By Mike Kruzman & Jon King / news@whmi.com


After a tight race through the early morning hours, Incumbent Democrat Elissa Slotkin has won re-election to Congress.

The battle between Slotkin and Republican-challenger Paul Junge had been close through the morning with Junge holding a 9,000 vote lead as results trickled in from clerks around Livingston, Ingham, and north Oakland counties. But it appears that absentee votes from Ingham County have put her over the top. As of 11am, with more than 99% of the precincts reporting, Slotkin is in the lead 51.1% to 47.1%. Her 221,133 votes compares to Junge's 203,662. The Lansing-based Michigan Information & Research Service called the race for Slotkin just before 7am.

While Junge won both Livingston and Oakland counties, Slotkin's 52,000 vote win in Ingham County was enough to push her to victory.

The race between Slotkin, a former CIA analyst from Holly and Junge, a former TV anchor and prosecutor from Brighton, is being viewed as a key test of whether Democrats can compete in suburbs where Donald Trump won in 2016. When Slotkin won by less than four percentage points over Republican Mike Bishop in 2018, she became the first Democrat to represent the district since 2000.