Peters win, Schauer beats Walberg

Peters ousts Knollenberg; Schauer declares victory over Walberg Deb Price, Mark Hornbeck and Marisa Schultz / The Detroit News

BATTLE CREEK -- Democrat Mark Schauer declared a narrow victory this morning over

Republican Rep. Tim Walberg in Michigan's 7th Congressional District -- hours after fellow Democrat Gary Peters defeated longtime Republican Rep. Joe Knollenberg in Oakland County. "It's been a long night and I wanted to make sure you were able to get some sleep tonight and went to bed with some certainty on how this is going to turn out," Schauer told his supporters at a hotel in Battle Creek. "Bottom line: Tim Walberg can't catch us," Schauer said as the crowd erupted into cheers. "... We did it!" But Schauer spokesman Zach Pohl said Walberg had not conceded he'd lost the seat that he won just two years ago, when he ousted Rep. Joe Schwarz in the Republican primary. Walberg's campaign didn't return a call for comment. The Schauer campaign said that with 96 percent of precincts reporting, Schauer had 137,527 votes to Walberg's 129,657 votes. The unofficial Associated Press tally showed 324 of 356 precincts -- 91 percent -- had Schauer with 145,388 votes (48 percent) to Walberg's 141,023 (47 percent). In the 9th District, Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Hills, was soundly beaten by Peters, a former state senator and lottery commissioner. Neither result was a huge surprise, because Democrats had targeted both districts with money and resources, and the electorate in both had been trending away from the GOP. They were among the Republican congressional districts targeted nationwide. If final numbers confirm Schauer's proclamation, Michigan's U.S. House delegation will swing from nine Republicans and six Democrats to eight Democrats and seven Republicans. The last time an incumbent U.S. House member from Michigan was defeated in a general election was in 1996, when Debbie Stabenow -- now Michigan's junior U.S. senator -- ousted freshman Republican Dick Chrysler in the Lansing-area congressional seat. Meanwhile, the state's senior senator, Democrat Carl Levin of Detroit, cruised to winning his sixth term against Republican Jack Hoogendyk. A somber Knollenberg, who thanked supporters beside his tearful wife and two sons, said late Tuesday night he was overtaken by a "perfect storm" of Barack Obama's popularity and a deluge of money sent to unseat him. Peters acknowledged he was helped by Obama's huge national wave. "But it also takes a lot of effort on the ground. It was a very tall mountain. We climbed it one step at a time," Peters said. Oakland County hasn't been represented by a Democrat in Congress in more than a half century. In the campaign, Knollenberg told voters he deserved re-election to the two-year term because of his ability to bring home money as a senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee, as well as his record of fighting for the domestic auto industry. But he struggled to withstand a bare-knuckles challenge by Peters. Beverly Liberty, 48, who has lived in Farmington Hills for more than 20 years, said she chose Peters. "Sometimes people (Knollenberg) are in a bit long and need fresh ideas," she said. In the Walberg-Schauer contest, Walberg accused Schauer of being a tax-and-spend liberal; Schauer portrayed Walberg as an ineffective extremist who failed to help average people battered by job losses, rising health care costs and home foreclosures. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shoveled more than $1.6 million into each of the two hotly contested House races, helping Peters and Schauer with TV and radio ads and mailings. The Levin-Hoogendyk race was never competitive. Hoogendyk, a state representative from Kalamazoo, had an uphill battle from the start. "A lot of people think Carl Levin is too liberal for them, but they vote for him anyway because they think he's a good senator and more important than anything else, they like him," said pollster Bernie Porn of EPIC-MRA of Lansing. Levin, a 74-year-old Detroit native, raised $8.2 million to $247,326 for Hoogendyk, 53, who boasted that he had never voted for a tax increase. Bobby Atanasovski, 40, of Allen Park said he voted for Levin because "he's good for the working class. He's been in for a long time and has done a good job."