A running list of who's running for office in Washtenaw County
Last updated at 10:31 a.m. Aug. 6
The deadline for partisan candidates to file to run in the Aug. 7 primary came and went Tuesday. Here's a list of candidates who filed in Washtenaw County.
This list will be updated as other filings are confirmed.
Mayor
- John Hieftje (D-incumbent)
- Albert Howard (Independent)
- Sumi Kailasapathy (D)
- Eric Sturgis (D)
2nd Ward
- Tony Derezinski (D-incumbent)
- Sally Hart Petersen (D)
3rd Ward
- Christopher Taylor (D-incumbent)
4th Ward
- Margie Teall (D-incumbent)
- Jack Eaton (D)
5th Ward
- Chuck Warpehoski (D)
- Vivienne Armentrout (D)
- Stuart Berry (R)
WASHTENAW COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
1st District
- Rob Turner (R-incumbent)
- Kent Martinez-Kratz (D)
2nd District (Update: Borregard disqualified)
- Dan Smith (R-incumbent)
- Eric Borregard (D)
3rd District
- Alicia Ping (R-incumbent)
- Wes Prater (D-incumbent)
4th District
- Richard Conn (R)
- Felicia Brabec (D-incumbent)
5th District (Update: two candidates withdrew)
- Rolland Sizemore Jr. (D-incumbent)
- Michael White (D)
- Richard Deitering (R)
- Rick Roe (D)
6th District
- Ronnie Peterson (D-incumbent)
- David Raaflaub (R)
7th District
- Christina Montague (D)
- Andy LaBarre (D)
- David Parker (R)
8th District
- Yousef Rabhi (D-incumbent)
- Joe Baublis (R)
9th District
- Conan Smith (D-incumbent)
- John Floyd (R)
County Clerk/Register of Deeds
- Larry Kestenbaum (D-incumbent)
- Stanley Watson (R)
Water Resources Commissioners
- Evan Pratt (D)
- Harry Bentz (D)
- Eric Scheie (R)
County Prosecutor
- Brian Mackie (D-incumbent)
County Sheriff
- Jerry Clayton (D-incumbent)
- Jeffrey Gallatin (R)
County Treasurer
- Catherine McClary (D-incumbent)
- Marlene Chockley (R)
52nd District State Representative
- Mark Ouimet (R-incumbent)
- Gretchen Driskell (D)
53rd District State Representative
- Jeff Irwin (D-incumbent)
- Tom Partridge (D)
- John Spisak (R)
54th District State Representative
- David Rutledge (D-incumbent)
- Bill Emmerich (R)
55th District State Representative
- Owen Diaz (R)
- Andrea Brown-Harrison (D)
- Adam Zemke (D)
12th House District
- Karen Jacobsen (R)
- Cynthia Kallgren (R)
- John Dingell (D-incumbent)
- Daniel Marcin (D)
7th House District
- Tim Walberg (R-incumbent)
- Kurt Haskell (D)
- Dan Davis (R)
- Mike Stahly (R)
- Ruben Marquez (D)
U.S. Senator
- Debbie Stabenow (D-incumbent)
- Pete Hoekstra (R)
- Clark Durant (R)
- Gary Glenn (R)
- Randy Hekman (R)
- Peter Konetchy (R)<
22nd Circuit Judge (incumbent seat)
- Timothy Connors (incumbent)
- Michael Woodyard
22nd Circuit Judge (non-incumbent seat)
- Jim Fink
- Carol Kuhnke
- Doug McClure
- Erane Washington
Washtenaw County Probate Judge
- Darlene O'Brien (incumbent)
14A District Judge
- J. Cedric Simpson (incumbent)
15th District Judge
- Joe Burke (incumbent)
For a complete list of candidates running in other local races, go to the county's elections website. And find out about proposals that will be on some township ballots here.
Related coverage:
- 2 incumbents must face off for chance to stay on Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners
- Confusion over redistricting leads to disqualification of Washtenaw County board candidate
- Election 2012: Mayor John Hieftje's only challenger disqualified from running as Republican
Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's email newsletters.
Comments
Mariel de deSoleil
Tue, Aug 21, 2012 : 12:47 a.m.
So glad that Timothy Connors is opposed for his re-election. He is a poor judge, often ruling his own bias rather than applying the facts impartially to the established law. His decisions have been appealed numerous times, and he is often overturned, or the cases are remanded back to him to fix his legal errors.
Albert Howard
Mon, Aug 13, 2012 : 10:13 p.m.
Mr. Stanton: This article was last updated at 10:31 a.m. Aug. 6. It is not accurate to print that the Albert Howard for Mayor 2012 campaign is 'disqualified'. http://www.annarbor.com/news/albert-howard-files-to-run-as-an-independent-against-ann-arbor-mayor-john-hieftje/#.UCl6rqDAKx0
Deb Anderson
Sat, Jun 16, 2012 : 12:30 p.m.
@Ypsidoodle -- click on the county election website, everything is there.
Lac Court Orilles
Sat, Jun 16, 2012 : 12:18 p.m.
Just remember it was Mark Ouimet who voted to drastically cut school funding and increase taxes on senior citizens. Better alternative is Gretchen Driskell who is much more experienced and who won't beat up on public schools and raise taxes on senior citizens.
Chase Ingersoll
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 12:19 p.m.
I would take Stephen Ranzini position a step further, and require that all ballots/elections, list the Offices being elected on the left and IN RANDOM ORDER, WITHOUT ANY INDICATION OF PARTY AFFILIATION, the names of all of the candidates on the right. If you can't remember the name of a person running for office, and need their name and the party affiliation provided for you, you are probably not familiar enough with the office, issues and the positions of the candidate to be voting on them. And of course you would have to come up with a law preventing the parties from printing cheat sheets listing the offices and their candidates and handing them out to their voters who would otherwise have no clue for whom they should vote.
