2024 PRIMARY: What northern Michigan voters decided this week

Michigan's primary election ballot included candidates for U.S. Senate, state House and a variety of local offices are on the ballot. So are various millage proposals across the region.

By early Wednesday morning, enough election returns had been reported to make some clear calls for the general election contests.

Check out the statewide picture from our friends at Michigan Public.

Michigan State Representative Neil Friske, Parker For Michigan

State Rep. Neil Friske has lost his seat in the primary.

Party endorsements, big spending and a high-profile arrest all played into 25-year-old Parker Fairbairn’s victory on Tuesday.

The GOP organizer from Emmet County unseated Friske, who was seeking his second term representing the 107th State House District which encompasses the tourism communities of Charlevoix and Emmet Counties and parts of the Eastern Upper Peninsula, including Sault Ste. Marie.

Neither candidate responded to repeated requests for comment on the results in time for publication.

Fairbairn had put Friske’s no-compromise voting record in the spotlight during his campaign. Friske, who previously helped run Friske Orchards, is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a handful of hardline conservatives who tend to vote strictly on party lines.

In a Democratic-led House, Friske rarely votes ‘Yes’ on bills. He currently serves on no legislative committees which brought scorn from his Republican colleagues like U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman and state Sen. John Damoose.

Both Republicans endorsed Fairbairn over Friske in the Aug. 6 primary.

“Friske made it clear over his two years that he was going to do things his way, and that way did not prove very popular with the party or many other elected officials,” said North Central Michigan College Political Science Professor Scott LaDeur. “So when that opportunity arises, some of those sitting lawmakers are sometimes comfortable with throwing their weight behind a challenger.”

Fairbairn also outspent Friske in campaign finances by over $120,000, much of that money came from his own pockets, according to Gongwer News Service. He has spent $123,838 and raised $132,185 according to a pre-primary report.

In a previous interview with Interlochen Public Radio, Fairbairn says voters are "tired of the drama".

Friske was arrested in the early hours of June 20 near a home he owns in Lansing.

Over a month later, no charges have officially been filed against the lawmaker and police are still investigating "for a felon-level offense" after reports of shots fired. Days after Friske was released from police custody, he appeared at a candidate forum in Petoskey. In front of a crowd of voters, he said he was "framed."

"There were a bunch of false allegations that were made," Friske said. "I know that I'm 100% innocent. I did nothing criminally wrong that night."

Fairbairn, a GOP organizer and small business owner, will advance to the November ballot and face Democrat Jodi Decker.

Lisa Trombley will have a chance to take on Democratic incumbent state Rep. Betsy Coffia in November, after beating out fellow Republican hopefuls Katie Kniss and Tripp Garcia.

Trombley is a former chair of the Grand Traverse County Republican Party, serving during the 2022 election cycle. She spent 30 years as a government contractor in Washington, D.C., before moving back to Michigan.

She says that experience will be key to helping Republicans win back the seat.

“I’m the only candidate with extensive experience at the scale of Lansing. I’ve worked with all of government, from EPA, to Health and Human Services, to DoD doing cybersecurity, national security, and quite frankly, even working with lobbyists,” Trombley said. “I had a lot of different roles, but at the end of the day my main job was making sure that government did what it was supposed to do.”

State Rep. Betsy Coffia won the 103rd District State House seat by a margin of less than 1,000 votes in 2022, becoming the first Democrat in decades to represent Traverse City in Lansing.

Trombley’s face-off with Coffia will be one of several closely-watched races in Michigan: It could mean the difference between maintaining a Democratic trifecta in state government or returning the State House to a Republican majority.

Callie Barr won the Democratic primary race for Michigan’s 1st Congressional District over Dr. Bob Lorinser, according to unofficial results. As of 10:56 a.m. Wednesday, the Associated Press had reported that Barr had over 58% of the vote.

Barr’s campaign says she is the first woman in this district's history to have her name appear on the general ballot for this seat. She will challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Watersmeet) in the general election in November.

Bergman is seeking his fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He easily defeated primary challenger Josh Saul on Tuesday night. The race was among the first to be called in Michigan.

This was Lorinser’s second time in the race for the 1st District seat; he lost to Bergman in the 2022 general election. A Marquette family physician, he focused on issues like universal healthcare.

Barr is an attorney from Traverse City who taught high school and advocated for military families. In her primary bid, she focused strongly on her work and support for veterans, and pointed to her endorsements from labor unions as proof of support for her candidacy.

