Not Karl Marx… not Vladamir Lenin… not Mao Zedong… not Pol Pot.
Nope — this is “Our Strategy” seemingly taken from the pages out of Mao’s “Little Red Book.”
This is from the website of the “Sunshine Movement,” one of the founders of which is Mr. William Lawrence, now the Communist… errr… Democrat Party’s nominee for Congress from Michigan’s House District 7.
On Tuesday Lawrence received a little more than 41,000 votes, while his two Democrat party opponents — non-Communist type — combined for more than 55,500 in finishing 2nd and 3rd.
By doing so they might have saved the day for freshman GOP Congressman Tom Barrett who won the seat in 2024 riding the coattails of President Trump to a 50-47% victory in an open district that was previously held by Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin.
In 2024 President Trump carried the district over Harris 50-49. Joe Biden won over Trump in the district 50-49% in 2020, while Trump beat Hillary Clinton 49-45% in 2016.
Michigan 7 is about a “swingy” a “swing” district as you get in Michigan.
So why is Barrett maybe safer now than he had any right to expect to be given the climate leading to the mid-term elections in three months? That brings us back to Mr. Lawrence.
William Lawrence is 36 years old, and was born in Madison, Wisconsin — home of the University of Wisconsin where both his parents worked. At age 5 the family moved to East Lansing, Michigan where both his parents took jobs at Michigan State’s law school as professors. He graduated from high school in East Lansing and went on to college — first at Whitman University, a very small private liberal arts school in Walla Walla, Washington before transferring to Swathmore in Pennsylvania. At Swathmore he involved himself in campus efforts to force the school into divesting completely from any use or support of fossil fuels, as well as a variety of other environmental crusades. In 2015 he was one of four founders of the “Sunshine Network” whose commitment is made quite clear in the mission statement above.
He is a proud member of the Democrat Socialists of America.
But rather than run in a deep deep blue district in an effort to unseat a insufficiently leftist Democrat incumbent, he chose to run in as much of a “purple” seat as you are likely to find in Michigan. District 7 includes East Lansing so it is the district where he was raised since he was 5 years old.
Lawrence won the nomination with plurality of 42% while his two opponents garnered roughly 29% each.
So, who is it that the Democrat voters of Michigan’s 7th District rejected in opting for the 36 year old with absolutely no work history other than crusading for green environmental causes?
Bridget Brink received 29.1% of the vote. Brink is a sixth generation Michigander, and served for 30 years as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department. She served under five Presidents, and was a member of Pres. Obama’s National Security Council.
In 2018 — during the Trump Administration — she was confirmed by the Senate to be Ambassador to the Slovak Republic. In 2022 — after Russia invaded Ukraine — she was confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. She had all the endorsements you would expect a candidate like her to have — including from two former Michigan Governors.
Matt Maasdam finished third with 28.5% of the vote. Maasdam is 51 years old, and a graduate of the University of Michigan in 1997. After graduation he joined the Navy and set out to become a Navy SEAL. As a SEAL he deployed to Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan, retiring in 2017 after 20 years — but not before serving as a Military Aide to President Obama, with the assignment of carrying the “Nuclear Football.” Upon retirement he went to work for Under Armour where he supervised more than 2000 employees. He later left Under Armour and founded two e-commerce businesses.
Maasdam had a long list of endorsements as well, including just about every veterans group you can think of.
Brink and Maasdam were both rejected by the voters of East Lansing — a college town — in favor of a lifelong member of the campus professional activist class who has done nothing but hear his own voice and listen to his “fellow travelers” bleat into the wind.
The GOP incumbent, Tom Barrett, is a quality candidate. He’s a former Army Officer who served in both the Michigan State House and Michigan State Senate before running for Slotkin’s open congressional seat in 2024. Now he has the benefit of incumbency, will have plenty of money for the fall, and has much higher name recognition. A battle with Maasdam in a “down” mid-term year would have been a toss-up.
But “candidate quality” matters even in “down” years, and 42,000 Democrat primary voters in Michigan’s District 7 should be getting “Thank You” cards from the Barrett campaign.
In the 2006 and 2008 elections combined, 73 new Democrats were elected as freshman members of Congress. Of those, 36 lost the re-election campaigns in 2010, the first year voters had a chance to register their disfavor with the liberal/progressive agenda Obama pursued in his first two years when he had solid Democrat majorities in both the House and Senate.
Candidate quality mattered then too.
When Obama was first elected, Democrats controlled 29 Governorships. When he left office in 2018, that number was down to 12.
When Obama took office, Democrats controlled both houses of the legislature in 27 states. When he left office 8 years later that number was 13. The GOP went from controlling both houses in only 14 states to controlling both in 30 states in 2016.
Over the course of his 8 years in office, comprehensive studies have shown that the Democrat Party lost a combined total of 1030 elected offices at both the state and federal level. This was a nationwide phenomena, and the only place Democrats have maintained concentrations of high support are in mostly urban districts in and around the largest cities in the country. Democrats control the Mayor’s office in 27 of the 30 largest cities, and one Independent — San Antonio — identifies as a progressive.
The DSA is practicing politics that have been tried and rejected — a milder form of what the DSA wants to advance through “Drama Kids” like Lawrence.
Mid-term elections have a history of being a bad day for the party that controls the White House. That will remain true until it isn’t.
Redistricting that followed the 2020 Census significantly reduced the number of “swing” districts compared to the pre-Reagan era. The advent of ever more sophisticated computer drawn districts, combined with self-segregation of the parties along largely “urban v. rural” lines means there are even fewer swing districts after the mid-decade redistricting since the 2024 election.
That’s why “candidate quality” will count in 2026 more than ever. There are fewer seats available for each side to capture from the other.
The Democrats in Michigan 7 might have taken one opportunity off the table.
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