Four Democratic candidates are vying in the August primary election to take on freshman U.S. Rep. John James (R-Shelby Twp.) in November and get one step closer to representing the competitive 10th District in metro Detroit.
Gun safety advocate Emily Busch, former Judge Carl Marlinga, state Board of Education Tiffany Tilley and financial planner Diane Young are running for the nomination.
James will be the GOP nominee in November because he is running unopposed in the district that stretches through Rochester, Rochester Hills and southern Macomb County in Southeast Michigan.
Joel Rutherford, the 10th District Democratic Party chair, said voters will want a nominee who listens to their needs and spends a lot of time in the community, which he believes James does not do.
“I think the big problem is is that we have to get someone in there who basically is willing to meet with their constituents and in the tent, willing to listen to the constituents, and like I said, focus more on serving the people in the district, as opposed to serving wealthy people, first and foremost, and that’s the situation that we have now,” Rutherford said.
The Cook Political report rates the seat as “Lean Republican.”
All four Democratic candidates made the case for their electability in November. Republicans currently have a small majority in the U.S. House and Democrats have narrow control of the U.S. Senate.
Every candidate said passing abortion protections was a top priority for them if they are elected. Other top issues include gun control, environmental protections and economic policies that will benefit working-class people.
While the 10th District isn’t as talked-about as the “Tossup” seats in Michigan’s 7th and 8th Districts, it is the best chance Democrats have to flip a seat. In 2022, James won the seat by just 1,600 votes, a margin some Democrats say could easily be overcome with increased voter turnout in a year with a presidential race topping the ticket.
Over 1 million more Michiganders turned out to vote in 2020 than they did during the 2022 midterm election, according to records from the Secretary of State.
Busch says her politics are personal
Busch told the Advance that she never intended to have a career in politics before driving to Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021, to pick up her son who survived the deadly shooting.
She started advocating for gun reform in Michigan afterwards, including an unsuccessful run for the state House in 2022. After her loss, and the narrow success of James in MI-10, she started to think about running for the U.S. House.
The mass shooting at Michigan State University’s campus in February 2023 made that decision for her. Busch said she wanted to work on Capitol Hill to pass gun control legislation for the whole country.
“When the Michigan State University shooting happened, it resonated across the entire state and region,” Busch said. “So that was the night that actually pushed me off the cliff to run for Congress.”
Busch said she hopes to implement Michigan’s gun control legislation from 2022, which includes safe storage, background check and “red flag” laws, on a federal level. But she also wants to go further by banning assault weapons and allowing citizens to sue gun manufacturers for the liabilities associated with the weapons.
“We have a blueprint here in Michigan,” Busch said. “We like to say in the gun violence prevention world that everything that’s been passed here in our state is the floor and not the ceiling.”
She hopes her personal connection to political issues, like gun violence, will inspire confidence in voters about her dedication to passing legislation in Congress. Earlier this month, Busch released an ad where she detailed her own experience with abortion, hoping to cement her support for protecting reproductive healthcare in the minds of voters.
“These are very personal issues to me, and I take these things very seriously,” Busch said. “And I will fight like hell in Washington, D.C. to make change on these two very specific issues.”
“Fight like hell” is a phrase commonly used by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and it’s also the name of her political action committee. Whitmer has not endorsed in the race, however.
Marlinga hopes his track record in the county will sway voters
Macomb County voters have seen Marlinga’s name on the ballot quite a few times.
He was elected to serve as a prosecutor from 1985 through 2004. He then was a judge on the Macomb County Probate Court and on the 16th Judicial Circuit Court from 2013 through 2022. And he narrowly lost to James in 2022.
Marlinga said his track record with voters in Macomb County will help him during both the primary and general election.
“After decades of doing the right thing for the right reasons, sometimes having some rocky headlines, but as long as you do the right thing for the right reason, you usually come out ahead,” he said. “And most voters in the county will describe me that way.”
He decided to run for the U.S. House after the pro-Trump attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Marlinga said he was struck by the power of the House and Senate, where some GOP lawmakers contested the certification of the election, in preserving democratic practices.
“I knew that with my vote historically in the county, and with my then showing in 2022 I knew I was in the strongest position,” Marlinga said. “And if you can do something to save your country, I think you have the obligation to try to do something to save your country.”
After serving as a judge and prosecutor in Macomb County, criminal justice reform is an important issue for Marlinga. He said he worked with younger adults who had been convicted of crimes to remove their record and instituted rehabilitation support so people could avoid committing crimes and ending up back in jail.
“If we can get them out to be productive members of society, we’re safer because they’re not committing crimes,” Marlinga said. “Their lives are better because they’re not committing crimes.”
He is interested in implementing those reforms nationwide.
Marlinga also said he wants to codify Roe v. Wade, the overturned U.S. Supreme Court decision that protected the right to abortion, in addition to supporting LGBTQ+ rights.
“It’s crazy that they [GOP lawmakers] think that they have a part to play, not only in the abortion issue, but in terms of gender identity, all of these things which are so deeply personal,” Marlinga said. “The government should play no part in [that] whatsoever.”
