Heated primary races this summer are creating rifts within the Michigan Democratic Party that might last beyond the Aug. 4 election.
On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten of Grand Rapids didn’t answer directly during a CNN appearance Wednesday whether she would support Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed of Ann Arbor if he wins the party’s primary.
Scholten has been supporting U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham for the Senate nomination. Scholten criticized El-Sayed for campaigning with left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, who once remarked that the U.S. “deserved” the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“I will not even come close to being associated with comments like ‘America deserved Sept. 11,'” Scholten said on CNN.
Progressive Democrats have voiced frustration with Scholten’s efforts on behalf of Stevens. Democratic state Senate candidate Ivan Diaz of Grand Rapids vowed on social media, “Hillary Scholten is getting primaried next cycle.”
Scholten is unopposed in her primary in two weeks.
Stevens also continued to face internal party criticism last week with state Rep. Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, saying in a Facebook post that Stevens had not been seen in the northern part of the state during the campaign.
“I have to ask sincerely what does that say about the kind of attentiveness we can expect if she wins?” Coffia asked.
Her post had spurred 184 comments as of Thursday.
On Friday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer‘s endorsement of Stevens elicited another round of boos from progressives supporting El-Sayed, Whitmer’s one-time nemesis in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor.
Whitmer’s detractors appeared to include the United Auto Workers, which has endorsed El-Sayed and took a veiled shot at Friday’s endorsement news.
“We know who is on our side, and who is on the side of corporations,” the UAW said on X.
It’s not just the Senate primary that has Democrats at odds with each other this summer.
In an interview with The Detroit News, another state lawmaker, Rep. Jennifer Conlin, D-Ann Arbor Township, said she was disappointed that U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, was endorsing and campaigning for Democratic U.S. House candidate Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL.
Maasdam of Genoa Township is in a three-way primary race in the Lansing area 7th District against former ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink of Lansing and community organizer Will Lawrence of Lansing.
Conlin said she believes Maasdam is in third place and Slotkin’s efforts might help Lawrence, the most liberal of the three, win the nomination and face Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett in November.
“It’s sort of shocking to me that she’s choosing to go against the only female candidate who has this stellar experience that reflects her own,” Conlin told The News.
Slotkin has described Maasdam as a fighter who will stand up to Trump’s attacks on democracy.
In the attorney general race, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald declined to say during an interview on WJBK-TV (Fox 2) last week whether she’ll back Democratic nominee Eli Savit, the Washtenaw County prosecutor, in the general election.
Savit defeated McDonald for the attorney general nomination at a Michigan Democratic Party convention in April.
“There are a lot of things that are still unknown between now and November,” McDonald said.
McDonald said she has never seen the party as divided as it is now.
Will Lawrence’s prom date steps up
Democrat Will Lawrence of Lansing had an unusual surrogate step in to help his campaign for a battleground U.S. House seat last week: his East Lansing High School prom date.
Maegan Houang sent out text messages to voters in the 7th District, asking them if they would vote for Lawrence, who’s in a competitive Democratic primary. Houang is now a writer for TV shows, like “Shogun” and “the Sympathizer.”
“I’m texting to ask you to vote for my prom date, William Lawrence,” she wrote, attaching a picture from their prom night.
“He’s always been a thoughtful leader who cared more for others than himself,” Houang added.
NRSC denies it’s funding El-Sayed
A TV ad running in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary claims that Republicans are spending in the contest to help Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, but the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm insists they haven’t dropped any money.
The ad making the claim about GOP interference was paid for by the United Democracy Project, which is affiliated with the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee and has spent at least $25 million in the Michigan primary. The spot attacks El-Sayed of Ann Arbor’s progressive positions and claims that the GOP is helping him because he “can’t win the general election.”
El-Sayed‘s opponent, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham, has also claimed in recent public remarks that the GOP is helping to fund El-Sayed.
Stevens at a debate earlier this month claimed Republicans are “spending thousands of dollars to prop up his campaign, because they think it will make it easier for Mike Rogers to win,” she said of the presumptive GOP nominee.
Stevens’ team pointed to an ad released June 25 and paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee claiming that El-Sayed is “too radical for Michigan” and urging voters to reject him. The ad was released the same day that Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, who is the Senate Republicans’ whip, told Semafor that El-Sayed is “somebody to the radical extreme … that’s going to make it even better for us there.”
UDP spokesman Patrick Dorton also pointed to the NRSC ad and subsequent analysis of it in news reports, including CNN, Bridge Michigan and The Down Ballot, that suggested it showed Republicans would prefer to run against El-Sayed instead of Stevens.
