Follow Election 2012 with Michigan Radio

With more than half of the precincts reporting, incumbent congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit) has defeated four candidates to win the Democratic primary.

Reports show Conyers winning by a sizeable margin, with almost 60 percent of the votes counted in his favor. State senator Glenn Anderson finished a distant second, with 13 percent.

Kerry Bentivolio raced ahead of former Senator Nancy Cassis in the 11th U.S. House District Republican primary race.

Cassis, a Novi-native, trailed Bentivolio by 30 points, with 70 percent of the votes counted. Bentivolio is a teacher and reindeer farmer from Milford, and the only Republican candidate who actually appeared on the ballot. Cassis ran her campaign as a write-in, after declaring her candidacy following the resignation of incumbent Thaddeus McCotter.

On the Democratic side of the primary, physician Syed Taj led LaRouche Democrat William Roberts, 61-39.

Tim Walberg, the current U.S. Representative for Michigan's 7th congressional district, won the Republican nomination for reelection.

With a little more than half of the votes counted, Walberg led candidate Dan Davis by 52 points.

Walberg also served as Congressman for the district from 2007 to 2009.

Update 11:45 p.m.

With 81 percent of precincts reporting, Newport resident Kurt Haskell has defeated Jackson County Democratic Party Chairman Ruben Marquez to win the Democratic nomination, finishing 66-34.

He will face Rep. Walberg for the Michigan 7th District congressional seat up for grabs in November.

Check back in with Michigan Radio for more election updates.

-Elaine Ezekiel, Michigan Radio Newsroom

Incumbent congressman Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) has won the GOP primary for the 6th U.S. House district against Republican candidate Jack Hoogendyk.

Representative Upton will face Democratic challenger Mike O'Brien (D-Douglas) for his current seat in the general election.

The latest numbers showed Upton leading Hoogendyk 66 percent to 34 percent, with more than half of the precincts reporting.

UPDATE:

Reports of voters being turned away because they declined to check a box asking them to verify U.S. citizenship have been coming in from several areas of the state.

Michigan Radio first became aware of the situation when talking to Michigan Campaign Finance Network's Rich Robinson who said he was refused a ballot because he would not check the box. He refused because it is not legally required.  Other media sources picked up on the story. (see Free Press)

Other political groups received calls from voters complaining they had been refused the right to vote after declining to check the citizenship box.

Chad Livengood with the Detroit News reported:

Today is primary election day, and if you haven’t voted yet, I wish you would, even if there is only one race you care about.

Most of us won’t vote. Bill Ballenger, who has been closely watching politics in this state for half a century, predicts that less than one-fifth of Michigan’s registered voters are going to vote today.

Sadly, I don’t think he is wrong. That bothers me for a lot of reasons, one of which is that when I was twelve years old, three college students were tortured and murdered in Mississippi for trying to register people to vote.

Boost for Detroit neighborhoods, schools

Governor Snyder was in Detroit yesterday to kick off an intensive neighborhood stabilization effort. It will focus on 3 neighborhoods, anchored by 9 Detroit schools.  Sarah Cwiek reports:

The effort kicked off outside Clark Preparatory Academy in Detroit’s Morningside neighborhood, on the city’s east side. Morningside is one of three communities that will get state help to demolish the abandoned homes dotting the neighborhood, and clean up the area. Lansing also plans to send in some state police patrols, and will put social workers in the neighborhood schools.

Governor Snyder says Detroit must strengthen its neighborhoods if the city is to truly come back.

“That’s the goal. We’re doing this because we believe it will work, and we want to get good experience and do continuous improvement, and then continue to ramp up the program.”

The state is putting $10 million into the effort so far, and Snyder says more could become available. City officials say the state helps supplement existing blight eradication programs.

 Republican Senate candidates hold primary season debate

Three Republicans running for their party’s U.S. Senate nomination appeared together yesterday in their only televised debate of this primary season. Former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, charter school executive Clark Durant, and former judge Randy Hekman are running. Rick Pluta reports:

If what I am about to tell you doesn’t make you angry and indignant, then you must be  completely cynical.

