In Traverse City, U.S. Senate candidates spar on Line 5, Gaza and immigration

Four candidates for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat participated in a Friday panel discussion spanning topics of economic growth, foreign relations and the role of the federal government. 

The panel took place at the Northern Michigan Policy Conference in Traverse City, where candidates made their case to local business leaders and advocates that they should each be the one to make it out of the crowded primary fields. Candidates who polled over 1% in a poll conducted by MIRS and the Northern Michigan Chamber Alliance were invited to participate. 

Actor and lawyer Hill Harper was the only candidate present from the rapidly shrinking Democratic primary field vying to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing), with frontrunner U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) absent. Other Democratic candidates are Zach Burns and Nasser Beydoun. 

Harper said he feels voters are being pressured to not consider their whole primary field after stories surfaced indicating that high-ranking Democrats favored Slotkin, who has racked up a number of endorsements.

“I have to say that the Republican field and the number it has is just the way it should be,” Harper said. “It’s the first time there’s been an open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan in decades, and the fact that my party from Washington, D.C., decided to put their thumb on the scale and choke out the competition is wrong.”

The last time a Senate seat was open in Michigan was in 2014 when U.S. Sen Carl Levin (D-Detroit) retired. Voters elected now-U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Twp.).

The 2024 GOP field is jam-packed, but the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm of U.S. Senate Republicans, did recruit former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Howell) to run. He was not at the forum on Friday

Republican candidates Nikki Snyder, who serves on the state board of education; former Dow Chemical employee Michael Hoover, and former U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Grand Rapids); participated in the panel. 

Other Republican candidates who were not present included former Detroit Police Chief James Craig; former Berrien County Commissioner Ezra Scott; Alexandria Taylor, an attorney who has previously represented Michigan GOP Chair Kristina Karamo; Sherry O’Donnell, a former 2022 congressional candidate and Michigan state chair for U.S. Term Limits; businessman J.D. Wilson; Sharon Savage, an educator who worked for the Warren Consolidated School District for 42 years; and businessman Sandy Pensler.

Libertarian U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, who preceded Meijer in the 3rd Congressional District, said in a Thursday social media post that he’s considering rejoining the Republican party to run for the seat.

Snyder said it’s time to send a “pissed-off mom” who’s willing to “fight tooth and painted nail” to the Senate. 

While the candidates agreed that the Senate ought to focus more on rising health care costs and appointing nonpartisan judges to the federal bench, they differed on key issues for the northern Michigan region, including the future of Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline beneath the Straits of Mackinac. 

“I knew that we would get to a place where we disagree,” Harper said after his Republican counterparts voiced their support for the pipeline. “We’re playing literally with poisoning our Great Lakes, which would be catastrophic to Michigan’s economy, catastrophic to Michigan’s tourism. And the juice is not worth the squeeze in this case.”

Other issues pertinent to the northern region discussed by the candidates included community sustainability and economic development in rural areas. Meijer said that a consistent government approach to regulating different industries could make northern Michigan more productive and stable.

“I mentioned the tourism industry and the agricultural industry, but the broad brush is that there are so many opportunities for Michigan to once again be the leader from the front on the innovation side,” Meijer said. 

Hoover promoted his “Buy America For America” plan, which he said would provide tax incentives to businesses that keep manufacturing in the U.S.

“We send about $600 billion per year to China,” Hoover said. “That’s a lot of jobs. We just basically told the working class that we need to have some way somehow to control our costs of living, because we’re gonna continue to print money and the cost of living is gonna go up, and that’s just gonna happen.” 

Candidates also clashed on foreign policy issues such as the possibility of a ceasefire in Gaza and Central American migrants coming to the United States. Harper said he is one of the only U.S. Senate candidates in the country to voice full-throated support for a humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. 

“At this point in this combat, one in 100 people are [dead and] over half are children,” Harper said. “I think about driving around Detroit and one out of 100 people I see at the grocery store, one out of 100 people to come into my coffee shop, one out of 100 people at the Lions game are dead. That’s what we’re talking about.”

“Israel has some of the greatest military capacity, the greatest fighters in the world— there’s no reason that taking out Hamas, a terrorist organization, couldn’t happen with precision.” 

Meijer and Snyder agreed that securing the U.S. southern border should be top priority in immigration policy, while Hoover said that laws must be changed to allow for a less lengthy path to citizenship in addition to trying to halt migration. 

“The problem is that it takes 18 years to become a citizen of this country,” Hoover said. “That’s not right, either, and it makes no sense to any of us in this room.” 

When asked about who they’d endorse for president in the 2024 election cycle, only Hoover offered explicit support for former President Donald Trump. Meijer declined to endorse a candidate, although he’s said he would vote for Trump if he’s nominated, while Snyder said she intends to support whoever receives Michigan’s GOP nomination. Harper said he endorses President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. 

In a final question from an audience member, the candidates were asked what areas of the federal budget they’d like to see decreased. Hoover said he would give the federal government a “massive haircut,” beginning with reexamining Social Security and Medicai. Harper said it’s time to “pull back the curtain” on military industrial complex spending.

Meijer and Snyder slammed what Snyder called a “bloated” bureaucracy. 

“If there is a bureaucracy, it will ensure that it has self preservation as its number one goal,” Meijer said. 

Snyder went a step further, criticizing political patronage that she said overinflates federal agencies like the Department of Education and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“If you’re not doing your job, get out,” Snyder said. “You don’t get to have taxpayer dollars to essentially give to your buddies and not do your job at the same time.”