Dorton highlighted from the report in Bridge Michigan a claim that Republicans have “spent money on primary-season ads calling several of his policy proposals, including Medicare for All, ‘too radical for Michigan.'”
The NRSC, however, said they’ve not put any money behind the June 25 ad to boost it or broadcast it, only posting the spot online, according to spokeswoman Samantha Cantrell.
Campaign finance records show the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate GOP leadership, has only made independent expenditures in support of Rogers.
Whitmer defends veto of 9 bills
Whitmer on Tuesday defended her veto of nine bills that were presented to her after roughly 18 months of delay, dismissing criticisms from labor unions and legislative Democrats.
The Republican-led House finally presented the bills to the governor earlier this month, under court order, and she vetoed them shortly after. She argued in her veto letter that the delay in presentation meant that implementation dates had since passed; other, newer laws now conflicted with the bills; and the built-up costs would decimate the budget.
“I have seen some of the comments and I recognize that there are lawyers with different interpretations,” Whitmer told reporters Tuesday. “I can tell you that there’s no question — whether it is the dates or the huge implications to the budget or the laws that have been enacted subsequently — they were all a part of that determination.”
When asked whether she would have signed if they had been presented to her as soon as they were passed, Whitmer didn’t answer directly.
“Had they been presented 18 months ago, we’d be having a different conversation,” she said.
Ufford uses Trump-like line to attack Moss
The campaign for Democratic U.S. House candidate Don Ufford, a Ford Motor Co. engineer from Bloomfield Township, launched a new website last week going after his opponent, state Sen. Jeremy Moss of Bloomfield. The two are vying for a congressional seat in Michigan’s safely blue 11th District, which covers much of Oakland County.
The site calls out Moss’s backing from corporate PACs and from groups and individuals tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel organization commonly known as AIPAC. Ufford has consistently tried to differentiate himself from Moss on both fronts.
The website also uses a line similar to one of President Donald Trump’s most famous attacks of the 2024 presidential race. “Jeremy Moss is for them, not for you,” Ufford’s new site says.
That line echoes Trump’s series of ads against former Vice President and then-Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, which said, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
Chung goes on spending spree in 10th District Democratic primary
U.S. House hopeful Eric Chung of Sterling Heights has cranked up his spending in recent weeks as he looks to win a competitive, three-way Democratic primary contest for a seat anchored in Macomb County.
Chung, a former Commerce Department attorney, has long led the field in fundraising but was slow to spend his cash through July 1. That has changed, per the latest federal campaign finance filings, which cover through July 15.
The 10th District candidate used $489,000 in campaign funds during that two-week period and has now spent close to $1.3 million in total, with more than $600,000 left in the bank.
Christina Hines of Warren, a former special victims prosecutor and mother of three, had the lowest fundraising total but the most spending in the race heading into July. But she did not have the resources on hand to power a spending surge like Chung’s heading into the home stretch ahead of the Aug. 4 election.
Hines used about $85,000 in campaign funds — a fraction of her opponent’s spending —during the latest period. That brought her spend total to about $1 million, with $160,000 left in reserves.
Outside groups have also become active in the Democratic primary. Equality PAC, which backs LGBTQ+ candidates, has spent about $140,000 in support of Chung. The group Pro-Choice Majority Action has spent about $250,000 to back Hines.
Former Pontiac Mayor Tim Greimel remains competitive in the race ($840,000 total spending) but has not yet gotten significant outside help.
Ananich leaving Michigan Gaming Control Board
Former state Sen. Jim Ananich, D-Flint, has resigned as Michigan Gaming Control Board chairman and will be replaced by Jim Townsend, a former state lawmaker and current director of the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University.
Ananich, who was appointed to the board in 2025, resigned in order to maintain a healthy “work-life balance,” he told The News.
Townsend’s appointment, which is subject to the advice and consent of the state Senate, will begin Aug. 1 and will expire “at the pleasure of the governor.”
Tweet of the Week
The Insider report’s “Tweet of the Week,” recognizing a social media post that was worthy of attention or, possibly, just a laugh, from the previous week goes to Kurt Berryman, lobbyist for the Auto Dealers of Michigan.
Berryman vented Wednesday on Facebook about Republican candidate for governor Perry Johnson‘s campaign bus partially blocking a street lane on Washington Square in downtown Lansing.
“Block half a city street and trap several cars in … great campaign stop,” Berryman wrote with a photo of Johnson’s bus with an image of himself on the side.
When Johnson’s bus made a similar visit to Lansing in April, the vehicle got a ticket for blocking traffic.
