Oakland County stays blue with a streak of independence

Joe Rozell has been around for a few presidential elections.

Rozell, the elections director for Oakland County, said the election turnout in Oakland County of 75.52% last Tuesday topped the 72.5% turnout in the 2008 election when Barack Obama became the country’s first Black president.

Last Tuesday’s results showed a continuing trend in Oakland County towards more Democrats winning office, but it also showed a marked increase in the number of ticket-splitting voters, complicating the crystal ball for future elections.

“As each year moves forward we see more of the countywides are Democrats, the board (of commissioners) is Democrat,” Rozell said. “As Oakland County migrates blue, Macomb County is migrating red. I think it’s a shift in where voters are choosing to live, the exact opposite of what’s

happening in Oakland.”

The contentious presidential election along with early voting and expanded absentee voting drove Oakland County voters to the polls in record numbers – even for a presidential election when turnout is typically higher than in other elections. A lot of the voters were first-time voters, and more younger voters turned out to vote this time around.

“Because of the huge push for mail voting and everyone receiving absentee ballot applications, it did engage a lot of first-time voters,” Rozell said. “We also saw ‘emphasis voting,’ where they vote straight ticket and in every race.”

Turnout was almost uniformly higher across the county’s 506 precincts, with some precincts topping 80%.

“Precincts in Huntington Woods were all in the high 80s,” Rozell said. “Lake Angelus has 88%. Ferndale saw turnout in the mid-tohigh 70s. I do think that younger people got in on this election. For voters, to break the record in the middle of the pandemic says a lot about the people of the county and taking part in the process.”

A Closer Look

A closer look at the numbers shows a higher number of Democrats voted a straight ticket than Republicans, but also a large number of voters who split their ballots, voting for candidates from both major parties.

There were 249,009 ballots cast by straight-ticket Democrats and 199,732 ballots cast by straightticket Republicans, leaving 333,103 voters who split their ballots.

One beneficiary of a large number of ticket- splitting voters is Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, who won his sixth four-year term as the county sheriff. He is the only Republican of the six countywide officeholders in what was once a Republican stronghold.

Bouchard defeated Democratic challenger and former state lawmaker and county commissioner Vince Gregory 410,910 to 344,003, indicating that much of the sheriff’s support on Election Day came from voters who didn’t cast straight-ticket ballots.

“I’m 100% appreciative of that fact,” Bouchard said. “I know I got Republicans, Democrats and Independents. That’s heartwarming and a testament to our team.”

Bouchard, also a former state lawmaker, said he’s been advocating for years that the county offices of sheriff and prosecutor should be nonpartisan, like judgeships.

“Without question voting patterns have changed dramatically,” Bouchard said. “I’m excited to have four more years.”

With few exceptions, though, the Nov. 3 election tended to favor Democrats, particularly in the higher profile races.

Oakland County voters picked Democrat Joe Biden over President Donald Trump by a wider margin than voters statewide, 57- 43%.

Democrats won eight of the 14 state House seats that are in Oakland County.

Voters in the county preferred to pick Democrats to various university governing boards.

Democrats maintained their majority on the county board of commissioners, and preserved a 7-7 split with Republicans for the state’s congressional seats.

And, despite a close race statewide, Oakland County voters overwhelmingly preferred U. S. Sen. Gary Peters over Republican John James,

But in two U. S. House races, first-term incumbent Democrats Haley Stevens and Elissa Slotkin lost the Oakland County portions of the voting in their congressional districts, but carried precincts in adjacent counties to retain their seats.

“Trends tend to continue but public sentiment changes over time,” Rozell said. “It’s hard to say if the trend will continue.”