In a statement emailed to IPR, Barr said she is “grateful for the movement we are building to take this seat — for us and for this country.” She also thanked Lorinser for running.

The last time voters chose a Democrat for this seat was when they re-elected longtime former Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) in 2008. Stupak endorsed Barr this year.

Voters have passed the $180 million bond for the Traverse City Area Public Schools.

The money will upgrade facilities in the area’s largest school district.

That includes improving disability access, security updates, roof repairs, and renovating Central Grade School in downtown Traverse City.

The measure extends an existing mill rate, so taxpayers won’t see any changes.

The Traverse Area District Library secured a 10-year renewal of its millage. The money, which will cost the average homeowner about $124 per year, accounts for 90% of the library’s funding.

Michele Howard, library director, says the money supports nearly all of the library’s work: from books and games for checkout, to providing resources to the community, to in-person programming.

Voters in the Kalkaska Conservation District approved a millage renewal. As much as three quarters of the conservation district’s annual budget comes from the millage, which helps pay for services like hazardous waste disposal and invasive species management.

And in Antrim County, voters approved a millage renewal for their conservation district. The millage was last approved in 2020, and the 0.1 mill rate will remain the same for the next four years.

“Frankly, without this millage, there would be no conservation district,” said Melissa Zelenak, executive director of Antrim Conservation District.

Voters in Leelanau County renewed a millage for early childhood development services. That's according to The Leelanau Ticker.

The funding supports a program called “Parenting Communities,” which helps new parents care for their very young children.

The millage has been around since 2019 … this was its first renewal vote.

Voters in Benzie County narrowly decided to unlock the county operating millage from an “indefinite” clause.

Wait, what? We’ll explain:

Since the 1980’s Benzie County has been unable to raise its operating millage - which funds essential services provided by the county. Due to the Headlee Amendment, a tax law from the 1970s that was meant to cap county operating funds, the operating millage has steadily decreased over the decades.

The measure on Tuesday’s ballot is not a tax increase, but it affords the county commission the option to put an operating millage increase before voters in future elections.

Proponents for the measure say this will more effectively fund services as Benzie County continues to grow.

“It's about future boards and taking the handcuffs off of them to run the county,” said Art Jeanott, a Benzie County commissioner in support of the measure in a previous interview with IPR News.

Critics say the measure would return too much power to the county government.

Voters approved millage increases for the Jordan Valley Emergency Medical Service Authority.

Voters in Charlevoix and Antrim counties gave the green light to an extra 0.25 mills for the EMS operating budget, plus an additional 0.25 mills for new equipment and repairs.

Both measures passed with around 70 percent of the votes.

Jordan Valley EMS Director Bill Tarrant says this money will fund more full-time staff and aging vehicle maintenance.

Max Copeland

On Tuesday morning, people were voting at Traverse City's Precinct No. 8.

Precinct Chairman Connor Miller was there, too, helping things run smoothly. He’s been a poll worker since 2019.

“It’s really helped me as a citizen in this community to understand the full process and all the checks and balances that go into our voting, which I think is really important,” he told IPR.
 
“There’s the application, there’s an e-poll book, there’s a tabulator, you have different numerical checks, you check the slips off the applications,” he said. “You have multiple checks throughout the process and for me it’s really reinforced our voting system.”

Miller said that has helped build up trust in how the election is conducted.

“Also, I love the fact that it’s all local community members that are part of this election process,” he said. “I think that’s a really important piece in this day and age, to reinforce the integrity of the election. It’s all people just like you and me who vote in these precincts that are part of helping to support this election process.”

At East Bay Township Hall on Three Mile Road, LaShondra Udell and David Benitez were preparing to cast their first ever ballots.

“It’s a little nerve-wracking, but very exciting, especially because I finally get to dive into all the politics that the adults used to talk about,” Udell said with a smile.

Udell said it was important for her to show up today in part because of a bond issue proposal from the Traverse City Area Public Schools.

Benitez said he was interested in those issues, too, even if the act of voting wasn’t quite as nerve-wracking for him.

“To me, it’s kind of just something I’m just kind of here for,” he said, “just to get it done and over with.”

Reporting from Max Copeland, Ellie Katz, Claire Keenan-Kurgan, Michael Livingston, Ed Ronco, Izzy Ross and Tyler Thompson.