LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A second Democrat is seeking to flip one of Michigan’s most competitive U.S. House districts as the party seeks to reclaim a majority in the 2026 midterms.
Maat Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL, announced his campaign Tuesday to unseat Tom Barrett, a former Army helicopter pilot who delivered a key win for Republicans in 2026 when he flipped the 7th Congressional District in central Michigan. Maasdam joins Bridget Brink, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, in the Democratic primary as both seek to introduce themselves to voters in the critical district.
“I’m running for Congress to continue serving my country, not any political party,” Maasdam said in a campaign announcement.
Maasdam is emphasizing his military experience, setting up his background to compete with Barrett. According to Maasdam’s campaign, he served as former President Barack Obama’s military aide who carried the “ nuclear football,” a briefcase that contains atomic war plans and enables the president to transmit nuclear orders to the Pentagon. His campaign noted that his wife was a Navy helicopter pilot.
“In the military, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you’re still working together on the same mission,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of his announcement. “It really gives you the opportunity to find common solutions and get the job done. And I haven’t seen a lot of that recently.”
The district — which includes the capital city of Lansing and surrounding rural areas — was previously held by rising Democratic star and former CIA analyst Elissa Slotkin before she successfully ran for U.S. Senate in the 2024 election.
In the subsequent race for the open seat in November, Barrett emerged victorious from an expensive race with a 3.7-point lead. He has already brought in more than $900,000 in the first three months of his time in Congress.
Brink, Maasdam’s Democratic competition, resigned from her position as ambassador to Ukraine in April in protest of what she says is President Donald Trump’s unfair treatment of the war-torn country. A longtime diplomat who previously held high-ranking State Department roles in other former Soviet and Eastern European countries, Trump picked Brink to be the country’s ambassador to Slovakia in 2019. Former President Joe Biden tapped her to be ambassador to Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded the country in 2022.
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