Michigan
Michigan vote tabulation mostly complete: Which ballots are left to count
Election Day 2024: Michiganders say who they cast their vote for
Some voters in Ferndale and Royal Oak shared their reasoning for voting for former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.
Michigan’s top election official touted a successful 2024 election and said tabulation is mostly complete, earlier than it was four years ago.
There are, however, about 6,000 outstanding military and overseas ballots that will be added to the unofficial results if they are postmarked by Election Day and received by Nov. 12, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Wednesday during a news conference in Detroit. Although there were no significant and widespread counting issues, there was a hold up in uploading data onto Wayne County’s website late into Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning. The Bureau of Elections is working with the county to understand what happened, she said.
“Certainly for close races that exist, the biggest and most significant … outstanding chunk of votes is coming from those overseas ballots and I’ll mention it’s not a guarantee that all 6,000 will return by Tuesday,” Benson said.
With 98% of estimated votes counted, Donald Trump won Michigan, according to the unofficial tally from the Associated Press. Trump received 50% of votes, compared with 48% for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Benson said it was too early for her to predict what it means that Trump is heading back to the White House.
“There’s going to be a lot of conversations in the days ahead about next steps and what comes next,” Benson said. “But I see Michigan voters at this point, they’re very engaged and enthusiastic, perhaps have different opinions about the type of leadership they want to see but we see women continuing to win elections here in the states. We also see the issue of economics … being top of mind.”
In 2020, President Joe Biden won Michigan with 51% of the votes. Trump received 48% of the votes in the battleground state four years ago.
More than 5.5 million Michiganders voted. Currently, turnout on Election Day 2024 was about the same as it was four years ago as the department waits for other ballots, including overseas tallies, Benson said.
“This is our third straight election cycle where voters turned out in record numbers, and that’s what we’re seeing as a victory,” Benson said.
Benson said 2.2 million voted from home, casting absentee ballots; 1.2 million voted early in person, and more than 2 million voted in person on Election Day. Nearly 22,000 people registered on Election Day, with many in East Lansing, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Detroit, she said.
This year, Michiganders were allowed to vote early for the general election. Benson said her department expected half of the 1.2 million who showed up to vote during the early voting period.
“It was just a convenient option that people all around the state embraced. And that, to me, for us as election administrators, is really the biggest success story of this election,” she said.
Benson also said her department is aware of non-credible bomb threats that targeted polling locations in Washtenaw, Wayne, Genesee and Saginaw counties, which the FBI tied to Russia.
A couple hiccups in Macomb County
Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said Wednesday morning there was a holdup with absentee ballot votes in Shelby Township. Just before 11 a.m. Wednesday, the county’s website did update with 100% of precincts reporting.
According to the Secretary of State’s website, Shelby Township had 20,137 absentee ballots returned. The township was not on the state’s list of communities to preprocess absentee ballots.
“This is an example of why should you pre-tabulate, run through your problems,” Forlini said. “When you’re a community like Shelby Township, it makes sense, even if it’s one day before.”
The township also is where Clerk Stanley Grot is among a group of Michigan Republicans criminally charged for allegedly participating in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Grot was among those charged last year by the state’s attorney general for allegedly signing a phony certificate pledging the state’s Electoral College votes to Trump.
Last year, the director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections notified Grot that he could no longer administer elections, including registering voters and issuing ballots. He also directed the township’s deputy clerk to perform election duties until further notice or until Grot is acquitted or has the charges against him dismissed. The case is still open, according to online district court records.
Grot easily won reelection as clerk Tuesday as he had no Democratic opponent in the township, which leans Republican. All of the GOP incumbents seeking reelection in the township − supervisor, clerk and treasurer as well as the four trustees − won, per unofficial results on the county clerk’s website.
Forlini said there also was an issue with a memory stick with data from early voting in New Baltimore and those ballots, about 2,400, had to be rerun.
Forlini gave a “hats off” to Warren Clerk Sonja Buffa for getting results to the county in a timely fashion.
Buffa did not preprocess Warren’s absentee ballots, of which there were 25,439, per the Secretary of State’s website. He said Buffa, herself, brought in sticks with data, most of them about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. He said she made three trips “and we appreciate that.”
“People are waiting on these results,” Forlini said. “People want to know what’s going on. It’s about everyone who is waiting on information.”
There was concern from Warren city officials and others about Buffa’s decision not to preprocess the absentee ballots and about how quickly city election results would get to the county on election night, possibly holding up local, state and national results.
Forlini said he personally picked up sticks from Chesterfield Township as part of a program provided by his office and the sheriff in which a sheriff’s deputy and county clerk’s employee will go to municipalities and pick up sticks with data — in a secure process − and get them to the county’s election department in Mount Clemens.
Forlini said it’s difficult to be compared to other counties that can modem in election results. He said his staff uploaded results as soon as clerks countywide were done with them and got them to the county, the third most populous in Michigan.
Dearborn Divine Child’s Marcello Vitti on 10-6 win over Harper Woods
Dearborn Divine Child executed a perfect gameplan and played stellar defense to upset Harper Woods 10-6 in MHSAA D-4 regional finals, Nov. 15, 2025.
