A two-term Michigan state representative backed by the progressive group Justice Democrats is launching a primary challenge against Rep. Shri Thanedar on Monday, setting the stage for a significant fight over the Detroit-area House seat.
The race will also serve as another proxy fight over the war in Gaza as Thanedar, previously a critic of the Israeli government in the state Legislature, renounced his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, saying the DSA did not offer adequate condemnation of it. Earlier in 2023, Thanedar took a trip to Israel sponsored by a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In a statement, Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, 32, contrasted himself with Thanedar, a multimillionaire and two-term incumbent. McKinney’s campaign described Thanedar in a press release as “Detroit’s own Elon Musk.”
“I’m not running for Congress because I’m a millionaire or a billionaire,” McKinney said. “I’m running because I’m not. I’m running because our community deserves to have someone fighting back against the Trump-Musk administration who knows our struggles of housing insecurity, of wages that haven’t kept up with the cost of living, of environmental racism, and more — someone who has lived those struggles, and will fight for us with the urgency that this moment demands.”
In written answers to questions from NBC News, McKinney said the Democratic Party is fighting for its “future and survival.”
“We must be a party where we take on the handful of billionaires and corporate super PACs who use their influence and money to rig the system for record profits instead of fighting for the economic security and stability of everyday people,” he said.
Thanedar, who represents Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, has had a contentious relationship with neighboring Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib in the Detroit area. After Thanedar criticized her use of the word “resistance” in a 2023 statement on Hamas’ attack on Israel, Tlaib told The Detroit News in a statement that Thanedar was an absentee congressman who failed to provide adequate constituent services.
“While he is busy posting memes, his residents are calling my office asking for my assistance because he is absent from doing his job,” Tlaib said. “He isn’t putting in the work of a public servant and is leaving his working-class communities across his district with no real advocate.”
In his statement, McKinney, who previously served on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Environmental Justice Council, alluded to such concerns.
“I’m running for Congress so that you will never have to wonder if your Congressman is fighting for you in Washington,” he said. “You know I will be — and I will always answer the phone for our community, for our kids, for all of us.”
Thanedar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Michigan’s 13th District is solidly blue, with Thanedar winning with 71.1% of the vote in 2022 and 68.6% of the vote last fall. But he has never had an easy primary: He won the Democratic nomination last year with 54.9% of the vote in a three-way race. And in the primary preceding his first term, in 2022, he won the Democratic nod with 28.3% of the vote after a nine-way battle.
McKinney is the first primary challenger to earn backing from the Justice Democrats since the 2022 election cycle. The progressive group launched in 2017 with the goal of reshaping the House Democratic caucus, and it maintains close ties with members of the left-wing “Squad” in Congress, having spent the last election cycle seeking to stave off challenges to incumbents. Last year, then-Reps. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., lost races to more moderate challengers as tensions over the war in Gaza bubbled up within the party.
Both McKinney and the Justice Democrats framed the race as a fight between working-class and corporate interests. The primary challenge comes as progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are touring the country holding “Fight Oligarchy”-branded rallies that are drawing significant crowds.
“Democratic voters in the face of unprecedented attacks on our livelihoods and liberties are fed up with a Democratic Party overrun by do-nothing career politicians who are totally unequipped to lead in this moment,” Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, said in a statement. “Donavan represents the future the Democratic Party should be fighting for: working class people taking our power back from multimillionaires to deliver for everyday people.”
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