8/6 Primary Preview Part I
Kansas and Michigan
This is Part I of our preview of today’s primaries. Part II, covering Missouri and Washington, will be out later today.
Kansas
SD-02 (Lawrence)
Marci Francisco (i) vs. Christina Haswood
Result (>95% in): Francisco 57.2%, Haswood 42.8% | Francisco wins
State Sen. Marci Francisco has represented the college town of Lawrence in the Kansas Senate for the last 20 years, amassing a generally liberal voting record. State Rep. Christina Haswood is relatively new to the state capitol, serving as a state representative since her 2020 election to represent southeastern Lawrence and its more rural outskirts, and she’s an ardent progressive. As Francisco and Haswood are both members of powerless Democratic superminorities in their respective chambers, it’s not that easy for the two to differentiate themselves. Haswood, a member of the Navajo Nation who is only the third Native American woman to serve in the Kansas Legislature, has a particular focus on Native American issues; she has proposed a state-level counterpart to the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which works to keep Native foster children in Native households. Francisco, meanwhile, is backed by a PAC supported by Gov. Laura Kelly which seeks to elect moderates of both parties—the PAC was originally intended to chip away at the GOP supermajorities, but we guess fighting with your own party is more exciting.
SD-04 (Kansas City)
David Haley (i) vs. Ephren Taylor III
Result (>95% in): Haley 57.6%, Taylor 42.4% | Haley wins
Ephren Taylor III is vague about his background, generally sticking to the generic line that he’s a Gen Z community organizer whose father is incarcerated. What his father is incarcerated for might make people recoil: Ephren Taylor II is serving a 19-year prison sentence for running a $16 million Ponzi scheme which preyed on predominantly Black churchgoers, convincing them to invest their life savings in what they believed was “socially conscious investing” but was in reality the personal slush fund of Taylor and his partner in crime Wendy Connor. (Unless there’s another Ephren Taylor II with connections to the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro who’s currently incarcerated, which seems doubtful.) But Ephren Taylor III is not Ephren Taylor II; Taylor II’s crimes were committed when Taylor III was just a child, and groups including the Kansas Young Democrats and a couple of local unions are willing to take a chance on this 20-year-old organizer. Ephren Taylor III wants to bring a more progressive perspective to Topeka, and he happily admits he’s to the left of incumbent state Sen. David Haley; Haley, like Francisco, is backed by Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC as the governor looks to empower moderate Democrats in the last two years of her term, and he was the lone Senate Democrat to vote in favor of a school voucher bill last year. He argues that his opponent is too young to do the job, even though the minimum age to serve in the Kansas Legislature is 18. In our view, no age is too young to know that school vouchers are a bad idea that have been proven time and time again to gut public schools.
SD-19 (Topeka to Lawrence)
Vic Miller vs. Patrick Schmidt vs. ShaMecha King Simms
Result (>95% in): Schmidt 53.5%, Miller 34.0%, Simms 12.5% | Schmidt wins
Technically, this seat is held by a Republican. However, that’s the old SD-19. The newly drawn SD-19 is a heavily Democratic strip that follows the Kansas Turnpike from Topeka to Lawrence; Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the new SD-19 by over thirty points, and the winner of this primary should expect a similar margin in November. State House Minority Leader Vic Miller is looking for a promotion to the upper chamber, and it’s brought his feud with Gov. Laura Kelly out into the open—her Middle of the Road PAC is spending to attack Miller and support Navy veteran Patrick Schmidt, who has outraised and outspent Miller quite substantially. Topeka community activist ShaMecha King Simms is also in the running, but the nasty brawl between Miller and Schmidt—and, by proxy, Gov. Kelly—has attracted most of the attention, as Miller claims Kelly is just mad that he opposed a tax deal Kelly struck with legislative Republicans which included corporate tax cuts and other GOP priorities. Miller has also gotten in trouble for a comment about Simms, a Black woman, in which he dismissively said “your time’s another day, another place,” which he claims was a compliment in the context of a discussion about more women and people of color running for the Kansas Legislature, but…that context makes the comment sound worse.