After a 10-6 win over Harper Woods in the Division 4 regional finals, Dearborn Divine Child coach Chris Laney delivered an impassioned speech.
He told his players how proud he was of every single player on the roster, how the only belief the team needed was inside the locker room and how the road continues into the state semifinals against an undefeated Goodrich team defending its state title.
At the end of the speech in the south end zone at Westland John Glenn High School, with a crowd of family and fans sitting behind him, Laney finished his message with the three most popular words of the 2025 Michigan high school football season.
“We not done,” Laney said, leading to his players mobbing him in celebration.
Divine Child players were singing “We Not Done” over and over after pulling off the upset of the playoffs. The phrase comes courtesy of Detroit rapper 42 Dugg, who released a hit song called “We Not Done” in May.
John Glenn officials in the press box played the song during the halftime break, causing both sidelines to erupt with energy as Dugg’s signature whistle and the one-of-a-kind voice started bumping through the school’s speaker system.
The night before, Detroit Cass Tech students who bused down I-94 to watch the Technicians beat Saline 42-28 in the Division 1 regional finals chanted “We Not Done” throughout the win as senior C.J. Sadler dazzled with a four-touchdown, two-interception performance.
“Our student section, our student body around Cass is, it’s just we’re not done,” senior linebacker/nickelback Marcus Jennings said Friday. “We’ve got to finish what we started.”
The song has become the anthem of the 2025 football season in metro Detroit for players and students. The song’s title and oft-repeated hook share the same message as what coaches and players preach throughout the summer and fall as they vie for a run in the single-elimination playoffs to reach the state title game at Ford Field.
In the playoffs, players and coaches are fighting against elimination in a 48-minute battle on the gridiron. The victorious team celebrates gets to spend one more week preparing for another battle with its brothers, lining up with the message of “We Not Done” that 42 Dugg says 22 times in the 2-minute, 55-second song.
In the Division 2 district finals between Orchard Lake St. Mary’s and Birmingham Brother Rice, the suit-and-tie-wearing Brother Rice student section chanted “We Not Done” throughout the first half of the Catholic League rematch.
By the end of the game, which St. Mary’s won 35-14, the Brother Rice students dispersed and it was St. Mary’s assistant coaches singing the song’s hook to themselves and laughing after dealing out a dose of revenge against their rivals.
For Cass Tech, it has been a subtle reminder from the players, starting in the summer during seven-on-seven competitions all the way up to the state semifinals. The Technicians are the defending Division 1 champions and on a 22-game winning streak, but have loftier goals they are still fighting for.
So if you were wondering where one of the main messages from the 2025 Michigan high school football season originated, it started with one of Detroit’s own.
Nominate a high school athlete for the Detroit Free Press boys and girls athlete of the week.
Jared Ramsey covers high school sports for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jramsey@freepress.com; Follow Jared on X or Bluesky.
Kim Barnes Arico had plenty of questions about her still-very-young Michigan women’s basketball team heading into last Saturday’s game against then-No 18 Notre Dame, and the Wolverines answered every last one of them.
Michigan was more than ready for Notre Dame, walloping the Fighting Irish, 93-54, at Wayne State Fieldhouse in Detroit, for arguably the signature regular-season victory of Barnes Arico’s 14-year tenure in Ann Arbor.
Now it’s on to the next test ― and, well, this one makes Notre Dame look like a pop quiz.
No. 6 Michigan (4-0) plays No. 1 Connecticut (4-0), the defending national champion, in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut at 8 Friday night. The game will air on Fox, the latest taste of national exposure for a Wolverines team whose win over the Fighting Irish was on NBC.
“It’s really exciting. I think it’s a great opportunity for us,” Barnes Arico said earlier this week. “Our kids want to be in this situation and they want to match up against the best.”
This game marks the first meeting between Michigan and Connecticut, the 12-time national champion, in women’s basketball. But it’s not the first meeting between Barnes Arico and Connecticut legendary head coach Geno Auriemma. When she was coaching at St. John’s, her team beat Connecticut on Feb. 18, 2012, to snap the Huskies’ 99-game home winning streak. That was one of just 22 losses for Connecticut in a 13-year span.
This will be the fourth time Michigan ever has played a top-ranked team, and third time in the last two seasons ― after losing to South Carolina and UCLA last regular season. UM also lost to No. 1 Iowa in 1988.
Michigan did beat No. 5 Baylor in the 2021 Hall of Fame Showcase, a win that first helped signal that the program was starting to arrive. A win over Connecticut ― which has four more national championships than the second-best team (Tennessee, with eight; nobody else has more than three) ― would obviously mean even more than that.
“We’ve kind of been working all year for these kinds of games,” sophomore guard Olivia Olson, last season’s co-freshman of the year in the Big Ten, said after the win over Notre Dame, in which she had 20 points.
“We want these games. We want these top matchups.”
Michigan is led by three sophomores, who also led the team last season as freshmen ― Olson (17.8 points per game) and fellow guards Mila Holloway (14.2) and Syla Swords (12.2). But while the Wolverines often played all guards last season, they’ve got more size and inside presence this season, with the additions of forwards Ashley Sofilkanich, a junior transfer from Bucknell, and Te’Yala Delfosse, a freshman. Both also are averaging in double digits scoring.
