Coming on August 4th this summer, the Great Lakes State features a bevy of potentially competitive primaries and races in the fall to keep an eye on. This article will feature an overview of the Michigan primaries in these seats as well as a personal rating of how the primaries might go.
MI-03: GOP scramble in Grand Rapids.
Michigan’s 3rd congressional district, which encompasses Grand Rapids and the larger portion of Kent County all the way down to Battle Creek in Calhoun County, is an open seat in the 2020 elections. Incumbent Republican-turned-independent-turned Libertarian Rep. Justin Amash, shortly after ending a brief bid for the Libertarian presidential nomination, confirmed he would not be seeking reelection to his seat this fall, which he has represented since being elected in 2010.
This district is historically a Republican seat, with the Grand Rapids metro area – and Western Michigan in general – being largely more Dutch, more white, and more conservative than other comparable Michigan cities. However, Grand Rapids has been seeing rapid population growth over the last few years, and the Trump-era trend of suburban Republicans flirting with Democratic candidates means that Democrats stand a fighting chance of winning this seat in the fall. Democrats also are especially emboldened after Governor Gretchen Whitmer lost the district by only 0.4% in 2018.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Scholten, a former attorney in the Obama Administration’s Justice Department, cleared the field and is running unopposed in the primary later this summer. Scholten has been endorsed by many Democratic power-players such as Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and the League of Conservation Voters.
The Republican side, however, faces a contested primary to decide who will take on Scholten. There are many candidates, however it is likely that the primary will come down between two candidates: Peter Meijer, whose father, Hank Meijer, is CEO of the Midwest-wide supermarket chain, and Lynn Afendoulis, state representative for Michigan’s 73rd district.
Meijer has raised the most money and has the most cash on hand for the primary, both from fundraising and also from self-funding, but Afendoulis has also been able to keep up with the financial powerhouse that is Meijer. In Q1 of 2020, Afendoulis managed to raise over half of what Meijer raised, though Meijer does have substantially more cash on hand.
Some members of the Michigan state legislature have endorsed Afendoulis, though Meijer has the endorsements of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, and the influential DeVos family.
My Rating: Likely Meijer
MI-08: Can the GOP reclaim Lansing and Livingston?
Michigan’s 8th congressional district, which contains Ingham County (home of Lansing), Livingston County, and the northern portion of Oakland County, faces a somewhat-competitive GOP primary in August to challenge incumbent representative Elissa Slotkin in the fall.
The strongest fundraiser in the GOP field is Paul Junge, a former Trump administration CIS worker and a former anchor from the Lansing area. Other candidates in the field include veteran Alan Hoover and automotive supplier Mike Detmer.
Republicans were excited about Nikki Snyder, a member of the Michigan State Board of Education. However, the Michigan Board of Canvassers removed her from the ballot after a portion of her signatures were deemed to be jurisdictional errors, and thus failed to meet the 500 signature requirement for the August primary.
Though Junge is the strongest fundraiser in the field, his fundraising still pales in comparison to the fundraising of Slotkin, who has emerged as one of the top fundraisers for Democrats in the House. As of Q1 2020, Junge has roughly $400k in cash on hand compared to Slotkin’s $3.7 million cash on hand.
My rating: Likely Junge
MI-10: Free-for-all in the thumb.
Michigan’s 10th congressional district – the colloquial “thumb” district – captures the rural farm areas of the northern thumb, northern Macomb County, and Port Huron on the coast of Lake Huron. This overwhelmingly Republican district is an open seat this fall after incumbent representative Paul Mitchell announced he would not seek a third term in 2020.
The frontrunner for the open seat is likely Lisa McClain, a financial executive who is the senior vice president of Hantz Group. McClain has raised the most money and has the most cash on hand of all of the candidates vying for the seat, and likely could also boost her chances through self-funding.
Other viable candidates include retired Air Force brigadier general Doug Slocum and Shane Hernandez, state representative from Michigan’s 83rd district, which covers Port Huron and the communities to its north.
The GOP primary in this seat is tantamount to a general election, as the seat is overwhelmingly Republican.
My Rating: Tossup/Lean McClain
MI-11: Who gets to take on Stevens?
Michigan’s 11th congressional district, a traditionally Republican seat that collects the whiter metro Detroit suburbs of Livonia and Troy, faces a GOP primary with a slew of GOP candidates.
The two likely top contenders for the seat are Carmelita Greco, a non-profit leader and small business owner from the Canton area, and Eric Esshaki, an NRCC Young Gun, registered nurse, and practicing attorney from Royal Oak.
Both Esshaki and Greco have roughly $200k cash on hand per the latest Q1 filings, however both of their fundraising pales in comparison to incumbent representative Haley Stevens at roughly $2.45 million.
Seats such as Michigan’s 11th have rapidly moved away from Republicans in the Trump-era, so whoever emerges from the primary this August faces a steep climb to unseat Stevens.
My Rating: Tossup/Lean Esshaki
MI12: Dingell’s latest challenge.
In the safely-Democratic Michigan 12th congressional district, Representative Debbie Dingell faces her first primary since being elected to the seat in 2014. The 12th congressional district stretches from the staunchly progressive Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, to Dearborn and Taylor in Metro Detroit.
The Dingell Dynasty runs deep in southeast Michigan; Dingell herself may have only been elected to the seat in 2014, but her late husband, former Dean of the House John Dingell, represented iterations of her district since he was first elected to the House in 1954 (whose father, in turn, represented iterations of that district since being first elected in 1932).
27-year-old University of Michigan medical student Solomon Rajput is primarying Dingell from the left for her seat, hoping to unseat her with a strong showing from the more transformative-liberal style politics of the Washtenaw County portion of the district. Rajput comes from the mold of the Bernie Sanders left-style movement in Michigan, calling for a Green New Deal, free college, eliminating student debt, and instituting Medicare for All.
While certainly an uphill climb for Rajput, it is within the realm of possibility he unseats Dingell. For Rajput to win, he would need to win the Washtenaw County portion big with major turnout, and keep the margin close in the Wayne County portion, perhaps even winning Dearborn.
My Rating: Likely/Safe Dingell
MI13: Will Tlaib hold on?
Michigan’s 13th congressional district, a VRA district that largely consists of the city of Detroit, is currently represented by “squad” member and progressive Rashida Tlaib, who emerged from a crowded field in 2018 after embattled representative and former Dean John Conyers resigned.
Tlaib faces a tough challenge from Brenda Jones, who is the sitting president of the Detroit City Council and who also served for three months in Congress from 2018-2019. In 2018, Tlaib had won the primary for the full term of 2019-2021 while Jones had won the primary to finish the remainder of Conyers’s term from November 2018 through January 2019.
This primary is by far the contest I will be spending most of my attention on this August, as there is a very real chance Tlaib is unseated by Jones. Tlaib has made national news for being a member of the “Squad,” who is aligned with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and also for her encounters with President Donald Trump.
On the other hand, Jones herself faces scrutiny for her praise of Louis Farrakhan in 2014, 2018, and 2020. Of course, this did not prevent her from being competitive in 2018, so the jury is still out per se if this will damage her in 2020.
Tlaib in 2018 benefited from a split field where there were multiple viable candidates splitting the black vote, including Jones, state senator Coleman Young II, and state senator and great-nephew to former representative John Conyers Ian Conyers. As Tlaib is only facing Jones this year, it is to be seen whether Jones can translate the 2018 split black vote into 2020 vote share and unseat Tlaib.
My Rating: Pure Tossup/tilt Tlaib