As I watched returns from an important Aug. 4 primary election that brought some surprises, I was particularly interested in two Michigan congressional districts, the 7th and 10th, that are rarities in current American politics: They are competitive in November.
In the 10th District, Democrat Christina Hines easily won her party’s nomination over two other credible candidates. Hines, an adjunct law professor at Wayne State University and former prosecuting attorney, will face Michael Bouchard Jr., a military veteran and Bronze Star winner endorsed by President Donald Trump.
The general election race to replace U.S. Rep. John James, now
the GOP gubernatorial candidate, promises to be hard-fought, expensive and close. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the the 10th as leaning Republican. The Macomb County-based district, which has supported politicians of both parties in recent years, was among the areas known for sprouting “Reagan Democrats” – working-class voters with union affiliations who broke from tradition to back Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
Bouchard has more name recognition than most first-time candidates because his father served in the Michigan Legislature, and has been Oakland County sheriff since 1999. With Trump’s endorsement, big money is sure to flow his way as Republicans battle to hold their thin U.S. House majority. He will be among the tests in November of whether Trump, with record-low approval, has lame-duck coattails or is a ball and chain.
Hines will be strong. She cleared the field against good opponents, stressing that she was the only candidate from Macomb County and practicing old-fashioned retail politics. She told the Free Press Editorial Board she knocked on thousands of doors, “in places that Democrats won't knock, and I've learned a lot about what I think our community actually cares about.”
Republicans will run against Joe Biden, socialism and immigrants – expect a lot of the latter from Bouchard, who was deployed to the southern border during Trump’s first term. Hines is not tied to those red-meat issues, and will emphasize kitchen-table matters such as affordability, housing costs and protecting Social Security.
Meanwhile, in Elissa Slotkin's old district ...
Also well worth watching through the fall will be Michigan’s 7th District, which the nonpartisan Cook Report rates as one of only 18 toss-ups in the 435-seat House.
Michigan Democrats made a hash of this primary, splitting endorsements between two centrist candidates: Bridget Brink, the former ambassador to Ukraine who got the nod from mainstream Michigan Democrats (and the endorsement of the Detroit Free Press Editorial Board) and Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL endorsed by U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who used to represent the district. In the estimation of Republican incumbent Tom Barrett, Brink and Maasdam didn’t worry enough about William Lawrence, an activist who walked to the nomination.
“The two other candidates that ran just really didn’t take him seriously the entire time. We’re not going to make that same mistake,” Barrett told Politico after Lawrence secured the Democratic nomination. “We are not in any way going to be taking this for granted or taking it lightly.”
He'd better not. Lawrence’s call for a national moratorium on hyperscale data centers, which are proposed within the district, is a powerful issue for him. These resource-gobbling facilities to drive AI are stirring opposition from the left and right, highlighting how hyperwealthy tech gods get what they want while ordinary Americans struggle.
Data centers are Lawrence’s political, friend and may overcome attempts by Barrett – also tied to Trump’s weight, for better or worse – to label him a communist.
Randy Essex is a retired journalist who covered and edited business and political news, including at the Free Press, across five decades. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan’s 7th and 10th House races are rare battlegrounds | Opinion
