Schor’s slate beats out grassroots candidates in Lansing election

Successful city charter will add fifth ward and alter election schedule

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 5 — Lansing’s grassroots candidates failed to upset their more established counterparts as Mayor Andy Schor and his endorsed City Council candidates Deyanira Nevárez Martínez, Peter Spadafore and Clara Martinez won the 2nd Ward, 4th Ward and at-large elections.

The proposed Lansing charter, which will add a fifth ward to the Council and move all city elections to every four years, among other changes, passed as well. The charter was supported by Schor and City Clerk Chris Swope.

The wave of left-wing excitement that propelled Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani to victory in New York City failed to materialize in Lansing, where Greater Lansing Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed Julie Vandenboom lost her at-large council bid to current 2nd Ward Councilmember Jeremy Garza.

Garza, like all other victors, was endorsed by the Lansing Regional Chamber-Political Action Committee.

At an election watch party at the Lansing Brewing Company, Schor celebrated his victory alongside Spadafore, Martinez and Nevárez Martínez.

“I look forward to being able to get all these things done that we’ve been talking about on the campaign,” Schor said in an interview, such as building more housing, improving the city’s infrastructure and creating opportunities for people across income brackets.

Spadafore served as an at-large member since 2017 and this year defeated Heath Lowry in a bid for the 4th Ward. Spadafore said his approach as a ward councilmember would be different.

“As a ward representative, you’re more directly accessible to the voters, and I hope to do more constituent outreach, coffee hours, happy hours, that kind of thing, to really speak more with residents on a regular basis,” he said in an interview.

He added he had tried similar techniques as an at-large councilmember, but noticed constituents see ward councilmembers as a more direct link to the council.

At The Fledge, an eastside community center popular with left-wing residents, the mood was more dour. Earlier, longshot candidate Kelsea Hector had laughed with friends, played a trading card game and watched “Mean Girls” at an event attended by Lowry, Vandenboom and 2nd Ward candidate Erik Almquist.

But after the results came in, she embraced Vandenboom and left.

Almquist, a former Fennville City Councilmember, ran a spending-free campaign and did not file campaign finance reports. He got 28% of the vote, and said he was looking forward to staying engaged.

At-large candidate Aurelius Christian snagged 3,500 votes, or 10% of the at-large race, despite dropping out of the election weeks ago. With Martinez bringing in 11,387, Garza 10,394 and Vandenboom 9,424, Christian could have been a spoiler in this election — though it’s unclear in what direction.

Slightly more than a quarter of the nearly 20,000 voters who cast a ballot in Lansing voted in person yesterday, and only about 240 took advantage of in-person early voting. The rest voted absentee. That meant that while most races could be called about 10:30 p.m. based on absentee data, Vandenboom’s loss to Garza was not set in stone until midnight, when election day results were reported.

Despite Vandenboom’s defeat, Greater Lansing DSA co-chair Sam Nelson said he viewed Mamdani’s victory as a positive sign for further-left candidates in Lansing’s future.

“The New York City DSA electoral program started in earnest around 2016,” he said. “Lansing’s DSA started in 2019, then had a bit of a pause, and we’re diving back into it again for the first time in four years. I think Zohran has written the playbook that every chamber of commerce in every city in the country should be terrified of.”

Attendees at The Fledge erupted in cheers when media outlets declared Mamdani’s victory.

The roughly 33% of the vote Hector scored against Schor was close to the 35% Kathie Dunbar earned against him in 2021, despite a major difference in their campaigns: While Dunbar had brought in tens of thousands by this point, Hector reported less than $1,000 raised in her campaign finance report.

In East Lansing, council candidates Steven Whelan and Chuck Grigsby secured the top two spots in a six-person race, and a proposed city charter failed to garner support.