HD-10 (Lawrence)
Zachary Hawkins vs. Suzanne Wikle
Result (>95% in): Wikle 90.8%, Hawkins 9.2% | Wikle wins
Healthcare advocate Suzanne Wikle, who frames herself as a progressive, is likely going to cruise to victory in Christina Haswood’s open Lawrence-area state House seat. Wikle focuses on affordability, Medicaid expansion, school funding, abortion rights, and LGBT rights. University of Kansas student Zachary Hawkins has virtually no money and a website dominated by AI-generated images, but he cites trans rights and abortion rights as top priorities.
HD-35 (Kansas City)
Marvin Robinson II (i) vs. Kimberly DeWitt vs. Wanda Kay Brownlee Paige vs. Michelle Watley
Result (>95% in): Paige 49.1%, Robinson 22.0%, Watley 20.2%, DeWitt 8.8% | Paige wins
State Rep. Marvin Robinson II crossed his party on a number of votes in his first term, voting to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a ban on transgender girls’ participation in school sports and following that vote with a vote against expanding Medicaid and a vote to override another Kelly veto of a bill tightening work requirements for food stamp recipients. Any one of those votes is enough on its own to warrant a primary challenge, but taken together, they’ve made Robinson’s ouster a top priority of many Kansas Democrats, who have taken Robinson’s betrayal quite personally. (Gov. Laura Kelly even vetoed a last-minute addition of funding for the restoration of the Quindaro Ruins, an Underground Railroad historical site in Robinson’s district, in what was seen as retaliation for Robinson’s vote on the trans sports ban, as many Democrats suspected Robinson had traded his votes for the funding.) Kelly’s PAC is supporting Wanda Kay Brownlee Paige, a member of the Kansas City, Kansas school board, and Paige has the most money of any Robinson challenger; political consultant Michelle Watley isn’t far behind, and business consultant Kimberly DeWitt also has a few bucks to spend. Any of them would make a better representative than Robinson.
HD-46 (Lawrence)
Logan Ginavan vs. Brittany Hall vs. Brooklynne Mosley
Result (>95% in): Mosley 67.4%, Hall 27.6%, Ginavan 5.0% | Mosley wins
Democratic operative Brooklynne Mosley is the fundraising leader for this open Lawrence-area seat, though her history as a party operative has earned her some detractors (she ran the statewide coordinated campaign for New Jersey Democrats in the disastrous 2021 cycle.) Brittany Hall, who moved to Lawrence to attend Haskell Indian Nations University and now serves as president of the university’s Board of Regents, is also running a spirited campaign with the backing of Run for Something and the Kansas Farm Bureau. University of Kansas student Logan Ginavan rounds out the field, and while he has the least money of the three, he gets some credit from us for having the most detailed platform.
HD-58 (Topeka)
Wendy Damman-Bednar vs. Alexis Simmons
Result (>95% in): Simmons 85.2%, Damman-Bednar 14.8% | Simmons wins
State House staffer Alexis Simmons is the clear favorite to succeed her boss, House Minority Leader Vic Miller. She has a large financial advantage, the support of other notable Topeka Democrats like former Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, and the backing of the Kansas arm of the National Education Association. State employee Wendy Damman-Badnar has some campaign experience of her own from Democratic campaigns in Florida and Kansas, but she’s strapped for cash and lacks the high-profile backers Simmons has in her corner. Damman-Badnar is somewhat more skeptical of tax cuts than Simmons, but both cite property tax relief as a priority; Simmons also wants to increase funding for Kansas’s underfunded local schools, and both candidates want to legalize cannabis.
Michigan
MI-13 (Detroit and Downriver suburbs)
Shri Thanedar (i) vs. Shakira Lynn Hawkins vs. Mary Waters
Result (>95% in): Thanedar 54.3%, Waters 34.3%, Hawkins 11.4% | Thanedar wins
Somehow unfamiliar with Shri Thanedar? Here, we’ve summed him up before; the following is taken from our January 7, 2022 issue and our 2022 Michigan primary preview:
Shri Thanedar is one of those characters you don’t forget. Thanedar was a totally unknown pharma millionaire who burst onto the Michigan political scene by desperately turning the money hose everywhere he could in an attempt to become governor. Despite claiming to be “the most progressive Democrat running for governor”, no one in Michigan actually bought that, especially given his animal-murdering corporate past, and the presence of Abdul El-Sayed in the race, the candidate who all the progressive groups were actually excited about. Mid-campaign revelations that he enthusiastically attended a Marco Rubio rally in 2016 were surprising but not shocking given how obvious a political act this was for him. Thanedar came in third with 18%, doing best near Detroit, possibly because he’d been secretly buying off local radio hosts during the primary. It’s hard to describe Shri’s odd stage presence, his deluge of ads, or how damn weird that whole campaign was. (If you don’t have the phrase "Shri is me" lodged permanently in your brain, consider yourself lucky).