Increasing job opportunities and supporting environmental protections go hand-in-hand, Marlinga said. He hopes to increase production of alternative energy sources, like solar and wind and incentivize the creation of new technologies to generate it in the United States.
“We in Michigan are a manufacturing state,” he said. “We should be manufacturing those things because the world is waiting for them. Europeans love heat pumps. We should be leading the world in manufacturing heat pumps the way that we led the world in manufacturing cars in the 30s.”
Tilley hopes to make Michigan education policies national
Tilley has served as the co-vice president on the State Board of Education since 2018, but she advocated for policy changes before running for an elected position.
After losing family members to gun violence, she organized in Detroit to bring in resources aimed at community safety. She said gun safety policy has been a continued priority for her while serving on the State Board of Education.
“No other person in this race has that type of background, has that type of experience or even has that type of passion that I have, that I’ve brought forth,” she said. “I’ve been fighting for people for over 20 years. Most candidates in the race can’t say that.”
Like Marlinga, she wanted to run for the U.S. House after seeing James’ continuous support of Trump following the Capitol attacks on Jan. 6.
“To have a congressperson who is supportive of Trump and the threats to democracy was a big factor for me,” Tilley said.
Broadly, women’s rights are important for Tilley. She said she wants to advocate for abortion rights, in addition to expanding access to affordable and safe health care options for women.
She said abortion animated voters because their bodily autonomy was on the ballot, and she hopes to show people the impact of policy beyond that issue.
“That may have been a great motivator for them to vote before and maybe now they don’t feel that they necessarily have a personal reason to vote,” she said. “A lot of voters don’t understand how politics affects their everyday lives, but with women’s rights, they understood that. They understood, hey, my freedom to make decisions over my body is at risk.”
As a member of the state education board, Tilley is also interested in advocating for access to early childcare education throughout the country. Michigan lawmakers, with guidance from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, expanded funding for free pre-K for 4-year-olds in the state. Tilley hopes to take that approach and bring affordable early childhood education across the nation.
“We’ve made a lot of changes here in Michigan lately,” Tilley said. “ECE [early childhood education] here has been award winning, and Gov. Whitmer has taken it even further with funding and expansion. But we’re looking at not having ECE nationally in our lifetimes at the trajectory, the rate that we’re going, so [I] definitely want to push for that.”
She also wants to take her own policies from Michigan in supporting children in the foster care system to the national level. Tilley said she advocated for policies that would help children living in congregate care facilities to graduate high school.
Tilley also wants to support small businesses by providing funding, like grants and loans and only provide tax breaks for companies that are “good actors in the community.”
“We’ve given corporations tax breaks, or Trump has given under his administration a lot of tax breaks,” she said. “So I want to make sure that the everyday working person has the tax breaks they need.”
She is also interested in foreign affairs and facilitating peace in various regions in Africa, Gaza and Ukraine. Tilley said the “trajectory” of violence in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war will result in a genocide, and that she would oppose weapons being sent to Israel.
“Israel is a great ally for the United States, and so I know that we’ve been treading lightly because we want to keep that alliance and relationship,” Tilley said. “I definitely want to see that continue. However, those conversations need to be stronger on, we need a ceasefire. We need diplomatic solutions. I would not continue to send missiles over. Israel has every right to defend itself. I’m definitely for Israel defending itself, but at this moment, where we are right now, we should not continue to fund missiles to go towards killing innocent citizens.”
Young is ready to shore up Social Security
Young told the Advance that her background in financial planning would be a needed asset for Congress when drafting up tax and welfare policy.
“I’m deeply in tune with the issues that everyday people are facing,” Young said. “From taking care of their children, to how they’re going to fund their retirement, to how critical Social Security and Medicare are to creating a safer and secure retirement for people.”
One of her key issues is reforming Social Security by cracking down on large companies and wealthy individuals who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. She would also increase the maximum payroll tax on Social Security wages to $400,000 instead of the current $168,000, which Young said won’t impact most people in the district.
“I only work for my clients,” Young said. “I don’t work for Wall Street. I understand how the tax code is rigged against the average person, and that we need to streamline it and fix our tax code so that it’s working for all Americans, not just a couple people.”
Young also wants to give fewer “tax breaks” to oil and gas companies and invest in renewable energy sources. She acknowledged that the transition wouldn’t happen overnight, but that the shift to creating renewable energy in the United States is important to continue.
“We have to do these plans very thoughtfully with all the stakeholders at the table,” Young said. “But I think it’s unconscionable for people not to think about the next generation or the young people that are right here now and do something about the challenges that are coming.”
She also expressed her support for abortion and reproductive health care.
Young decided to run for the U.S. House after James won the seat by a narrow margin in 2022 because of her background in financial planning and involvement in the community. She has been on the boards of Democratic organizations in the district and founded the Women’s Democratic Club at Greater Rochester, in addition to running an unsuccessful campaign in 2016 for the Michigan House.
“I’m a woman business owner. I’ve lived in all three parts of this district. I lived in Rochester, Shelby and Warren. I have really deep roots in this community,” she said. “I think it’s going to take a strong leader. It’s going to take someone that we can invest in and hold the seat for another decade. Because it’s going to be a competitive seat for a while.”
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