Incumbent Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has defeated Republican opponent Kristina Karamo in the general election, securing a second term in office, the AP projects.
Votes
%
Jocelyn Benson*(D)
Kristina Karamo(R)
(4,690 / 4,690)
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Benson has been in office since 2019, and became more of a household name due to her overseeing of the chaotic 2020 presidential election, when some Republicans and supporters of then-President Donald Trump made allegations of voter fraud during and after the election. Trump and his supporters falsely claimed that the election was “stolen” from him after now-President Joe Biden won, triggering a number of recounts and election audits across the nation.
Benson has maintained that elections in Michigan are secure and reliable, and has prioritized transparency from her department since the chaos of 2020.
Karamo is one of many Republican politicians who have continued to push Trump’s “big lie” of election fraud over the last two years.
In the weeks leading up to the 2022 general election in Michigan, Karamo filed a lawsuit seeking to disqualify all absentee ballots in the city of Detroit, claiming the city’s absentee ballot counting system is flawed and violates election law. A Wayne County judge on Monday struck down Karamo’s lawsuit, saying the suit “failed dramatically,” and that the claims of election law violations were “unsubstantiated and/or misinterpret Michigan election law.”
In polls taken the months and weeks leading up to the midterm election, Michigan voters favored Benson over Karamo, though Karamo’s numbers increased in the second half of October. The GOP secretary of state candidate struggled with name identification among base Republican voters for months. At the end of October, 53.4% of voters did not know who Karamo was.
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Find Results: Michigan General Election 2022
The chart below shows where voters stood on both candidates, according to poll results from July through October.