With the new 9th Congressional District and several other changes being announced late 2021, things are shaping up for an interesting race.
Formerly known as the 10th District, the congressional area includes all five counties making up the Thumb with the redrawing of districts more being a label swap between Districts 9 and 10. Gaining a bit more area by incorporating some of the northern parts of Macomb and Oakland Counties, the new 9th District also gains an incumbent in Republican Lisa McClain, who was first elected to the old 10th District in 2020. She is hoping to gain her second term come November’s election, where she faces three opponents from across the political spectrum.
McClain, who lives in Macomb County’s Bruce Township, currently sits on the House’s Armed Services Committee and Education and Labor Committee. Formerly the senior vice president of Hantz Group, a financial services company in Michigan, McClain told Michigan Radio that the issue she is most focused on is the economy, alluding to inflation and fluctuating prices and blaming the American Rescue Plan for both. While she seems to avoid answering a definitive “yes” or “no” when asked if she believes the 2020 election was legitimate, she was one of three Michigan lawmakers who voted to overturn the election results following the January 6 storming of the Capitol in Washington. Though McClain did have a challenger in August’s primary race, she defeated fellow Republican Michelle Donovan handily, garnering nearly four times the almost 12,000 votes Donovan brought in.
Also running in the August primary, but unopposed and for the democratic nomination, Brian Steven Jaye of Detroit received 48,800 votes in the primary, seemingly stacking him up to be McClain’s major opponent. Jaye, who interned for Michigan Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Kelly at the beginning of his law career almost 18 years ago, now lives two miles out of district near Rochester and previously ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Michigan State Board of Education. He cites his young son as part of the reason he’s running on education and common-sense gun laws, noting to the Times Herald back in July that Oxford is in the district and the tragedy has come up several times in his campaign and that he “want[s] my son raised in a world of equal opportunities and better chances.” He also mentions being pro-choice, another spot where he differs from McClain.
The two other, and perhaps unexpected, candidates did not have their names on any primary ballot, with Jacob Kelts serving as the treasurer and communications director of Lapeer County’s Libertarian Party, and Jim Walkowicz identifying with the Working Class Party.
Kelts, who told Michigan Radio that his motto is “All the freedom, all the time for everybody,” said in the same interview that the important issues of his campaign were “Guns, taxes, and freedom and guns.” Though he didn’t specify how guns figured into his campaign, he did mention to MLive that there should be “no corporate subsidies, incentives or tax breaks.” He also did not comment directly on his abortion stance, answering a question from MLive about the American health care system that he believes in “[f]ull bodily autonomy and medical freedom. No mandates, no bans.”
Walkowicz, on the other hand, told Michigan Radio that he believes “Congress needs to pass laws that guarantee a right for a woman to control her own body without government interference,” and that it’s “Point blank, I think it’s not my business.” Walkowicz, a recent retiree of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and has 40 years experience being a union representative, emphasized looking out for the every individual and their need– namely, “Affordable housing, good schools, safe environments…[and] a public health system that actually works.”
While it is unclear how each candidate will fare at the polls, the winner will be serving a two year-term in the national House of Representatives beginning January 3, 2023.
