DETROIT – Two things seemed firmly established by last week’s primary elections in Michigan. First: The Republican Party is now, for all intents and purposes, Donald Trump’s party. In every major race where he endorsed a candidate, they won.
However, when it comes to winning elections in November, that may not necessarily be a good thing. The consensus among political experts, for example, is that Republicans have likely thrown away a Grand Rapids-area congressional seat by ousting U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, a freshman who voted to impeach Trump in favor of an unknown conspiracy theorist in a district that now leans Democratic.
The other big takeaway from this election is that for the first time since 1954, the overwhelmingly Black city of Detroit won’t be represented by any African-Americans in Congress.
Why? In part, because the same thing happened this time that happened four years ago: When you have a district that has a substantial white minority, and you have a race with half a dozen Black candidates and one white one, the white one is apt to win.
This year, this happened in the Democratic nomination contest for the newly created 13th Detroit-based 13th district. On paper, the front-runner should have been State Sen. Adam Hollier, a 36-year-old African-American army veteran who grew up in the district, served as a firefighter, and then put himself through Cornell and the University of Michigan. He was endorsed by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and numerous other politicians and office holders.
His main competitor was Shri Thanedar, an immigrant from India who made a fortune as an entrepreneur running chemical testing labs in Ann Arbor, and then spent a fortune to win a legislative seat, after wasting millions on a quixotic 2018 run for governor.
This time, he spent another $8 million or more to try to capture the Democratic nomination in the congressional district, one of the nation’s poorest, and where Republicans have no chance whatsoever.
Hollier likely could have beaten Thanedar in a two-man race despite the immigrant’s millions, but four other Black candidates with some name recognition got in the race, including John Conyers, the son and namesake of the late longtime congressman. In the end, Thanedar got 28 percent; Hollier 24 percent, and the pack of also-rans divided the rest.
This mirrored what happened four years ago, when Rashida Tlaib, a Muslim of Palestinian descent who has since become famous as a member of the “squad,” ran in a now-reconfigured majority black district. Then, too, a plethora of Black candidates got in the race, and Tlaib won the primary with 31 percent of the vote. After she became famous she was able to raise millions and has won easily ever since.
As an interesting footnote, every Detroiter likely will be represented in Congress next year by either a Muslim — Tlaib — or an immigrant from a Hindu Brahmin family in India.
The only African-American who may represent Michigan in Congress next year is neither a Detroiter nor a Democrat — it is John James, a Republican who won his party’s nomination for a new district in Macomb County. James is familiar to state voters from two back-to-back losses to Michigan’s two Democratic U.S. senators.
The district is thought to lean Republican, and James is favored, but may be vulnerable because he does not live in or near the district, and apparently has no plans to move there.
There was another notable result in the Democratic primary – for the first time in 44 years, there won’t be a member of the Levin family in Congress next year. U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, who held a seat that his father Sander long represented, elected to challenge fellow Democrat Haley Stevens after redistricting cost Michigan a seat.
She won in a landslide.
On the Republican side, former President Trump clearly had influence. Not every one of the candidates he endorsed for the legislature won, but many did, including one who knocked off an incumbent state senator. Those few who lost included one candidate running as a write-in, and one who was so extreme she wanted to outlaw not only abortion but contraception.
His late endorsement for the GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon was probably not decisive; she was leading in all the polls. But her margin was considerably greater than the polls indicated before his endorsement, and she ran as a loyal Trump supporter.
And two defeated candidates also evoked the former President in a bizarre way; they refused to accept the election results.
Ryan Kelley, who was arrested for his activities during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, lost the gubernatorial nomination to Dixon by an overwhelming 434,987 votes to 165,016, finishing a poor fourth. Two other candidates who got more votes promptly conceded, but Kelley demanded a “hand recount.”
Meanwhile, Mike Detmer, who Trump endorsed for a state senate seat, lost by a decisive 57 to 42 percent, but refused to concede and requested a “forensic audit,” something that doesn’t exist.
Michigan law only provides for statewide recounts when the margin is 2,000 votes or less, and for legislative recounts if the result is closer than 500 votes; Detmer lost by almost 7,000.
Election officials did not take the requests seriously.
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash
