Democrat Mark Meadows and Republican John Knowles emerged as likely winners Tuesday in the primary election for the 69th District seat in the state House of Representatives.
Meadows, a member of the East Lansing City Council, led the polls at 52.64 percent with 22 out of 38 precincts reporting at press time. Knowles, a recent graduate of the MSU College of Law, led with a commanding 64 percent at press time.
Meadows defeated Mary Lindemann and Jeffrey Abood while Knowles defeated John Currie.
Meadows, who spent his evening walking around his campaign headquarters, 2660 E. Grand River Ave., mingling with guests and shaking hands, was excited and energetic about the election.
Meadows said it felt great to be ahead and that he was happy to have all the support he'd gotten from the community.
He was glad he'd gotten the chance to go door-to-door, shake people's hands and go into the greater community.
Lindemann, the Democrat behind Meadows, said she had run a textbook campaign, and knew Meadows would win East Lansing because he is the former mayor, but hoped the Meridian Township voters would pull through.
Surrounded by supporters, Lindemann said she'll go back to focusing on working to protect the Great Lakes.
"It's the Great Lakes state; we got to protect those great lakes," Lindemann said. "That's what we'll be doing."
Abood, who stayed up for three nights straight working on exams he has to take this week at Cooley Law School, came in third.
At 23, he said he doesn't think his age was a hindrance to his campaign because families that spoke to him said he resembled them more.
He said he's not sure if he'll ever run for another office.
"I'm going to finish law school, and if the families of the district decide they want someone to really represent their district, I'll do it," Abood said.
Knowles began the night the same way he spent most of the campaign — talking to people.
"We've been working nonstop for the past year so far, and I'd have to say it's one of the hardest working campaigns in Michigan," Knowles said.
"Today we spent most of the day holding signs up on Grand River, and we kept on talking to people like we've done all year.
"I feel like I have to keep talking to people until the night is over with."
As the number of votes started to come in throughout the night, Knowles and his campaign staff became more nervous.
"I just want this night to get over with," Knowles said. "I feel like a kid at Christmas who just wants to run downstairs and tear all his presents open."
At about 11 p.m. Tuesday, Knowles received information that Currie had conceded in the primary election.
"There is nothing like winning," Knowles said. "This just shows that we had the right message, the right values and we worked harder than any other person in the primary election."
There was a relaxed atmosphere in Currie's kitchen in Meridian Township as his family sat around eating barbecue burgers and joking about turning on the Tigers instead of watching primary coverage.
As the numbers came in, the mood changed to surprise regarding the low voter turnout.
"I'm just shocked by the lack of turnouts," Currie said. "Only 2,000 people came out to vote. I figured 4 to 5,000 would. I really thought people would be more interested in a race for a seat."
Currie said if he could do it again, he would do a get-out-the-vote campaign.
"I would rather lose to 10,000 who came out to vote than 2,000," Currie said.
Currie reflected on his campaign after conceding the loss to fellow republican John Knowles.
"Part of the reason I did this is because I thought it would be interesting to see how people would respond to a guy who had managed big budgets all his life, because running the state of Michigan is like running a $42 billion business."
Currie made it clear that he would not seek office again.
"This is a lone shot deal for me," he said. "I figured I would give it a shot, and people seemed to like my ideas."
Staff reporters Kris Turner, Laura Misjak, Andrea Byl, Amy Oprean and Justin Kroll contributed to this report.
