercommittee.
Down in Detroit, one of Detroit's two congressmen of color, Hansen Clarke, looks like he's going to lose to Gary Peters in a double-incumbent race (48-35 Peters with 86% in). John Conyers won his race in a new seat that includes some black parts of Oakland County, but with only 60% of the vote. Clarke's loss will resonate some as Conyers will wind up being Detroit's only congressman.
Comments