Huge corporations and other special interests have already spent $20 million on ballot drives designed to bend the  Michigan Constitution to suit their selfish needs.

They have spent $20 million; they’ve raised almost $30 million, and every sign indicates they’re just getting started.

These numbers, by the way, come from the  non-profit, non-partisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

A state elections board will meet today to finalize the Sept. 5 special primary that will narrow the field of candidates running to complete the term of Congressman Thad McCotter. The Livonia Republican resigned suddenly on July 6.

The board will also make decisions about half a dozen petition drives that turned in signatures to put questions on the November ballot.

The four-person, bipartisan Board of State Canvassers will set deadlines for people and groups to file any objections to the proposed ballot questions. The proposed amendments to the state constitution deal with energy policy, union rights, taxes, casinos, and a new international bridge in Detroit.

The board has until September to act on any challenges to the questions.

One thing the board will not do is deal with a lower court order to place referendum on the November ballot. The measure seeks to repeal the state’s emergency manager law. The issue must first be dealt with by the state Supreme Court – which holds a hearing this week on whether a dispute about type size on a petition is enough to keep the question off the ballot.

Democrat Dave Curson, and Republicans Kerry Bentivolio, Kenneth Crider, Steve King, Carolyn Kavanagh and Nancy Cassis all say they have filed enough valid signatures to run in the special election to fill the remainder of U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter's congressional seat, according to the the Detroit News.

The deadline for filing signatures was 4 p.m. today.

After McCotter abruptly resigned from his seat in Detroit’s 11th Congressional district, he left a gap between his absence and the end of his term in early January. 

In order to fill the gap, Gov. Rick Snyder's office called for a special question to appear on the November ballot, in which 11th District voters will decide on a candidate to finish out the remaining six weeks of McCotter's term.

On the same ballot, these constituents will vote again for whom they want to serve the following term beginning January 3, 2013.  The deadline for candidates to file for that election has already passed.

A primary for the special election could be held on September 5, if more than one candidate from either party file enough signatures.

Tea Party favorite Gary Glenn announced yesterday that he is bowing out of the Republican race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by two-term Democrat Debbie Stabenow and that he'll throw his support behind Clark Durant. The Associated Press reports:

Ann Arbor residents can add a new tax levy to the growing list of issues on the November ballot.

The local library board wants $65 million for a new downtown building.

After 60 years, the Ann Arbor library's main branch has done its job, according to the board. 

But now they say they're running out of space, so they want to tear down and rebuild on the same site.

The plan would mean a 30-year tax hike. It would add roughly $54 dollars to the annual tax bill of anyone with a home worth $200,000.

If residents vote no, it would be the first time in 20 years the town's rejected a tax increase for the library.

The four most famous words that Mitt Romney never wrote are, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

You read that right.  Mitt Romney never wrote those words.  They were the headline of a New York Times op-ed column that was authored by Romney and published in the newspaper on November 18, 2008.

I doubt that most people could accurately recite so much as a sentence of the op-ed that Governor Romney actually wrote in that column.  All that anybody remembers is the headline, which I have discovered was written by a New York Times editor, not Governor Romney.

Four years ago, Dr. Syed Taj, then chief of medicine at Dearborn’s Oakwood Hospital, decided to run for Canton Township trustee. His friends tried to talk him out of it. He had only lived there a year, and he was a Democrat. The affluent Wayne County area is pretty Republican. Taj is also a Muslim-American whose musical voice is rich with the accents of his native India.

Most figured he didn’t have a chance. But he won overwhelmingly. Though he was the only Democrat to win a seat on the board, he got more votes than anyone else.

“Most people trust their doctor,” Taj said, chuckling. Now, Taj is running for Congress from the Eleventh District, which tends to lean Republican. He is, once again, an underdog. But he is used to that -- and his chances improved when the incumbent, Thaddeus McCotter, mysteriously failed to qualify for the ballot and suddenly resigned.

Throughout the last decade, there was always speculation that a Democrat could win the 11th district, but the party tended to run lackluster and underfunded candidates. This time, it may be even harder. Redistricting has made the district slightly more Republican.