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Kalamazoo County Has One of Few Close Races for State Senate

WMUK

    

Western Michigan University Political Science Professor John Clark says there are many reasons why the 20th state Senate District race was decided by less than 100 votes. 

Republican Margaret O'Brien claimed a 60 vote win early Wednesday morning. Democrat Sean McCann's campaign is considering asking for a recount. 

Clark says both parties put a lot of resources into the campaign because it was one of the few competitive Legislative races in the Michigan. He says having three candidates, including Libertarian Lorence Wenke, helped lead to a very close election. 

Turnout figures statewide were similar to 2010, despite Democratic efforts to get more voters to the polls. Clark says that probably helped Republicans in state Legislative races. 

The final pre-election polls for Michigan Governor showed a dead heat between Republican Rick Snyder and his Democratic challenger Mark Schauer. Clark says the average of polls over the last couple of weeks showed Snyder a couple of points ahead. He says that's not too different from the final totals which showed Snyder winning by about four percentage points. 

The one big win for Democrats in Michigan was Gary Peters victory in the race for U.S. Senate. Clark says many well-known Republicans decided not to run for Senate even though Carl Levin decided not to seek re-election this year. He says looking at statewide results some potential candidates may wish they had sought the GOP nomination. Clark says the polls show that independents overwhelmingly supported Peters over Republican Terri Lynn Land. 

Gordon Evans became WMUK's Content Director in 2019 after more than 20 years as an anchor, host and reporter. A 1990 graduate of Michigan State, he began work at WMUK in 1996.
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