In 2020, he set his sights lower, running for an open state house seat in Detroit. The local establishment, figuring there was no reason to piss off the rich guy over a single house seat, put up only half-hearted opposition to him, and he won 35% to 20%. He's done little of note with his year in the House, except, evidently, plan a run for Congress. Thanedar first made noises about challenging Tlaib in November but no one took that bluster too seriously. Until now.
Thanedar is the bad outcome—a wealthy self funder with no real allegiance to the Democratic Party, and some real questionable ethics. He’s spent at least $4 million of his own money on the race, and has high name recognition after his gubernatorial run. Normally, someone like Shri, who can buy himself some support but is off putting to a majority of voters, would be easy to dismiss. But, in a field this wide open, he could win.
[from our 2022 Michigan primary preview]
Well, win he did! Thanedar’s time in Congress has been messy, with his House colleagues, local elected officials, and former staffers all criticizing his job performance on non-ideological grounds, saying he neglects constituent services so badly that residents of his Detroit-based district go to neighboring Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Debbie Dingell for help with federal agencies. Thanedar also did a 180 on the issue of Israel, going from a target of AIPAC and harsh critic of Israel in his 2022 race to an ally of the organization in 2024. (The advisability of such a move in a Detroit-based district that takes in Hamtramck and part of Dearborn Heights is questionable, especially since AIPAC hasn’t actually spent on Thanedar’s behalf in return for his about-face on Israel policy.) Given the widespread dismay in Detroit political circles with the city’s lack of Black representation in Congress (and the popularity of Detroit’s other representative, Rashida Tlaib), Thanedar was always likely to face a primary, but his lackadaisical job performance only hardened the resolve of those seeking to make his congressional tenure a short one.
At first, it seemed like Thanedar was headed for a rematch with the second-place finisher from 2022: former state Sen. Adam Hollier, who was the AIPAC favorite in 2022 but was abandoned by the group in 2024. Hollier had widespread support from the Michigan Democratic establishment and was fundraising well. Everything seemed set for an expensive and competitive rematch between Thanedar and Hollier. Then Hollier got disqualified from the ballot due to problems with his nominating petitions, and the Detroit establishment was left to choose between Thanedar and the two challengers who had managed to secure spots on the ballot: Detroit At-Large City Councilor Mary Waters and attorney Shakira Lynn Hawkins. Hawkins doesn’t seem like a credible challenger to Thanedar this cycle, and Waters is pretty different from Hollier. Hollier was a strong fundraiser, whereas Waters is a fairly weak one; Hollier was a moderate, whereas Waters is a progressive; Hollier was once AIPAC’s candidate, whereas Waters has made a Gaza ceasefire part of her campaign message, which earned her the support of civic leaders in heavily Muslim Hamtramck; Hollier had a squeaky-clean record other than the petition troubles, whereas Waters pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false tax return for failing to report a gift of a Rolex watch in 2010 as part of a bribery scheme. But faced with a choice between Waters and Thanedar, Detroit’s political class barely even hesitated before throwing their support to Waters. Mayor Mike Duggan, who had clashed with Waters on the city council, promptly endorsed Waters upon Hollier’s disqualification from the ballot, and brought along a majority of Detroit’s city council as a show of force at the press conference announcing his endorsement. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans also backed Waters shortly after Hollier’s disqualification, headlining a rally in Detroit for Waters, Senate candidate Hill Harper, and Flint-area congressional candidate Pamela Pugh. And it’s not just the local establishment backing Waters—the UAW is also supporting Waters over Thanedar.
