Well, the election is over. Finally. No more robo-calls, no more attack ads, no more solicitations for donations.

The big story is obviously the historic victory by President-elect Barack Obama, but on a local level there were a few surprising upsets. The biggest of these was Democratic candidate Gary Peters' victory over incumbent Republican Joe Knollenberg to represent Michigan's 9th District in the US House.

With Obama's sweeping victory throughout the state and open support of Peters (who had participated in numerous events for Obama prior to the election), the election took a quick turn and Peters ended up with a comfortable 9-point lead. What struck me as odd though was the reaction following Knollenberg's concession:

“This wasn’t about Joe Knollenberg,” his aide Nate Bailey said. “It was about people not voting for Republicans this year.”

Really?

What about...

Peter Hoekstra (2nd District, won by 27 points)
Vernon Ehlers (3rd District, won by 26 points)
David Camp (4th District, won by 26 points)
Frederick Upton (6th District, won by 20 points)
Mike Rogers (8th District, won by 17 points)
Candice Miller (10th District, won by 35 points)
Thaddeus McCotter (11th District, won by 6 points)
L. Brooks Patterson (Oakland County Executive, won by roughly 18 points)
Michael Bouchard (Oakland County Sheriff, won by roughly 20 points)


All Republicans, all incumbents.

As an example, Miller won her district by 121,329 votes when the included counties sided with Obama by a total of 35, 158 votes. That's a lot of people who voted for a Democrat for President but had no problem voting for a Republican as their district's rep.

So make no mistake about it, Knollenberg's loss was all about him.



Figures from CNN and WXYZ.