Michigan voters have an outsize impact on who will win the White House and which party will carry the House and Senate in 2024. In this series, Great Stakes: The fight to be hailed as victors in Michigan, the Washington Examiner will look at the thorny politics and unique matters that will swing the critical battleground state. Part five, below, examines the lack of black Democratic Party representation in Washington.
DETROIT, Michigan — Michigan‘s largest city is not represented by a black member of Congress for the first time in more than half a century, but the Democratic primary for Detroit‘s 13th Congressional District underscores a broader problem for the party and President Joe Biden.
Four years after black voters helped Biden win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, prominent members of the community have expressed concerns that the powerful voting bloc is once again being taken for granted, particularly as the president tries to appeal to working-class voters in battleground states such as Michigan. However, Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency Director Adam Hollier, a young black and Native American man and former state senator, is hoping his campaign can simultaneously address those concerns and provide support for Biden.
In addition to improving constituent services and criticizing the rise of self-funders in electoral politics, Hollier, 38, is emphasizing his race in his primary against Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) for the Motor City, which has more than 621,000 residents, three-quarters of whom are black. To put those numbers into perspective, Biden won Michigan over then-President Donald Trump in 2020 by 154,000, but Trump won the state over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 11,000.
“You can’t talk about what matters to people by ignoring who they are,” Hollier told the Washington Examiner. “Race is important for a variety of reasons. Gender is important for a variety of reasons. Sexual identity and orientation are important for a variety of reasons. Because they impact decisions that we have in front of us.”
“There are some real challenges in Detroit where black voters or black people don’t feel like the opportunities are moving forward for them,” he said. “Let’s talk about that.”
Thanedar, 69, an Indian-born former businessman and Michigan House lawmaker, is a first-term incumbent after winning the 2020 primary against Hollier by 4,000 votes, in part because a crowded, predominately black field of nine candidates diluted the black vote. But this cycle, Hollier intentionally announced early and had conversations with possible contenders.
Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters, the only other black candidate actively running in the primary, agreed: “Frankly, these are disappointing times when, arguably, America’s blackest city is without black congressional representation.”
“However, just a black face without the commitment to truly represent a district wallowing in poverty to take on inhumane corporate apologists for the status quo would be equally disappointing,” Waters said in a statement. “The Michigan Democratic Party is stagnant and out of touch with true grassroots folk in Michigan and should never be allowed to pick one black candidate for any office. That is antithetical to democracy and racist in its implications.”
Similarly, Hollier amplified the importance of the message and the messenger, predicting Trump will campaign in Michigan with the state’s only black member of Congress, Rep. John James, a Republican.
“Donald Trump is going to come to Michigan and have his arms around John James and say, ‘Look, black guys, what are the Democrats doing?'” he said. “Which is one of the big reasons it’s so important for me to win my primary and make sure that Michigan and Democrats have a counter to that.”
Thanedar nor James responded to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.
For Wayne State University political science professor Ronald Brown, the Democratic Party’s primary process had “structure” problems, and incumbents are “hard to beat.” University of Michigan-Dearborn professor emeritus Ronald Stockton acknowledged the Detroit black community’s “dissatisfaction” with its lack of representation but was more complimentary of Thanedar, calling him “charming” and “personable.”
“When he ran for governor, I liked him,” Stockton said. “I don’t think I would have voted for him, but he was articulate, and he raised the right issues. I don’t like billionaires running, funding themselves, but he was credible. He looked persuasive.”
Democratic political consultant and commentator Adolph Mongo was less charitable toward Thanedar but argued Hollier was not managing “a good campaign,” encouraging him to “get their message out.” More generally, Mongo scrutinized Biden for only meeting with mostly white union workers in Michigan and the Democratic Party at large for only reaching out to the black community “in a crisis.”
“I guess it is a crisis because we have a lot of folks that are disenchanted with the president,” Mongo said. “Clinton lost Michigan because she did not send anything to the city of Detroit. She came once in a controlled setting, and that was it. She lost by several thousand votes that she could have picked up. It’s the same criticism. It’s like Groundhog Day. We complain every election. We don’t get any respect.”
“The Democratic Party better get their act together. That’s all I can say,” Mongo said, arguing apathy may keep black voters home in November. “They think at the end of the day, the black voters are going to come home, and the Arab voters are going to come home, and the Latino voters are going to come home. They’re going to come home to their home and not to the Democratic home because a nonvote for President Biden is a vote for Donald Trump.”
The Rev. Horace Sheffield III, chairman of the Ecumenical Ministers Alliance, broadened the matter of representation beyond Detroit, contending that “it’s no different from the need of any other group whose community needs protection and advocation to have its own representation.”
“No one knows our problems or needs better than us, and therefore, we are best suited to advocate on our behalf,” Sheffield said. “Additionally, for over 50 years, Detroit, a city with a majority black population, enjoyed one if not two representatives in Congress. Now, we have none. This should not be so. The consequences of not having our own representative in Congress means our voice is not heard and our needs are not addressed.”
Specifically regarding Biden, Tiffany Funderburk, an enrollment specialist at Detroit-based Pathways Academy, described herself as being “satisfied” but not “happy” with the president because, although he is introducing “changes and improvements,” “there’s so much more to do.” In this week’s Emerson College Polling/Hill survey of Michigan voters, Biden won black voters over Trump, 68% to 21%, but his margin of victory was smaller when respondents considered third-party candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein, 61% to 18%.
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“What I would say to him is let’s concentrate on the people at large and not agendas,” Funderburk said. “I don’t think that black women need special privileges. I don’t think that the queer community needs special privileges. I just think if the president is concentrating on just being fair to people, that would be all-inclusive. I think that it calls out people, and it causes this unnecessary bias and prejudice among people because it seems you’re more concerned about this community than that community when the truth is, let’s just make a level playing field.”
Sheffield continued: “Biden is doing enough. What we now need is to add our efforts to his so we can make more progress.”