Thanedar will need a lot more than the 28% of the vote that earned him the Democratic nomination in 2022—in fact, for the first time in Thanedar’s career, he should probably be aiming for a majority of the primary vote. It’s got his allies scared: a mysterious PAC called Blue Wave Action is even sending out mailers falsely claiming Waters opposes same-sex marriage and boosting Hawkins as a spoiler candidate. Thanedar has spent quite a lot of money himself—as usual, he’s self-funding most of his campaign, and he’s spent well over a million dollars in the home stretch of this primary, most of it out of his own wallet. He should be able to hang on, based on the combination of incumbency and money working in his favor, but he’s pissed off a lot of people in Detroit politics over the years, and that provides an opening for Waters.
HD-01 (Southwest Detroit and suburbs)
Tyrone Carter (i) vs. Jay Lovelady
Result (>95% in): Carter 82.8%, Lovelady 17.2% | Carter wins
Backbencher Tyrone Carter is being challenged by Jay Lovelady, a man who appears to be a Bernie-supporting progressive based on his social media, but has no campaign to speak of.
HD-03 (Dearborn)
Alabas Farhat (i) vs. Ziad Abdulmalik vs. Gus H. Tarraf
Result (>95% in): Farhat 49.4%, Abdulmalik 40.0%, Tarraf 10.7% | Farhat wins
State Rep. Alabas Farhat faces a pair of challengers, and he’s taking them very seriously, spending about $100,000 so far on his reelection campaign. Farhat has the backing of organized labor and Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, while Ziad Abdulmalik is running a campaign targeted at Dearborn’s large and politically active Arab-American community; Gus Tarraf is an ex-Republican with conservative politics. Abdulmalik is delinquent on his campaign finance reports, and Tarraf has raised an amount that might not seem inadequate had Farhat not unloaded six figures in campaign spending.
HD-05 (Northwest Detroit and Oak Park)
Regina Weiss (i) vs. Crystal Bailey vs. Kevin Keys III vs. Eric Love
Result (>95% in): Weiss 48.4%, Bailey 39.9%, Keys 5.9%, Love 5.8% | Weiss wins
Regina Weiss got a tougher district in 2022 as a result of the regular round of redistricting, which turned her suburban district into one of many Detroit-to-suburbs strip districts. She held on to her seat in 2022 with 62% of the primary vote. The latest round of VRA redistricting only compounded her problems, giving her a compact district based mostly in northwest Detroit and also including the Oakland County suburb of Oak Park. Now Weiss has to win reelection as a white suburbanite in an 84% Black district located mostly in Detroit proper, and some (but not all) of Detroit’s Black establishment is weighing in for one of Weiss’s challengers, former Oak Park Board of Education member Crystal Bailey. Weiss was able to carry Detroit in her 2022 primary, but she did so with a 41% plurality against challengers lacking money and noteworthy backers; Bailey has kept pace with Weiss’s spending, though Weiss has a lot more to spend in the final days, and Bailey, unlike Weiss’s 2022 opponents, has a realistic hope of keeping Weiss’s margins down in Oak Park, their shared home where Weiss was once a city councilor. Given the example of Richard Steenland in 2022, we’d almost call Weiss the underdog here. Kevin Keys III and Eric Love probably help Weiss by splitting the anti-Weiss vote, but neither should have a serious chance here.
HD-06 (Detroit suburbs - Oakland County)
Natalie Price (i) vs. Joseph Fisher
Result (>95% in): Price 90.1%, Fisher 9.9% | Price wins
Low-key progressive state Rep. Natalie Price doesn’t have much to worry about in her primary with eccentric local man Joseph Fisher, whose issues page is one for the books, even if having a joke about pineapple on pizza is very Reddit and dated at this point.
HD-07 (Central Detroit, Highland Park, Hamtramck)
Ernest Little vs. Tonya Myers Phillips vs. Abraham Shaw
Result (>95% in): Phillips 67.5%, Shaw 16.5%, Little 16.0% | Phillips wins
In a loss for progressives, state Rep. Abraham Aiyash is retiring early. However, Aiyash has a successor in mind, Tonya Myers Phillips, and Phillips appears to be a solid favorite to succeed Aiyash. Phillips, an attorney, is supported by Rashida Tlaib, the UAW, the Detroit Free Press, and much of the Detroit city council; she also has a wide lead in fundraising over her two opponents, realtor Ernest Little and auto repair technician Abraham Shaw. Phillips’s platform is on the vague side but leans progressive; her leading priority is expanding the social safety net, and she also wants greater funding for alternatives to incarceration.