SonnyDog09
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 3:08 p.m.
You would also need to do away with the "straight, party line" vote option. You don't even need to know their names. As long as you give people the option to simply check the "D" box at the top of the ballot and go home, nothing will change.
eyesofjustice
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 5:30 a.m.
Tony Derezinski, must be replaced his ethics have been questioned many times as a Ann Arbor City Council member. We need the "Good ole boys club " to move on, Tony has proven himself not to be a leader, his clame to fame is he is a retired attorney......And I will say it.once again, Mr. Derezinski main focus is if there is a bar stool at Knights his favorite watering hole.......we need focused leaders, times change and people need to change as well.
YpsiVeteran
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 2:04 a.m.
There's really not a single good attorney in the whole county who wants to be prosecutor? Anybody? Bueller? Somebody, please!
Justin Altman
Fri, May 25, 2012 : 4:26 a.m.
I am a local attorney, and I am running for County Prosecutor. I am running on the Libertarian ticket, and we select our candidates via convention, not primary. Our convention is June 2nd, so I will start marketing after it is official. I am running a serious campaign, and will challenge Mr. Mackie on a number of key issues. If you're serious about ousting Mr. Mackie, please be on the lookout for donation and volunteering information.
Roadman
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 10:03 p.m.
Will anyone support the Fifth Ward's John Floyd over "Pay-up Conan" Smith this November? He has an impressive background in finance and often is involved in matters of local interest.
Epengar
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 3:41 a.m.
Floyd and Smith are running for the County Commission seat for the 9th district, nothing to do with wards.
Roadman
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 9:55 p.m.
In the First Ward of Ann Arbor, Sumi Kailasapathy has name recognition due to her prior run against Sandi Smith where she garnered an impressive 45% of the 2010 Dem primary vote and also due to her service as a First Ward AADP chairperson. She his a history as a human rights activist in her native Sri Lanka. She is expected to have a formidable campaign organization. Eric Sturgis, who is in his twenties, has previously run as a fringe candidate. I am not sure if he as a significant campaign organization backing him, but if anyone has any background on him, I would like to hear about it.
1stWardDem
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 4:09 a.m.
Here is what I know, he has been active in politics since 14 working on the Greenbelt, co-chairing the Youth for a New High School Campaign, and has worked on many campaigns for School Board, City Council, and other races. I know he has the support of Sandi Smith's campaign manager Phillis Engelbert and Tony Ramirez (who ran in the 1st Ward before). Sturgis does not have the establishment support, I know he has been outspoken against some of the Mayor's stuff. I know that Leah Gunn is a family friend of his from talking to Leah, but other than that, I think he is running for the open seat. I know that he supported Sandi Smith, and was very supportive of Simone Lightfoot, and Patrick Leonard for School Board. Hope this helps.
Leah Gunn
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 7:16 p.m.
sorry - correction - I meant to say MORE than a year
Ron Granger
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 6:11 p.m.
"running for office"? I'll bet a lot of folks feel they're running from those in office.
Ypsidoodle
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 5:56 p.m.
Wow, no one from Ypsilanti, Saline, Dexter, etc... Aren't they in Washtenaw County too?
YpsiVeteran
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 2:05 a.m.
Jim Fink is from Ypsi.
brimble
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 5:07 p.m.
How would the list of challengers change if the City and County races were non-partisan? Republicans don't stand a chance in the City by virtue of party affiliation, and no one challenges many on Council because they can't win a general election. Does this make sense as a good democratic process?
Stephen Lange Ranzini
Wed, May 16, 2012 : 10:55 a.m.
@Roadman: In a non-partisan election, the August primary could be used to narrow the field of candidates to two, who would then face off in the general election. I'd vote to make the city elections non-partisan. Here in Ann Arbor it is clearly not working well and the city has been mismanaged ($100 million of spending fiascos have occurred (The Big Dig, Roj Mahal, the Huirinal) while a $600 million debt has been run up including in the retirement funds). I'm not sure how it works in Ypsilanti, but here in Ann Arbor, since a Republican cannot be elected to office in the city, lots of "former" Republicans run as Democrats and most of the elected leaders never bother to show up for Democratic party events because they are "Democrats In Name Only" (DINOs). It actually weakens the local Democratic party and results in a dysfunctional situation where the only election that matters is the primary. There is a good reason why only Ypsilanti, Ionia and Ann Arbor are the only cities in the entire state to elect city leaders in partisan primaries. Maybe someday we can have a charter amendment to fix the Ann Arbor City Charter, too!
Roadman
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 10 p.m.
The August primary partisan local races races being pivotal is no accident. In the olden days students from U-M often ran and won due to student turnout. The powers that be figured out that the real races locally should be in August when almost no students were around. As a result almost no students now get elected, however Jeff Irwin and Yousef Rabhi bucked this trend by being elected as sudents to the Board of Commisioners.
pseudo
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 5:26 p.m.
party affilication is a choice that demonstrates a perspective and agreement with a set of "planks" in a platform. GOP folks don't get elected in Ann Arbor because they haven't presented ideas that the public is willing to vote for. Party affiliation, and the ideas that go with it, counts.
Basic Bob
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 4:47 p.m.
Cute. Brabec and Conn on the ballot AGAIN, running unopposed in their respective parties to face each other in November. Explain how this was necessary.
Leah Gunn
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 7:07 p.m.
Stae law requires that Brabec and Conn run four times (Feb., May, Aug. & Nov.) because the appointment was for less than a year. The legislators need to change this.