Kalkaska County in Michigan is a small rural county with a population of about 17,000 people. Politically, the county leans strongly to the Republican side and is represented in the state legislature by Representative Michele Hoitenga and Senator Wayne Schmidt. The Kalkaska County Board of Commissioners serves as the legislative body of the county government and is composed of seven members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. The current chairperson is Christine Kosmowski, who was elected in 2020. In general, local politics in Kalkaska County tend to focus on economic development initiatives that seek to bring jobs and industry to the region, as well as promote natural resource preservation efforts.
The political climate in Kalkaska County, MI is very conservative.
In Kalkaska County, MI 28.2% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 69.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.8% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Kalkaska county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 69.9% to 28.2%.
Kalkaska county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Kalkaska County, MI is very conservative.
Traverse City Metro Area is leaning conservative.
Michigan is leaning liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Kalkaska, Michigan: R R r R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Kalkaska County, MI
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 585 contributions totaling $37,750 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $65 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 123 contributions totaling $14,551 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $118 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)