HD-08 (Northwest Detroit and Ferndale)
Helena Scott (i) vs. Chris Gilmer-Hill
Result (>95% in): Scott 73.3%, Gilmer-Hill 26.7% | Scott wins
Helena Scott is in her second term in the state house, and hasn’t had an easy primary yet. Scott, a Black Detroit politician, was given a totally redrawn district in 2022, and her reelection in what was then the 7th state house was only by a 53%-40% margin against a white suburban progressive. This year, she has a stronger challenger: Chris Gilmer-Hill, a recent Harvard graduate and the electoral chair of Detroit DSA. Though he doesn’t have the DSA’s endorsement in this contest, Gilmer-Hill is running on a very progressive platform and relentlessly attacks Scott for her corporate ties.
While it won’t matter too much in the election, we can’t not mention that Gilmer-Hill may have literally drawn this district—his citizen proposal for a remedial district map after the court-ordered redistricting was substantially similar to the map that was actually passed. Some people have read a lot into his role, but it’s kind of unknowable if he actually worked with any redistricting commissioners or not.
HD-09 (Downtown Detroit)
Joseph Tate (i) vs. Ryan M. Nelson vs. Lory Renea Parks
Result (>95% in): Tate 74.9%, Parks 18.9%, Nelson 6.2% | Tate wins
State House Speaker Joe Tate faces a pair of underfunded challengers, small businessman Ryan M. Nelson and community organizer Lory Renea Parks. Tate should coast.
HD-10 (Eastern Detroit and Grosse Pointes)
Veronica Paiz (i) vs. Justin Counts
Result (>95% in): Paiz 76.3%, Counts 23.7% | Paiz wins
Sales executive Justin Counts hasn’t filed any campaign finance reports and doesn’t seem to have a website, so first-term state Rep. Veronica Paiz should have an easy time this year after a narrow, hard-fought victory as the apparent progressive choice in 2022.
HD-12 (Eastern Detroit, Eastpointe, and St. Clair Shores)
Kimberly L. Edwards (i) vs. Patrick Biange vs. Angela McIntosh
Result (>95% in): Edwards 68.3%, McIntosh 21.2%, Biange 10.6% | Edwards wins
Kimberly Edwards unseated state Rep. Richard Steenland in a massive upset in 2022, running up the score in Detroit and carrying her home of Eastpointe with less than $1,000 in campaign funds and no publicly available information about the candidate at the time of her primary victory. Steenland, a white man from the mostly white suburb of Roseville, didn’t appreciate that he might be vulnerable to a Black challenger in a district redrawn to be about ½ Black, and Edwards, a social worker, was able to catch him napping. Now Edwards is up for reelection in a redrawn district that traded Roseville for St. Clair Shores and a bit more of Detroit proper, and she’s in a commanding position to win a second term—this time, she’s the incumbent with a large financial advantage over a pair of little-known challengers, perennial candidate Patrick Biange and businesswoman Angela McIntosh.
HD-13 (Detroit suburbs - Macomb County)
Mai Xiong (i) vs. Patricia Johnson Singleton vs. Richard Steenland
Result (>95% in): Xiong 71.4%, Steenland 19.1%, Johnson Singleton 9.5% | Xiong wins
Macomb County Commissioner Mai Xiong won a special election to succeed Lori Stone as the representative for a different HD-13, after the latter was elected mayor of the suburban city of Warren. Before Xiong was even elected to fill out the remainder of Stone’s term, however, a court approved a redrawn map after finding in favor of plaintiffs who had argued that Michigan’s redistricting commission had violated the Voting Rights Act’s requirements for majority-minority districts in more than a dozen legislative districts in metro Detroit. HD-13 was one of the districts affected by the redraw, and it transformed dramatically. The old HD-13 had been a narrow north-south strip from the northeastern edge of Warren to a point several miles deep into the city of Detroit that had voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump by close to 30 points in 2020, but the new HD-13 is a compact wedge of suburban Macomb County that voted for Biden by less than 2 percentage points. The redraw didn’t just make Xiong a potential GOP target—it also earned her a primary challenge from former state Rep. Richard Steenland. (See our HD-12 item above.) While Steenland did carry the portion of his old district which was absorbed into Xiong’s in the 2024 redraw, getting caught off-guard like that doesn’t inspire confidence in Steenland’s ability to unseat an incumbent fresh off a special election victory who’s outraised him more than 10 to 1.
