The Traverse City, MI Metro Area is an area with a rich political history. It has had a number of elected officials in local city councils, state legislatures, and Congress. The most recent elections have seen the election of Republican Congressman Jack Bergman to the House of Representatives in 2016. On the state level, Republicans John Proos and Curt VanderWall serve the area in the State Senate and House respectively. The Traverse City City Commission includes Mayor Jim Carruthers and seven Commissioners. Locally, there are numerous township boards like Garfield Township Board of Trustees and Fife Lake Township Board of Trustees that provide governance to their respective areas. All these entities provide residents with representation on important issues such as taxation, infrastructure development, education funding, public safety, economic development, natural resource protection and much more. Furthermore, there are several well-known advocacy groups that work tirelessly to protect the interests of citizens within theTraverse City Metro Area including environmental groups like Michigan League for Public Policy or social justice organizations like Grand Traverse Indivisible. These entities help ensure that politics within this area remain transparent and representative of all citizens regardless of background or political affiliation.
The political climate in Traverse City Metro Area is leaning conservative.
In Traverse City Metro Area 45.5% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 52.7% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.7% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, the Traverse City metro area remained moderately Republican, 52.7% to 45.5%.
The Traverse City metro area voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
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.
Traverse City, 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 four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Traverse City Metro Area
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 12,532 contributions totaling $1,399,019 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $112 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 2,218 contributions totaling $524,848 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $237 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)