In the primary election on Tuesday, Aug. 4, the 46 percent of eligible Leelanau County voters who cast ballots sided with the winners of those races. Leelanau voters also approved all the township millages put before them. Leelanau voted for the following primary winners: Abdul El-Sayed for Senate, Jack Bergman and Callie Barr for the Congressional race, and Jocelyn Benson and John James for the governor’s race.
When Leelanau County voters cast their ballots in the primary election on Tuesday, Aug. 4, the outcome of their decisions may resonate far beyond these sunny summer days. Who wins the closely watched intraparty contests for Michigan Governor, U.S. Senator, and Congress could set the paths forward for the Democratic and Republican parties at a time of political upheaval in this country. This story breaks down the Democratic primary race between Callie Barr and Kyle Blomquist, who are bidding to take on incumbent Republican Jack Bergman in the November race for Congress—and why Barr and Blomquist, and fellow Republicans challenging Bergman in the Aug. 4 primary, believe the incumbent is vulnerable in 2026.
Callie Barr, a Democrat running to represent Northern Michigan in Congress, picked up a coveted endorsement today from Pete Buttigieg, a fellow Traverse City resident and former Transportation Secretary during the Biden administration. Barr, who lost during a previous run for Congress in 2024 to incumbent Republican Jack Bergman, faces a primary challenge this year from Upper Peninsula resident Kyle Blomquist. Michiganders will vote in the primary election on Tuesday, Aug. 4.
It’s safe to say every American of a certain age remembers what they were doing when terrorist extremists struck on Sept. 11, 2001. For some, it drastically changed the trajectory of their lives. Callie Barr is the Democratic candidate for Michigan’s 1st Congressional District, but her road to politics was neither anticipated nor aspirational. A fifth-generation Traverse City and Cheboygan resident, Barr and her then-boyfriend Matt were high school students on that fateful day. Mere hours after the Twin Towers were hit, leaving Americans reeling in shock, Matt enlisted in the Marine Corps. He left for boot camp the day after he graduated from Cheboygan Area High School and later was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The couple married in-between tours when Barr was 18 and Matt was 19, and went on to move five times over 15 years. While Matt was in his second deployment, Barr graduated as valedictorian of her class at Cheboygan. She earned her secondary education degree from Central Michigan University and settled into the comfortable role of a high school English teacher. Their lives were upended when Matt returned from his tour with an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Even so, he knew he was one of the lucky ones.