HD-14 (Detroit suburbs - Macomb and Oakland counties)
Mike McFall (i) vs. Jim Fouts
Result (>95% in): McFall 71.1%, Fouts 28.9% | McFall wins
Jim Fouts served four terms as mayor of Warren (even withstanding public outcry over his reported use of ableist and racist slurs) and was aiming for a fifth when a series of court decisions held that the city’s recently-tightened mayoral term limits barred him from seeking that fifth four-year term in 2023. Fouts, 81, wasn’t ready to retire from politics, and redistricting handed him a new opportunity this year, when state Rep. Mike McFall’s 8th district was redrawn, trading its segment of Detroit for much of Warren and the enclave of Center Line and being renumbered as the 14th district. Fouts has been largely self-funding his campaign and has outspent McFall, but the Michigan Democratic establishment and organized labor, including the UAW, have stuck with McFall, a loyal and low-key member of the Democratic state House majority. And subjectively, candidates who spend their time arguing over yard signs tend to lose.
HD-16 (Northwest Detroit and suburbs)
Stephanie Young (i) vs. Keith Windham
Result (>95% in): Young 90.7%, Windham 9.3% | Young wins
Stephanie Young is a low-profile legislator who chairs the state House’s Committee on Families, Children and Seniors. She should easily dispatch phantom candidate Keith Windham.
HD-25 (Detroit suburbs - Wayne County)
Peter Herzberg (i) vs. Melandie Hines vs. Salif Kourouma vs. Lekisha Maxwell vs. Layla Taha
Result (>95% in): Herzberg 53.5%, Taha 31.6%, Maxwell 8.1%, Hines 5.9%, Kourouma 0.8% | Herzberg wins
Peter Herzberg won this seat in a special election earlier this year, defeating a crowded field that included former Westland School Board member Melandie Hines and Detroit DSA-endorsed Rashida Tlaib staffer Layla Taha, among others. Hines, who placed a distant fourth with 8%, and Taha, who managed a respectable third with 22%, are back for another try, but after losing the special, this is now an uphill battle to defeat Herzberg, a more moderate Democrat who was favored by much of the local establishment in that special election. Taha has emerged as Herzberg’s main challenger for the full term, but the incumbent has outspent Taha by a significant margin (though Taha has spent a good chunk of change on her own campaign.) Taha is still backed by Detroit DSA and her boss Rashida Tlaib, but that wasn’t enough to secure a plurality in a crowded field with no incumbent, and it’s hard to see that being enough to retire an incumbent who now has unified establishment support.
HD-26 (Detroit suburbs - Wayne County)
Dylan Wegela (i) vs. DeArtriss Coleman-Richardson
Result (>95% in): Wegela 73.8%, Coleman-Richardson 26.2% | Wegela wins
Dylan Wegela was first elected by a plurality victory last cycle, and has spent his time in office as the lone dissenting vote from the Democratic strategy of mixing corporate giveaways into their bills to peep off Republican votes. While in many legislative chambers that would be a symbolic protest, in Michigan's one-vote Democratic majority it's a serious attempt to kill bills he doesn't think should become law. Given that he can't not be pissing off state leadership, you’d think that there’d be a serious attempt to unseat the thorn-in-the-side DSA member after courts redrew his district. But Inkster City Councilmenber DeArtriss Coleman-Richardson has had to do without any outside support, as well as any money, at all.
HD-33 (Ann Arbor and suburbs)
Morgan Foreman vs. Rima Mohammad
Result (>95% in): Foreman 66.9%, Mohammad 33.1% | Foreman wins
State Rep. Felicia Brabec is retiring and backing her constituent services director, Morgan Foreman, to succeed her. Foreman has a lot of advantages, including the backing of most of the local establishment and the UAW, but she’s been outraised and outspent by Ann Arbor Board of Education member Rima Mohammad, who is backed by prominent Michigan progressives like Rashida Tlaib, Dylan Wegela, and Abdul El-Sayed. Nothing in Foreman’s platform is objectionable—we like her mention of building decarbonization and her focus on consumer protection—but Mohammad goes further on most issues, calling for an assault weapons ban, universal pre-K, stronger tenant protections, and lifting the state’s ban on rent control, among other noteworthy stances. If Wegela and Tlaib are both backing her, we think it’s safe to assume Mohammad would back up that rhetoric in her voting record, further empowering progressives in the event that Democrats keep their majority.
