GENESEE COUNTY, MI – The primary election on Tuesday, August 6, produced winners and losers across Genesee County, as well as some exciting storylines.

Here are some of the compelling, strange and fascinating results you may have missed.

• The popularity of candidates remained even if they had died before the election.

The late Tim Sneller, who was running to return to the state legislature for the 68th District House seat, died on July 11 but still received 6,655 votes in Genesee County on Tuesday – more than his Republican opponent.

Sneller, a popular Democrat from Burton, was the only candidate on the ballot in the Democratic primary, but his total was diminished by nearly 1,300 Democratic votes.

According to unofficial results, incumbent Republican David W. Martin received only 5,928 votes in the county.

Most of those Democratic votes will likely end up on the ballot of Matt Schlinker, a former Flint City Council member. Schlinker launched a campaign for the position after it became clear it was too late to replace Sneller on Tuesday’s ballot.

Schlinker needs 5% of the vote in the Democratic primary to have his name appear on the ballot in November. It will be up to the county board of elections to count the signatures in the next few days.

A similar phenomenon occurred on Tuesday in Mt. Morris Township, where incumbent Treasurer Gayle Armstrong received more votes than her opponent in the Democratic primary – even though Armstrong died on July 22.

The final vote total was 1,358 votes for Armstrong and 725 for fellow Democrat Jona May Kean.

Domonique Clemons, county clerk and registrar, said votes for deceased candidates do not count, meaning Kean will run in the November general election in Mt. Morris Township, where there is no Republican opponent.

• Two candidates for Township Supervisor revive their political careers

Politics can be a tough business, but two former civil servants bounced back on Tuesday after being forced out of office.

In Clayton Township, Ted Henry, a former chairman of the county board of commissioners, won the Republican primary for township supervisor and is virtually assured of victory in the general election in November because no Democrat is on the ballot.

Henry had been elected as a county commissioner since 2006 before losing his seat in the 2020 primary election.

On Tuesday, Henry won more than 70% of the Republican vote in the township, despite building his political career as a Democrat, defeating Dwight Dennings in the Republican primary.

Henry lost the election that removed him from office in 2020, the same primary in which Larry Green lost his job as Mt. Morris Township supervisor.

Like Henry, Green got back on the right side of the ballot in Tuesday’s primary for supervisor, receiving the most votes of any Democrat in the primary, including incumbent Jolena Sanders-Sims.

Like Henry, he has no Republican opponent in the general election.

• Only one candidate for Genesee County Commissioner lost, and she switched parties before that happened

With only one exception, job security was good for members of the County Board of Commissioners in the primaries.

Only three of the nine commissioners were challenged by candidates from their own party on Tuesday, and each of them – Charles Winfrey, Ellen Ellenburg and Dale Weighill – won their primaries easily.

Ellenburg, a Democrat from Burton, and Weighill, a Democrat from Flint Township, also face Republican opponents in the Nov. 5 election, while Winfrey has no Republican opponent.

The only commissioner to lose a seat in the primary was Michelle Davis, who was elected as a Democrat two years ago but lost her primary on Tuesday after switching parties in this year’s election.

Davis finished second in the Republican primary with less than half the vote of winning GOP candidate Brian K. Flewelling.

Davis won last year’s election as a Democrat, defeating three other candidates in the primaries. As a Democrat, she received more than twice as many votes this year as she did as a Republican.

Gaines Township Supervisor Paul Fortino did his part to win the election, but he also knows what it feels like to lose, as evidenced by his defeat in the Republican primary on Tuesday.

Fortino, whose family operated a grocery store in Swartz Creek for more than 100 years, was elected supervisor in 2008 and has experienced ups and downs since then.

He lost the seat in the 2012 election, won it back in 2016, won again in 2020, but lost Tuesday’s election in the Republican primary to Daniel Jenkins.

Jenkins will run unopposed in the November 5 general election.

• Voters in Genesee County gave Collier more support than the rest of the 8th Congressional District

Former Flint Mayor Matt Collier was a late entrant into the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee in Congress and was never able to regain the lead when he did so in March.

Collier finished second in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, losing to Kristen McDonald Rivet, a state senator from Bay City who had received significant support from Kildee and the UAW.

However, the election campaign was more fiercely contested in Genesee County. Some voters there may still remember Collier, who was elected as the city’s youngest mayor in 1987 at the age of 29.

In the entire 8th District, which has been more Republican-dominated since redistricting to include a larger portion of the Tri-Cities region, Collier won just over 26% of Democratic voters on Tuesday.

In Genesee County, that percentage rose even further: Collier received nearly 38% of the vote but still came in second.

A third Democrat in the race – Pamela Pugh, who also has ties to Flint as the city’s health advisor – also performed slightly better in the county than in the entire 8th District.

Pugh also has strong ties to Saginaw, where she grew up and which is also part of the district.