State's rules on sheriff elections open door to inexperienced candidates. One might win

In Oakland County, look out. On Election Day, left-leaning Oakland County could oust a long-time incumbent Republican, Sheriff Mike Bouchard, and choose a Democrat with no police experience. Amrit Kohli of Ferndale is a computer software contractor, a peace activist and aspiring folk singer. He recently released a very listenable CD. On it, he plays acoustic guitar and sings a dozen songs that he wrote, including one in protest of police brutality called “George Floyd, Say His Name." (The song and others of Kohli can be streamed by searching online for "Amrit Kohli Mama.&quot

George Floyd was a Black man whose name became synonymous with racist police brutality when Floyd was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. That occurred when Floyd resisted arrest, according to videos shown in court, after a store clerk suspected that Floyd had used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Kohli’s song is not one that police officers are likely to enjoy.

In 1999, Oakland County was ruby red, run by Republicans. That year, Bouchard was appointed, filling a vacancy created by the death in office of John Nichols, a former top cop in Detroit and the former chief of Farmington Hills. Since then, Bouchard has become an astounding political paradox. He’s been elected six times, even as the county shifted from red to bright blue, even as the county gave bigger and bigger margins to Democrats, up and down the ballot.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the county by 54,000 votes. In 2020, President Joe Biden took it by 108,000 – 56% of the vote, to Trump’s 42%. Both times, Bouchard stayed a winner. He’s the lone Republican in countywide office. Can he win again? The answer depends on whether he remains popular among enough independents and ticket-splitting Democrats that he overcomes a potential flood of Democrats who could vote straight-party tickets topped by Kamala Harris – thus automatically supporting Kohli for sheriff.



https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2024/10/31/big-oakland-county-michigan-candidate-for-county-sheriff/75924222007/