Friday, 11 November, 2005 11:37 PM

A Shocking End to the 2005 General Election

I was very surprised by the results of the Nov. 8th General Election. First off, the Detroit mayoral race was neck and neck from the beginning. Secondly, an 18-year-old high school student won the mayoral race in Hillsdale.

Let's start with the Detroit mayoral race. The contenders: Kwame Kilpatrick (the incumbent) and challenger Freman Hendrix. Most of the polls around town that were taken prior to the election showed that Mr. Hendrix was going to win.

WDIV Channel 4 said they were going to have the most accurate, up to the minute coveage. They projected the winner of this race to be Freman Hendrix at exactly 7:58 p.m. How did they do it? Polls didn't even close until 8 p.m. They used their polling data. I believe WDIV just wanted to be the first. They went out on a limb and came up short.

WXYZ Channel 7 went along with 4 and said Freman was going to win. WJBK Channel 2 projected Kwame Kilpatrick was going to win. They got it right!!

Pollsters have to make sure they speak with people who are actually going to be voting. You can't just go up to anyone in the city of Detroit and ask which candidate they like more. If they're not voting, it's going to be an extraneous variable.

In an exclusive AmericaJR.com Weekly Poll on 10/13/05, the question was: If the Detroit mayoral election was held today, who would you vote for? 67% said Freman Hendrix and 33% said I don't like Freman or Kwame.

When the official election results started pouring in, Mr. Hendrix had a huge lead. As the night went on, the gap was narrowing and Mr. Kilpatrick started to get closer and finally take the lead. When I went to bed that night, Mr. Hendrix had 51% of the vote and Mr. Kilpatrick had 48% of the vote.

Voters within the city of Detroit must have forgave the mayor on all the job cuts, foolish spending on his credit cards and the Lincoln Navigator for his wife.Some say the Rosa Parks funeral was actually a boost for the mayor.

When all the votes were counted, Kwame Kilpatrick ended up with 117,354 votes (53%) and Freman Hendrix received 103,446 votes (47%).

18-year-old high school student elected mayor of Hillsdale

Michael Sessions was elected mayor of the small town of Hillsdale, MI. He was a write-in candidate. He defeated the 51-year-old incumbent Doug Ingles.

This is an interesting situation. It was originally reported that Mr. Sessions won the election by 64 votes. The County Clerk later announced that Sessons won by only two votes. If you subtract his vote for himself, then he won by only one vote.

Here's the kicker: He wasn't even printed on the ballot. Everyone who voted for Mike Sessions had to write him in by hand. One person even wrote "18-year-old high school student" on their ballot.

Mr. Sessions used $700 from his summer job to fund his election campaign. He also put up signs in and around the city of Hillsdale. He will be the youngest mayor ever in the city of 8,200 people.

He even got a chance to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman on Thursday night. Sessions read a Top Ten List about himself that was called "Good Things About Being an 18-year-old Mayor."

Other close races

In the city of Grosse Pointe, there was a difference of 26 votes between the mayoral candidates. Dale Scrace received 1,138 votes (51%) while Stephen Sholty got 1,102 votes (49%).

A similar situation happened between the mayoral candidates in Center Line. Kathleen Buckner received 795 votes (48%) and Mary Ann Zielinski got 869 votes (52%).

It was definitely an interesting year of politics. From beginning to end, the Detroit mayoral race was very dramatic. We also had an 18-year-old mayor in Hillsdale and several close elections around metro Detroit.