Former ticketing executive Andrew “Rocky” Raczkowski narrowly lost his election bid to unseat Gary Peters as U.S. Representative for Michigan’s 9th district.
The results of the hotly contested race were announced this morning, November 3, with Raczkowski, a former State Representative, receiving 47.2 percent of the vote to Peters’ 49.75 percent. The only remaining votes to be tallied at that time were from heavily Democratic Pontiac, MI, thus leading election officials to call the race for Peters.
By midnight on Election Day, November 2, only 5,000 votes separated the candidates, with Peters in the lead. By this morning, when official results were tallied, that lead had extended to over 6,400, allowing the incumbent Peters to keep his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In recent weeks, Raczkowski, former president and CEO of Michigan-based primary ticketing company Star Tickets, cried foul over a negative ad from Peters focusing on a lawsuit filed against Raczkowski and his former company around alleged misrepresentation of ticket sales.
The suit, brought by Texas-based Rozone Productions, alleges that Star Tickets underreported totals of tickets sold for concerts at a 2008 motorcycle rally in Sturgis, ND. The promoter claims that this alleged activity resulted in a loss of potential revenue to the company. News of the suit first surfaced during Raczkowski’s Republican primary bid, with Peters trying to revive the issue during the general election campaign.
Throughout both of his campaigns Raczkowski denied the suit’s allegations, and he ultimately sued both Peters and Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer over the campaign ads, claiming defamation.