Democrat Sean McCann, a state senator from Kalamazoo, has defeated eight-term Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga in Michigan's 4th Congressional District, flipping a longtime Republican seat in southwest Michigan. The Associated Press called the race for McCann at 1:13 p.m. EST on Wednesday, November 4, 2026 — a day after the polls closed, after a count in which Huizenga had led in the early hours of Wednesday before McCann moved in front as more of Kalamazoo-area votes were tallied.
Source: Associated Press, via Ottumwa Courier
The final numbers the AP called on
The AP's results page showed McCann with 185,440 votes to Huizenga's 178,741, with an estimated 96.9 percent of the vote counted and the race marked “Called.” American Banker, reporting the defeat of the House Financial Services Committee's No. 2 Republican, put the shares at 50.1 percent for McCann to 48.3 percent for Huizenga — a difference of about 7,000 votes — with Green Party candidate Chafina Che Barnett also on the ballot with about 5,600 votes. McCann had declared victory earlier, around 9 a.m. Wednesday, when roughly 95 percent of the vote was counted.
Source: American Banker / AP results, MI-04
How the lead flipped overnight
The race did not look like a flip in the small hours. At 4:37 a.m. Wednesday, Ottawa News Network reported Huizenga holding a razor-thin lead of just 2,647 votes, with 87 percent of precincts reporting and 324,509 ballots counted. As the remaining precincts — including McCann's home ground in Kalamazoo County — reported through the morning, the lead changed hands and then grew: WKZO reported McCann won Kalamazoo County by a huge margin, 74,299 votes to 39,793, and also carried Berrien and Calhoun counties, while Huizenga carried Allegan, Ottawa and Van Buren counties.
The 4th District spans that whole southwest Michigan map — Ottawa, Allegan, Van Buren, Kalamazoo, Calhoun and Berrien counties, from the Lake Michigan shoreline to Kalamazoo. That split is the story of the result: Huizenga held his traditional shoreline base, but McCann's margins in Kalamazoo County were large enough to outweigh it.
Who the two men are
McCann pitched himself as a bipartisan problem-solver for the district, in the AP's description. He served two terms in the Michigan House before eight years in the Michigan Senate, and he picked up a late-campaign endorsement from Republican former Holland Mayor Phil Tanis, who had run against Huizenga in the Republican primary. His campaign statement on Wednesday, carried by WGHN, declared that he had won the race to represent the district in Congress.
Huizenga's defeat removes a senior Republican voice on financial policy from the House. An eight-term congressman, he had risen to vice chair of the House Financial Services Committee — the panel's No. 2 Republican — and was a leading opponent of environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures by banks and regulators, American Banker reported. The AP noted he had consulted with President Donald Trump before deciding not to run for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat this year, choosing instead to seek a ninth House term — the term McCann has now blocked. Reporting also noted Huizenga lost despite about $1 million in backing from the crypto super PAC Fairshake.
WKZO, citing MIRS News in Lansing, reported McCann's win means Michigan Republicans will hold just four seats in the U.S. House in the next term — their smallest delegation since 1884.
The wider picture
The flip landed inside a midterm that had already taken the House from Republicans: the AP projected Democratic control of the chamber from Tuesday's results, and McCann's seat adds to the majority the Democrats will carry into the new Congress in January 2027. For Michigan's congressional map, a district Republicans had held for years — through Huizenga's eight terms — will now be represented by a Democrat for the first time in that span.
What happens next
Michigan's results still go through the normal canvass and certification process, and the remaining roughly 3 percent of ballots will be added to the totals without, on the AP's judgment, a path to change the outcome. McCann will take the seat when the new Congress convenes in January 2027. Awaaz Punjab will update this story with the certified margin when Michigan publishes it.