Michigan’s 7th District features the most competitive congressional race in the state.
Democrats are targeting the mid-Michigan district, which centers on Lansing, as one of a handful nationwide they have the potential to flip to take control of the House.
Tom Barrett, the Republican incumbent seeking a second term, is unopposed in his party’s primary.
Three Democrats are competing in the Aug. 4 primary for the right to challenge Barrett in November. They are: Bridget Brink, Matt Maasdam and William Lawrence.
Lawrence is a community activist who, of the three, has the deepest roots in the district. He falls on the socialist side of the Democratic Party, serving as state coordinator of the Rent is Too Damn High coalition and as a member of the Sunrise Movement, which seeks aggressive action against climate change and other issues.
Brink has lived and worked in a lot of places since she left Michigan to attend Kenyon College in Ohio and later the London School of Economics.
Last year, Brink returned to Michigan, where she boasts her roots stretch back six generations, in preparation for a run for Congress. Her motivation, she says, is “to stand up to” President Donald Trump, whom she once served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
Brink left the diplomatic post due to policy disagreements with the president. She had spent 28 years in the U.S. Foreign Service.
In Congress, she says her priorities would be to address health care affordability by restoring Obamacare subsidies and expanding the program to include a public option.
Maasdam, who lives in the Ann Arbor area with his wife, a retired Naval helicopter pilot, and their two sons, is a former Navy SEAL who worked in the corporate world after leaving the service.
The University of Michigan graduate was formerly assigned to carry the nuclear football — a briefcase containing nuclear codes — as a military aide to former President Barack Obama.
In the private sector, he held an executive position at Under Armour and ran two e-commerce businesses, an experience he says that taught him lessons in job creation and budget management. He, too, would attack the affordability issue by addressing rising health care costs. He proposes allowing anyone to buy into Medicare.
Maasdam says Congress should do more to keep jobs in this country and to counter China’s encroachment on U.S. industries, including automobile manufacturing.
Matt Maasdam is the best candidate in the Democratic field and gets our nomination in the August primary.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Our choice in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District Democratic primary
Reporting by The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