Michigan is averaging 92.3 points a game, 11th in the nation, fresh off scoring 120 against Binghamton, the second-most points in program history, and most under Barnes Arico.
In Connecticut, Michigan will face a team that has four players on the watch list for the Wooden Award, which goes to the season’s top college basketball player: grad-student Azzi Fudd, senior Serah Williams and sophomores Sarah Strong and Kayleigh Heckel. Michigan has one, Olson.
Connecticut just scored 100 against Ohio State; it also has wins over No. 20 Louisville, Florida State and Loyola-Chicago, the latter which the Huskies held to 31 points.
“Can we handle their pressure?” Barnes Arico said in listing off the keys to the game. “The defensive intensity in the halfcourt is something that I don’t know if our kids have ever faced. I do have a recollection of it. It’s been a minute, but I still can remember how hard it is to even get in your offense because they’re so physical and so aggressive.
“Can we rebound with them? We’re going to have to have this toughness and this grit about us to do that. I know we did against Notre Dame (50-28), but not it’s even going to be dialed up to No. 1.
“I think it will be an unbelievable test for us.”
To be fair, the same might just hold true for Connecticut. Michigan has moved up to No. 6 in the Associated Press poll, its highest ranking since it was No. 6 in February 2022. (Fun fact: With the UM men’s team ranked No. 7, it’s the first week both teams have been in the top 10 at the same time.)
The Huskies have the tradition, with all those national championships, 24 Final Fours and 36 consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament.
The Wolverines are building something in their own right, with seven consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (a program record). They made their first Sweet 16 in 2021, and their first Elite Eight in 2022.
Last season ended up with a second-round loss to Notre Dame, and, well, UM exorcised those demons last weekend.
Now, it’s time for the next test ― and it’s a doozie.
“After seeing what we did today, you know, you want to say, ‘Oh, you know, this is the year,’ but we can’t get comfortable,” Michigan’s Alyssa Crockett, a senior forward, said after the win over Notre Dame. “We know what we want. We’re going to go get it.”
Michigan is one of seven Big Ten teams in the top 25, along with UCLA (3), Maryland (9), Southern Cal (11), Iowa (19), Michigan State (22) and Washington (25).
The Wolverines stay in Connecticut to play Syracuse (4-0) on Sunday (noon; FS1).
They then play next Wednesday against Detroit Mercy at Calihan Hall, the site of Michigan’s WNIT championship win in 2017 ― a major turning point in the program, which hasn’t missed the NCAA Tournament since then. The Wolverines have come so far. Just how far, we might be about to find out.
“They’re really good,” Barnes Arico said of UConn, a little over a year after Michigan narrowly lost to then-No. 1 and defending national champion South Carolina, 68-62. “They will test us in every space, and this early in the season, I think it’s good for us to be tested in that way and for us to see where we need to grow and improve.”
No. 6 Michigan vs. No. 1 Connecticut
➤ Tip-off: 8 Friday, Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, Conn.
➤ TV: Fox
➤ Records: Michigan 4-0; Connecticut 4-0
➤ Series: First meeting
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
Michigan
Central Michigan vs. Kent State prediction: Odds, picks, and best bet for Wednesday night ‘MACtion’
Two MAC teams at the end of encouraging seasons will meet on Wednesday night.
Central Michigan can keep its faint hopes of making it to the MAC Championship Game alive with a win over Kent State, but the Golden Flashes also have plenty to play for on Wednesday.
Kent State was left for dead before the season started, but it can still get to a bowl game with wins against Central Michigan and Northern Illinois to close out the campaign.
The Golden Flashes are 9.5-point underdogs in the friendly confines of Dix Stadium in beautiful Kent, Ohio, on Wednesday night.
Central Michigan vs. Kent State odds, prediction
It won’t get much love in the mainstream, but what is happening at Kent State this season is remarkable. Projected to be the worst team in the country after going a combined 1-23 in 2023 and 2024, the Golden Flashes were rocked in April when head coach Kenni Burns was fired with cause for violating his contract.
Mark Carney took over on an interim basis, but it didn’t take long for the school to take away that tag. Carney got the Golden Flashes to believe, winning four of their first 10 games. It may not sound like a big deal, but Kent State’s Over/Under for 2025 was 1.5 wins, so it’s some job that Carney has done with the Flashes.
The numbers are not that impressive, but what the Golden Flashes are doing is just hanging around in games long enough to turn them into coin flips. They were on the right side against Akron, Bowling Green, and Merrimack, and the wrong end against Ball State and Buffalo.
Betting on College Football?
Central Michigan will come into Kent with plenty of betting support. The Chippewas are the better team, they have more on the line, and they are in good form with three wins from their last four games. The problem is that the lopsided action for this game has caused this line to balloon, putting some value on Kent State.
The Golden Flashes should stick around in this one, and it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibilities that Central Michigan falls flat, like it did against Akron not too long ago.
The Play: Kent State +9.5 (-110, DraftKings)
Why Trust New York Post Betting
Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
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