The ousted Republican incumbent Lucy Ebel had previously described Ottawa County as "very conservative."

Republican county commissioner has been unseated in Michigan after losing to her Democratic challenger by 20 percentage points.

Chris Kleinjans won an Ottawa County election on Tuesday with 60 percent of the vote share, while the Republican incumbent Lucy Ebel lost, having received 40 percent.

Michigan is a battleground state that will be key to November’s presidential election. Donald Trump won the county with 61 percent of the vote in 2020.

  • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
    94·
    6 months ago

    Holy shit. I’m not sure people understand how big a deal this is for Ottawa County.

    Ottawa County contains the town that voted to close its library over LGBT books. Ottawa County is where Betsy DeVos lives. Ottawa County had their commission taken over by a far right group called Ottawa Impact that tried to oust the county health officer and replace her with someone completely unqualified because of mask requirements.

    Ottawa County is home to a congressional district that hasn’t gone Democrat since the civil rights movement.

    This is kind of huge.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        6 months ago

        Is this Holland michigan? With the windmills and shit?

        Yes. I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. Specifically this commissioner represents parts of Holland Township and Park Township, apparently.

    • Rob@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 months ago

      As someone who’s never heard of the place: Ottawa county honestly sounds like a shit place to live.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        It’s a gorgeous county, with bike trails and lakeshore all over the place, but yeah, politically it’s awful. When I was buying my house there was one I looked at that happened to be just over the line into Ottawa County and that was one of the reasons I decided against it.