HD-40 (Kalamazoo suburbs)
Lisa Brayton vs. Matt Longjohn
Result (>95% in): Longjohn 70.4%, Brayton 29.6% | Longjohn wins
Lisa Brayton and Matt Longjohn are both best known for previous failed runs for office. Longjohn was the Democratic nominee for southwestern Michigan’s 6th congressional district in 2018, raising good money and holding moderate GOP Rep. Fred Upton to a much closer than usual 4.5-point victory. Brayton was a candidate for mayor of the Kalamazoo suburb of Portage last year, but her mayoral bid was derailed when it turned out she had falsified an affidavit certifying her residency, and therefore her eligibility to run for mayor, by listing a since-demolished home as her current residence. Brayton ended up resigning and pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge over the falsified affidavit, and she’s struggled to bring in campaign funds and endorsements; the local establishment clearly prefers Longjohn, a physician and healthcare executive who acquitted himself well in his 2018 congressional run.
HD-70 (Flint)
Cynthia Neeley (i) vs. Michael Clack
Result (>95% in): Neeley 60.8%, Clack 39.2% | Neeley wins
Cynthia Neeley took over for her husband Sheldon in 2020 after he was elected mayor of Flint in 2019. Since then, she’s been a low-profile legislator, though she has risen to chair the state House’s Tax Policy committee. Neeley and her opponent, Flint Board of Education Vice President Michael Clack, both want to bring more state money to Flint and attract more major employers to the city. Neeley has raised and spent a reasonable amount on her reelection campaign, while Clack, who previously ran unsuccessfully against Neeley in the 2020 special primary, is delinquent on his campaign finance reports.
HD-77 (Lansing and suburbs)
Emily Dievendorf (i) vs. Angela Mathews
Result (>95% in): Dievendorf 66.3%, Mathews 33.7% | Dievendorf wins
LGBT rights activist and bookstore owner Emily Dievendorf didn’t even want to run for office in 2022—but, spurred on by other activists unhappy with their options, they did, and they won the Democratic primary for a seat representing the northern half of the state capital and some surrounding suburbs by just 26 votes. Now seeking their second term, Dievendorf faces a somewhat easier path than in their last election, when business groups backed a self-funding local businessman. This time, Dievendorf’s only opponent is Lansing Community College Trustee Angie Mathews, who currently chairs the community college’s board of trustees; Mathews has failed to file campaign finance reports in this race and has faced legal scrutiny for deficient campaign finance filings before. Mathews is an elected official, not a nobody, but Dievendorf has establishment and labor backing plus the power of incumbency, and Mathews’s campaign isn’t showing the signs of life normally associated with a competitive primary.
HD-84 (Grand Rapids and suburbs)
Carol Glanville (i) vs. Justin Rackham
Result (>95% in): Glanville 93.5%, Rackham 6.5% | Glanville wins
Carol Glanville flipped a solidly Republican state House seat in a 2022 special election after the Republican nominee said rape victims should “lie back and enjoy it” and shared social media posts calling feminism a “Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men.” She then got very lucky with that year’s redistricting, as her suburban West Michigan district absorbed the northwestern quarter of Grand Rapids and went from solidly Republican to leaning Democratic. The Grand Rapids area was unaffected by the 2024 Voting Rights Act redraw, and so Glanville is favored for another two years in the state House; all she has to do is make it past phantom candidate Justin Rackham in the Democratic primary.
Wayne County Sheriff
Raphael Washington (i) vs. Joan Merriewether
Result (>95% in): Washington 64.5%, Merrieweather 35.5% | Washington wins
Raphael Washington, appointed to the sheriff office after the previous sheriff died of COVID, managed to avoid drawing any strong challengers, a state of affairs that likely only happened because the four sexual harassment lawsuits against him dropped after the filing deadline. Washington prevailed by a 48% to 28% margin against retired deputy Joan Merriewether, who is now running again. Washington, who is now clearly selling reserve deputy positions in the department, doesn’t deserve another term, but we don’t know what Merriewether is doing differently from last cycle that could put her over the top.