Folks, last Tuesday's Primary Election saw Eric Esshaki win the Republican nomination. This will bring waves of national Republican dark money into Southeast Michigan -- but thanks to your support for our Rapid Response fund, we're in a good position to fight back.
My team has reviewed the data from the polls, and I want to share three key insights with you.
1) There's huge Democratic enthusiasm. I was unopposed in the Democratic primary -- and even so, over 105,000 voters came out to cast their ballots for me. I'm honored to receive this unwavering support -- more folks voted for me in this primary than all five Republican primary candidates combined. (105,252 votes vs. 87,055.)
Democratic turnout increased by 16.5% from 2018 -- without any competitive races at the top of the ticket. Meanwhile, Republican turnout actually fell by several hundred votes. These are promising signs that the work we're doing is effective and that if we continue our voter contact programs, we can successfully turn out a record number of Democrats in November.
2) Vote by mail is working. Michigan recently allowed all voters to vote via absentee ballot without an excuse, and the results speak for themselves. In 2018, 1.27 million folks voted by mail in the general election -- last week, 1.6 million voted by mail in the primary.
In total, 2/3 of all primary voters sent in absentee ballots. I'm grateful that the majority of voters did not have to risk their health by venturing in-person to their polling place and appreciate all of Governor Whitmer's work to make vote by mail a success. I also want to thank all the poll workers who ensured that in-person voting was as safe as possible -- we owe a lot to their selflessness and dedication.
3) It's not over yet. While we're happy with what we saw last week, we know that everything could change between now and November 3rd. The dynamics of this election will be totally different -- we now have to contend with direct attacks from Esshaki and national Republicans. I'm confident that we can keep providing MI-11 the leadership it deserves -- we'll just have to work even harder for it. Thank you for your support thus far, and I hope I can continue to count on you as we move toward the election.
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Onward,
Haley Stevens
