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ESCANABA -- Delta County residents who live in District 4 have spoken and selected Kelli van Ginhoven to serve on the Delta County Board of Commissioners for the coming term.
For District 4, voters selected van Ginhoven (D) with 1,858 votes (56%) to Republican Dave Moyle's 1,442 43%.
The District 4 contest was unique in that it was the third time the two candidates had faced off for the position. Van Ginhoven first challenged Moyle in 2022 as an independent, but failed to secure the seat. Moyle and his supporters have often pointed to the loss as the reason for the recall election last May that removed him from office and placed van Ginhoven in the District 4 seat -- a claim strongly denied by recall organizers, whose petitions for recalls referenced Moyle's, Commissioner Bob Barron's and Commissioner Bob Petersen's votes in February of 2023 "to terminate Administrator Emily DeSalvo's employment contract."
All three recalled commissioners were removed in May.
Van Ginhoven's win Tuesday means she will continue to serve on the board in the coming term.
Given the length of time that van Ginhoven and Moyle have been campaigning against each other -- and the different results in various elections -- there are a number of factors that may have tipped the scales to van Ginhoven Tuesday.
Most Delta County voters that had strong feelings about either candidate likely developed those opinions in the last year-and-a-half or so.
Moyle took over as the chair of the Delta County Board of Commissioners in January of 2023, beginning a term on the board that was more fraught with controversy than his past decade on the board. Despite the controversy, Moyle has branded himself as a strong conservative -- a message that has resonated with some Delta County residents.
Van Ginhoven, on the other hand, was elected in the May 7 recall election as an alternative to Moyle's leadership, and has spent the last six months defining her own brand of what it means to be a commissioner. While running as a Democrat and openly supporting other Democratic candidates -- particularly 108th District Candidate Christiana Reynolds, who was at the forefront of the recall effort -- van Ginhoven has largely argued for less-partisanship at the local level. She currently serves as the board's vice chair under Republican Board Chair John Malnar.
Beyond their performances as commissioners and their views on partisan politics, voters may have been influenced by Moyle's decision to suspend his campaign following the August primary election, which saw his defeat by van Ginhoven (932 votes to Moyle's 353, a 72% to 27% split) and ended the bids of both Barron and Petersen to regain their seats on the board. Moyle had initially told the Daily Press he would not accept the seat if elected in the general election, but he reversed course late last month.
"I'm on the ballot. I'm not running a campaign. If they put me in, I'll serve, but I'm not spending any money and I'm not commenting on my opponents," Moyle told the Daily Press Oct. 24.
It's unclear whether that reversal renewed interest in his candidacy, or if his initial withdrawal damaged his chances with voters who may have thought he was out of the race. Advertisements were published in the Daily Press supporting his candidacy, but those adds did not begin running until late October. The adds were paid for by the local Republican Party.