Reply #3: Yeah, I'm still trying to figure this one out.

[islander]

I mean: Dems win the top two offices (Governor and Senator), lose the second-tier races (AG and SoS), then sweep the educational offices?

That's a weird vote pattern. Most voters don't know anything about the educational offices, so they vote them straight-ticket, or vote for the incumbents. Big changes in those boards is unusual -- half the incumbents (the Republican half) losing is downright weird.

My best guess is that the split-ticket voters (most of whom voted Democratic for the first-tier offices and Republican for the second-tier) didn't vote for two candidates in the educational races, so the straight-ticket Democrat turnout (a.k.a. "Detroit") carried the educational boards.

Which is totally something I can't prove, of course, and probably not useful to know, anyway.