The Associated Press called the presidential primary race early last night after the polls closed, announcing that 46th President Joe Biden and 45th President Donald Trump won Michigan primaries. According to the unofficial election results posted on the Leelanau County website, about 35% of the registered voters in the county, 7,615 of 21,720 voters, turned out to vote.
Overall, Leelanau County’s unofficial voting results affirm the national consensus that Biden and Trump should be their party’s candidates for president, except for Glen Arbor Township, where more people voted for Nikki Haley (111) than Trump (99). According to the Leelanau County totals, Haley received 1,453 votes to Trump’s 2,567 votes.
When the newspaper asked the Leelanau County Republican Party whether they plan to support the candidate who wins their party’s presidential primary, party Chairwoman Laura Tarsa refused to answer. Tarsa noted that as of the time of the interview, the board of canvassers has not determined a winner and ignored attempts to clarify that the newspaper wasn’t asking for her to endorse an individual candidate, but whoever becomes the front-runner once the results come in.
“At this point, we don’t know the official results. People need to vote on their understanding and their knowledge and get as much information on the candidates as possible. They need to choose based on critical thinking and not just emotion. I believe in our conservative base,” Tarsa said.
In the view of district 7 Commissioner Melinda Lautner, however, the relatively high number of votes for Haley are not an accurate reflection of the local opinion on Trump.
“The most obvious point was that Democrats were voting for Haley… I don’t know if that’s happening in Leelanau, but that would be my guess,” Lautner said. “(Border security) is becoming a larger concern of the people – they’re not thrilled with open borders and fentanyl coming over the border.”
“The Republican party, from what I understand, is behind Trump. Nikki Haley is saying, ‘If something happens to Trump, I’m next in line,’” district 2 Commissioner Jim O’Rourke said. “Trump is pulling ahead of her saying that if you’re a criminal, you’re going back.”
For the Democrats, Biden decisively defeated challengers Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson in Leelanau County, but 336 voters checked the “uncommitted” box. Leelanau County Democratic Party Co-chair Brigid Hard speculated that these uncommitted votes could be trepidation over Biden’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“Obviously people are free to vote their conscious. It’s a terrible situation in Gaza and nobody likes what’s going on there. They’re free to do a protest vote in primary, but hoping that doesn’t happen in the general election… a vote that’s uncommitted is a vote for Trump,” Hard said. “When Trump was president, it was four years of chaos, and the things that he’s saying on the campaign trail about retribution (and withdrawing the U.S. from NATO) are completely scary.”
“It’s really important first of all, to continue to have a democracy, that we rally behind Biden. I understand the choices of people to be uncommitted… Wars are bad in any case. The issue in Israel and Palestine is particularly tragic,” Democratic party Co-chair Barb Conley added.
Overall, 4,248 people voted under the Republican Party section and 3,282 people voted under the Democrat section. An additional 85 people did not cast votes in the partisan section but voted in the proposal section on local school millages.
This was the first election in Michigan since the passage of the new voting rights act in 2022 that allows for early in-person voting for nine consecutive days from Feb. 17-25. County Clerk Michelle Crocker told the newspaper on Monday after early voting closed that 293 voters took advantage of this option.
The unofficial election results break down these numbers to 60 voters from Suttons Bay Township, 49 from Leland Township, 46 from Leelanau Township, 40 from Bingham Township, 19 each from Elmwood precinct 2 and Solon townships, 18 from Centerville Township, 15 from Elmwood precinct 1, and less than 10 each from Cleveland, Empire, Glen Arbor, and Kasson townships and City of Traverse City, precinct 4.
Early in-person votes represented less than 4% of the 7,615 total votes in the county, however. Percentage wise, voting by absentee ballot appears to have been the most popular option, with over 56% of the total votes in the precincts that count absentee votes separately. However, Cleveland, Empire, Kasson and Solon townships and the City of Traverse City report absentee voter ballots with the live precinct voting totals.
