CHARLEVOIX, MI — Hill Harper, an actor best known for his roles in TV shows like The Good Doctor and CSI, might have done well to talk to billionaire Mike Bloomberg before jumping into Michigan’s Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat.
Four years ago, Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire who had been mayor of New York City, decided to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. He spent more than $600 million of his own money, targeted the “Super Tuesday” primaries, and badly lost nearly everywhere. The next day, he essentially admitted he didn’t know what he was doing, and cheerfully dropped out.
This year, Michigan had an open senate seat, and Harper, whose main home seems to have been in Malibu, changed his registration to Michigan and jumped into the race. On paper, it seemed to make sense. He was charismatic, famous and smart; besides his acting career, he has a Harvard Law Degree.
Michigan Democrats have never nominated an African-American for governor or senator, something many resented, and he thought he saw an opportunity. But he hadn’t done his homework.
The moment U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced her retirement, the party coalesced around its rising star, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who had worked as a top national security aide in both Republican and Democratic administrations and had won three times in a Republican-leaning congressional district. By the end of June, she had raised $24 million to his $2.4 million, and piled up endorsements, including some from Black elected officials.
Harper ran what seemed to be a half-hearted campaign, and on Election Day lost in a three-to-one landslide, losing every county in the state. Meanwhile, Mike Rogers, a former congressman who once represented the same Lansing-area district Slotkin now does, easily dispatched his rival Justin Amash, a former Republican Congressman who voted to impeach Donald Trump, to win the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.
The race is expected to be close, with a slight advantage to the Democrat. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Michigan since 1994, and Rogers until recently was living in Florida. To the surprise of some, turnout was greater in the Democratic primary this year; Michigan voters always have the option to vote in either.
Elsewhere, the results indicated a rare embarrassment for Detroit’s formidable three-term mayor, Mike Duggan, who endorsed Mary Waters, a Detroit council member, in her Democratic primary race against incumbent U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, a millionaire businessman who is a native of India.
Two years ago, he won the seat, which had been represented by an African-American for almost 70 years, leaving Detroit without a single Black congressman. The city’s leadership resented this and coalesced around a former legislator named Adam Hollier, but he was shockingly disqualified for forged and phony petition signatures.
That left Waters as the only Black candidate in the race. Duggan supported her, but Thanedar spent lavishly, as he always does, and won renomination easily. Elsewhere in the state, there were few surprises.
However, a man who may just be the most bizarre member of the Michigan legislature was upset in the Republican primary for his seat in the state house of representatives — as his father had been before him. Back in 1970, one Richard Friske of Charlevoix was elected to the state house from a district at the northern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula, after he touted his past as a fighting veteran of World War II. However, he didn’t mention one small detail: He actually had been in the Luftwaffe and fought for the Nazis; once in Lansing, it was revealed that he was a member of the John Birch Society and gave money to the Ku Klux Klan.
Shocked mainstream Republicans defeated him for renomination two years later.
Two years ago, his son Kornelius “Neil” Friske was elected to the same seat, where he has also displayed ultra-right views, voting against laws that outlawed marital rape and opposed preventing adults from marrying children; he also opposed banning pornography created by artificial intelligence, and showed no interest in bipartisan collaboration.
Then, on June 20, Friske, an unmarried 62-year-old man was arrested in the wee hours of the morning in a residential neighborhood after residents reported a man with a gun and possible shots being fired; police also indicated he was being investigated for criminal sexual assault of an adult female.
Prosecutors said last week they were awaiting results of DNA testing before deciding on charges, and denied they were delaying because of political reasons. Friske said he had done “absolutely nothing wrong,” and was being framed by the deep state.
Two days ago, he was defeated almost two to one in the Republican primary by 25-year-old Parker Fairbairn, apparently ending his legislative career as his father had, after a single term.
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(Editor’s Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
