Early returns give no clear winner in regent race

By Jen Fish and Lisa Koivu

Daily Staff Reporters

As of 2 a.m. early this morning, the hotly contested race for two seats on the University Board of Regents are still in doubt.

The race is typically one of the latest to be decided, and official results are not expected to be tallied until mid-morning today.

The race, one of the most partisan in years for the supposedly non-partisan board, is being watched closely for a number of reasons.

Of particular concern has been speculations that this race is a referendum on academic freedom and the University's participation in the affirmative action lawsuits.

With 62 percent of precincts reporting, Democratic incumbents Rebecca McGowan of Ann Arbor and Larry Deitch of Bloomfield Hills led Republican candidates Susy Avery of Grand Rapids and Wendy Anderson of Commerce Township. McGowan had 25 percent, Deitch had 24 percent and Anderson and Avery each had 22 percent.

McGowan and Deitch were leading in Washtenaw County as of 2 a.m., with McGowan garnering 30 percent of the vote in her home turf and Deitch just behind with 27 percent.

"I'm hopeful I'll win," Deitch said from his home early this morning.

Deitch added he was confident that Detroit voters would support the Democratic incumbents.

"The city of Detroit votes overwhelmingly Democratic. I wouldn't begin to know how it's going to turn out" without Detroit's results, he said.

"I think that both regent McGowan and I have done a good job. We've got experience, we have, we do provide significant leadership to the board. That will be diminished if we are gone."

Candidates stressed that the returns for regent candidates are typically late in coming and they could speculate what the final results will be.

"There's no way to know," McGowan said from her home. "We'll see what happens tomorrow morning."

"I wouldn't say anything about winning or losing with 9 percent in," Deitch said.

Avery agreed, saying that the numbers are just too close to determine the outcome of the election.

"We just don't know, it's just too close," Avery said at the state Republican Party's gathering in Lansing last night.

"It's difficult to know whether we've won or lost," Avery said.

Avery added that she is curious how much of an influence the seven third-party candidates had on the tally.

"There were a lot of candidates in this race, and a lot of them were students running with the third parties. I'm interested in seeing how much weight they pulled," Avery said. "If anything would skew our race it would be that there were so many third parties."

While Avery spent last night mingling with Republican party supporters at the Holiday Inn hotel in Lansing, Anderson spent her night at home taking care of her children.

Anderson was unavailable for comment.

University Board of Regents

Anderson GOP 933,437

Avery GOP 913,010

Trudeau Green 60,538

Maull Lib. 42,959

Waun Reform 24,480

As of 3 a.m.