With Ottawa Impact set to lose majority on county commission, Dems look to pick up more seats

BY SARAH LEACH, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

OTTAWA COUNTY—Tuesday was a big night for Ottawa County politics, as the majority of candidates backed by Ottawa Impact Republicans for county commission and countywide offices lost in the Aug. 6 primary—and Democrats are looking to make bigger gains.

Ottawa Impact, the far-right fundamentalist group formed in 2021 over frustrations with the county and state over COVID-19 mitigation measures, has officially lost the majority on the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners.

The group won a controlling majority on the county board of commissioners in 2022 and now is supporting its incumbents as well as countywide candidates for prosecutor, sheriff and treasurer through the OI-dominated county GOP.

OI’s tenure also saw the county commission sued five separate times in a 14-month timespan between 2023 and 2024—four remain active as of publication.

That, in turn, inspired non-OI conservatives to vie for public office, resulting in a stunning number of candidates. For the county board of commissioners alone, an unprecedented 33 people are running for 11 seats.

Who won Tuesday

Of the six OI incumbents running for re-election—plus one seeking re-election after being voted out in a special recall election in May—four survived primary challengers to the general election, where all face Democrats. That includes Kenda Wenzel, Sylvia Rhodea, Allison Miedema

Numbers breakdown of contested primary races:

• District 1: James Barry over OI incumbent Gretchen Cosby (5,059-2,951).
• District 2: Jordan Jorritsma over OI’s Lucy Ebel (2,094-1,338).
• District 5: OI’s Joe Moss over Hudsonville Mayor Mark Northup (4,300-3,236).
• District 6: OI incumbent Kendra Wenzel over Shawn Haff (3,626-3,161).
• District 7: John Teeples over OI’s Rachel Atwood (4,044-3,104).
• District 8: OI incumbent Sylvia Rhodea over David Lee Morren (2,283-1,292).
• District 9: Former Commissioner Phil Kuyers over OI incumbent Roger Belknap (4,070-2,997).
• District 10: Josh Brugger over OI’s Jason Koert (4,727-1,900). Oliver Shampine won the Democratic nomination over Douglas VanBennekom (588-497).
• District 11: OI incumbent Allison Miedema over Sara Bajema (3,574-1,909); Richard Van Dop had 651 votes.
• Kuyer was the only former commissioner running in a rematch against OI opponent Belknap—and beat him this time by 16 points.

“I just think it’s really cool how we came together in a nonpartisan way and saw what was going on in the county, and there were more educated people than we ever seen before,” Kuyers said Wednesday. “They did the research and they said, ‘No, we don’t want this. We don’t want this in our county.’”

In addition, all OI-backed candidates lost to traditional Republicans in the races for sheriff, prosecutor and treasurer — by margins of 20 points or more.

• Sheriff: Eric DeBoer won over Jon Anderson (39,939-26,498).
• Prosecutor: Sarah Matwiejczyk over Greg Todd (39,289-26,632).
• Treasurer: Cheryl Clark over Ben Genser (40,523-24,280).

Matwiejczyk said she was relieved to have the primary election in the rear-view perspective.

“I’m excited for the future of the prosecutor’s office. My staff just is noticeably relieved. The air is a lot lighter. It’s wonderful to see everybody just enjoying their jobs and coming to work every day again,” she said Thursday.

She said she’s now going to focus on preparing to take on the top job within her department before Prosecutor Lee Fisher retires.

“I think Lee and I have worked very closely over these last four years that he’s included me in pretty much everything, and so I have a pretty good idea of it,” she said.

For his part, DeBoer said he’s appreciative of the benefit of more time to work with current Sheriff Steve Kempker before his planned retirement at the end of the year.

Part of those plans will be focused on the planned incorporation of bodycams for sheriff’s deputies and the logistics, storage and curation of those records.

One thing DeBoer said he wants current staff to know is that he always has their needs at top of mind.

“The people that are currently part of our membership weren’t here when I was the vice president of the union, so a lot of the things that they want, things that I’ve been talking about for years … once we get moving forward and they see the things that we’re doing, they’ll see that things are going to change,” DeBoer said Thursday.

He cautioned that changes won’t be radical, but more so strategic and long-term in relation to planning.

“We’re not going to change how we serve the community,” he said. “But the stuff that we all talked about for years … we’re going to be a little bit more transparent on our long-term strategic plan and they’re all going to be involved in that process. They’re going to have input.”

What’s next

Of the upcoming races, all eyes will be on districts 2, 6 and 8 in the November general election; the countywide officer races won’t feature any Democrats.

In District 2, Democrat Chris Kleinjans defeated former OI commissioner Lucy Ebel in a may recall election by 20% points. Now that Ebel lost the Republican primary, Kleinjans will now face Jorritsma in the general election.

In District 6, Wenzel—who was appointed in November after former commissioner Kyle Terpstra resigned mere hours after Administrative Health Officer Adeline Hambley filed a request in Muskegon County circuit court asking a judge to enforce a $4 million settlement agreement she reached with commissioners on Nov. 6, in exchange for her resignation. Wenzel now will face Democrat Michelle Dieleman in November.

Arguably the most-watched race of all, Rhodea — co-founder of Ottawa Impact and vice chair of the county commission—will square off against Democrat Rebecca Patrick in a district that includes Grand Valley State University.

Larry Jackson, chair of the Ottawa County Democrats, said the top priorities will be helping Kleinjans to defend his seat as well as to help Patrick unseat Rhodea.

“Now that they don’t have the majority, the potential chair is going to change,” Jackson said. “GVSU is so big and it’s the only public college in the West Michigan area. … The national party is going to be backing Hillary Scholten’s campaign and will hopefully help carry Patric in district eight. That’s the hope. We’re going to do whatever we can on our local level, but it’s going to be a lot of money invested into Ottawa County from the bigger campaign to obviously not win.

Patrick said her effort will be focused on appealing to the high-density population of students within her district.

“One of my primary focuses was to start as soon as they get back to school at the end of August here because if they’re not registered to vote here, they can’t vote here,” Patrick said. “All of that is to say that the Harris campaign support is going to be a huge shot in the arm for my campaign, because it takes a lot off of my plate.”

As to districts 6, Jackson said it’s historically conservative but that doesn’t meant it’s not worth trying to convert voters.

“Now, it’s time to just kind of turn the page. Anything can happen with some good messaging, and how many people voted,” he said.

What’s the state of the local GOP?

Prior to the primary, Ottawa County saw deep divisions within the Republican Party.

Several unorthodox moves by conservatives, including an unprecedented endorsement convention by the local OI-controlled GOP, which in turn inspired the traditional Republican group Conservative Ottawa to announce its own endorsements. That prompted the county GOP to “condemn and denounce” the Conservative Ottawa activity and demanded that those candidates drop out of their races — which was rejected.

Now it remains to be seen whether conservatives can reunite after months of bitter infighting, however, some remain hopeful.

“I am truly trying to be optimistic because I firmly believe that with the dynamics of this election, the Ottawa County Republican Party is trying its very best to reunite the Republican Party in Ottawa County and get it back to where it was,” Matwiejczyk said.

READ MORE: 10 takeaways from Michigan’s preliminary primary election results

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.