DEXTER, Mich. — A number of Michigan Republicans have made the stunning alternative of endorsing Curtis Hertel Jr., the Democratic congressional candidate within the hotly contested race for the Lansing-area seat.
This isn’t the primary time Republicans have endorsed Tom Barrett’s opponent.
In 2022, then-Rep. Liz Cheney gave her first-ever endorsement of a Democrat to Elissa Slotkin for Michigan’s seventh Congressional District.
Cheney, the daughter of the Iraq Struggle’s chief proponent, got here out in opposition to Barrett, an Iraq Struggle veteran, saying, “We’d like severe, accountable, substantive members like Elissa in Congress.”
Now a Michigan GOP staff has as soon as once more thrown its help to a Democrat within the district, which Slotkin is leaving for a Senate bid.
At a Wednesday marketing campaign occasion, Hertel appeared alongside a number of Michigan Republicans endorsing him for Congress.
“The Home ain’t what it was once,” mentioned former Rep. Joe Schwarz.
“And we wish to deliver it again to what it was once and produce it again to having sturdy, independent-thinking Democrats and Republicans within the Home.”
Talking to The Submit, Brett Gillespie, a Republican Grand Ledge metropolis council member, defined his endorsement: “I do know he’s a member of the Democratic Social gathering, however I believe he places his constituents first. He was a fighter for the Ultium battery plant right here in Delta Township, which is true close to the place my metropolis’s at.”
Barrett appears unconvinced the Republican endorsements will damage his marketing campaign, although he narrowly misplaced to Slotkin when the identical factor occurred two years in the past.
“It’s a little bit bit determined,” he informed The Submit over the telephone as he was laborious at work making a pizza for his household dinner.
“The identical day that this coalition was introduced, primary, certainly one of ‘em eliminated his title. And on prime of that, this ballot got here out displaying me with a considerable lead within the race.”
In Barrett’s view, his Republican opponents are compromised by their enterprise pursuits.
“I believe they owe it to folks to be candid and be like, look, these are overwhelmingly made up of people who find themselves lobbyists,” mentioned Barrett.
“Jeff Timmer, one of many names on the checklist, is well-known for his affiliation with the Lincoln Undertaking. So he now has monetized the place of being the token Republican to oppose any Republican candidate.”
The Lincoln Undertaking is a By no means Trump Republican political motion committee.
Requested how he would reply to Republicans similar to Gillespie who name Hertel “bipartisan,” Barrett referred to his file as a state senator.
“I had greater than three dozen bipartisan payments that I sponsored that have been signed into regulation, some by Republican governor Rick Snyder, some by Democrat governor Gretchen Whitmer. I had a file of accomplishment that I’m not afraid to stack up in opposition to anyone else, not to mention Curtis Hertel.”
Whereas the Republican Social gathering could endure from in-fighting, the Democrats have their justifiable share too.
The United Auto Staff president was additionally absent.
Barrett, who will be a part of Donald Trump at his Saturday rally in Grand Rapids, mentioned, “There was no one. Biden was in Detroit. My opponent wasn’t there, Slotkin wasn’t there. None of them wish to be seen with him.”
This inside division spells bother for Democrats in Michigan, which is a “Midwestern manufacturing state that’s precisely the kind of state that Trump is interesting to,” Barrett mentioned earlier than pausing and including, “Sorry, this pizza caught on hearth as I used to be speaking to you.”
Barrett’s opponent Hertel dodged the query of whether or not he desires to marketing campaign alongside Biden by altering the topic to soft-serve ice cream, saying, “If any president got here to this district and wished to have a dialog, we might be more than pleased to have it. Stay up for seeing him and getting a Tasty Twist down the road.”
