On November 8, Green Party nominee Tom Mair defeated his only opponent, Republican Christine Maxbauer, by 3,168 to 2,769, for Grand Traverse County, Michigan, County Board. See this story. Maxbauer was the incumbent and had been in office for ten years. This was Mair’s fifth time running as a Green Party nominee.
Grand Traverse County has a population of 86,000 and is in the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan (the “hand”).
the hand = the Mitten — in frozen Mich — for about 8 months of each year.
There are 7 commissioners districts in the county, so the district has 12-13,000 persons.
Traverse City is between where the little finger and ring finger would be, but you can’t see because it is a mitten.
What is kind of odd is that the Democrats did not run anyone in the district, and have not for several elections, and it is by far the strongest Democratic district in the county, the only one carried by Clinton.
Mair and Maxbauer had gone head-to-head for the previous four elections. The key issue this time, was likely Maxbauer being convicted of DWI this summer. Traverse City is isolated enough, but big enough to have it its own TV station, but small enough that the chair of the county commission blowing a 0.18 alcohol level would be big news. After sentencing, some commenters claimed that she was given a break, while others said that her sentence was fairly standard.
There appears that there was a small dip in the Democratic straight ticket vote. Perhaps some voters thought if they used the device they couldn’t cross-over on individual races.