Honigman Capitol Report

Tudor Dixon wins Republican Primary

Congressional District Highlights

John Gibbs took down incumbent Peter Meijer in West Michigan’s Third District. While Gibbs lacked name recognition over Meijer, Meijer was one of ten republicans who voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment and Trump’s endorsement gave him the boost he needed to take the win.

Redistricting forced two incumbent Democrat members of Congress, Andy Levin and Haley Stevens, to run against each other in the primary for the newly-drawn 11th District. Despite visits from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Levin was unable to defeat the more moderate Stevens, making next year the first since 1979 that Congress will not include a member of the Levin family.

Once again, Rashida Tlaib crushes her challengers in the 12th District. Not surprisingly, her challengers consistently lagged behind in campaign contributions. Bernie Sanders joined both Tlaib and Andy Levin over the weekend to campaign ahead of the primary.

In unofficial results with some votes left to be counted, Shri Thanedar wins over 8 other candidates in the 13th District making it potentially the first time in approximately 70 years that Detroit will not have Black representation in Congress. Thanedar beat out Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan backed Adam Hollier and Portia Roberson. The district is safely blue, so Thanedar is virtually assured to win in November.

Michigan Senate Primaries

Two incumbents faced off in the 8th District with Mallory McMorrow defeating Marshall Bullock after gaining an increase in name recognition. McMorrow received national attention after a GOP member made accusations against her and her rebuttal went viral.

GOP incumbents Kim LaSata and Lana Theis, from the 17th and 22nd Districts respectively, went up against Trump endorsed challengers Jonathan Lindsey and Mike Detmer. While Theis succeeded in defeating Detmer, LaSata faced a bigger fight having moved into a new district, losing some of her old turf, and ultimately losing to Lindsey.

November Matchups

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin faces Sen. Tom Barrett in the Seventh District in November. While neither candidate participated in the primary, that didn’t stop Slotkin from aggressively building up her campaign finance numbers, reporting over $6.5 million on hand compared to Barrett’s $439,048 at the end of the second quarter.

Former Macomb County Judge Carl Marlinga will face Republican John James in the 10th District. While the redrawn District tilts Republican and James is well recognized, Marlinga also has strong name recognition after spending a long career in the district as the former county prosecutor and an assistant U.S. attorney in addition to his time as a 16th Circuit Court judge.

Trump-endorsed John Gibbs goes up against Hillary Scholten giving Scholten a chance to come back after getting beat by Peter Meijer by 6 points under the old lines in 2020. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $450,000 on ads attacking Gibbs as too conservative in order to encourage GOP voters to vote for him, hoping that Gibbs will be easier to defeat than Meijer.

Kansas Maintains Abortion Rights in Constitution

In a precursor to Michigan’s General Election where a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights is anticipated to be on the ballot, Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment to remove abortion rights. The preliminary numbers show a decisive margin of 59 to 41 percent with about 95 percent of votes counted.