Voter turnout in Saginaw County’s Aug. 4 primary election was 31 percent, or about 48,000 out of 152,000 registered voters.
My first reaction, and feedback from some friends, was that this is a sad number. With all that’s going on, only one in three people would even take a few minutes to vote? Or to put it another way, with all that’s going on, two of three adults would NOT bother taking a few minutes to go and vote, or at least do an absentee ballot. It’s not like there were hours-long lines, like in some mostly Deep South locations where voter repression remains in full swing. (See Georgia, 2018, Brian Kemp over Stacey Abrams for governor.)
Indeed, 31 percent turnout is a sad number. But research reveals that for a party primary, this was Saginaw County’s highest turnout since at least the year 2000, turn of the millennium. In most years since then, the primary election turnout was down closer to 20 percent. And so maybe there still is hope.
Some of the prime primary results were:
- In the city-based state House 95th District, Amos O’Neal landslided four opponents, including his main foe, Clint Bryant, to take over for term-limited Vanessa Guerra. O’Neal’s experience, reaching into the past two decades, included City Council and then the County Board. Bryant’s background, starting in the past decade, has been City Council. Both men may see bright futures, but the first task may be to make peace with one another.
- In the suburban and out-county state House 94th District, Demond Tibbs nosed out Kevin Seamon by about a 5-to-4 margin. Why was it even this close? Tibbs is seasoned in local affairs, including a City Council stint, while Seamon definitely was an outlying fringe candidate. (Simply read his statement back in The Banner’s July 16 election preview pages.) It seems this may be Trump Country, which means Mr. Tibbs may face an uphill challenge in the November general election.
- For county clerk, the Vanessa Guerra’s victory over Mike Hanley was not a big surprise, but her 2-1 margin of victory stunned all local politicos, including the two candidates themselves. Possibly the youthful and clearly popular Guerra, if she would so choose, may be the No.1 local Democrat capable of breaking the longtime Republican stranglehold on Saginaw County’s state Senate seat when Ken Horn is term-limited out of office in 2022. The last Dem to hold the seat was Jerry Hart, ousted by Jon Cisky in 1990, followed by Mike Goschka, Dr. Roger Kahn (who narrowly defeated Carl Williams) and then Ken Horn. Hanley also would be a possible bounce-back state Senate candidate, with his experience on City Council, in the state House, on the County Board, and then as clerk.
- Finally, in the two tax elections, the Castle Museum and the Sheriff’s county road patrols both gained clear cut approval, but the museum reaped 5,000 more votes than the police. Museum leaders ran a high-profile campaign with lots of yard signs, while the Sheriff’s Department and the county board operated a sort of stealth low-profile strategy, with no signs and scant publicity. Is there maybe a lesson in these contrasting scenarios?