Former state senator Adam Hollier won’t be on ballots across Detroit’s 13th Congressional District in this August’s primary election.
Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garett officially disqualified the democratic congressional candidate for Detroit from the primary election ballot after current U.S. Shri Thanedar challenged the legitimacy of more than half of the voter signatures Hollier submitted.
Garrett’s election staff issued a report on Thursday, May 16, saying that 690 signatures collected by Hollier’s campaign were invalid for issues ranging from duplicate signatures to signatures from people not registered to vote. That left Hollier with just 863 valid signatures — 137 signatures short of the 1,000 required for U.S. House candidates to qualify for the ballot.
“I am adopting the staff’s recommendation and hereby determine the nominating petitions are insufficient in number to allow candidate Adam Hollier’s name to appear on the August 6, 2024, primary election ballot for the office of U.S. Representative in Congress – 13th District,” Garrett wrote in a Tuesday letter to Thanedar.
“I am extremely disappointed with the news from the Wayne County clerk following her professional review of our petitions,” Hollier said in a statement Tuesday. “Not for myself, but for the voters across the 13th District who deserve a real choice in who their next Congressperson will be.”
Hollier could find himself running as a write-in candidate in his race to dethrone the first- Thanedar, but he didn’t clarify whether he would run a write-in campaign. “I will have more to say soon,” he said in his statement.
Thanedar challenged nearly 800 signatures that Hollier’s campaign team submitted in time for the filing deadline to get Hollier added to the ballot. More than 100 of the challenged signatures turned out to be valid, but Thanedar asked the Wayne County Clerk to disqualify Hollier from the August primary over what he said were forged and invalid signatures.
Hollier immediately conceded that 85 of his 1,552 submitted were invalid, but initially contended that although he did not inspect every one of the signatures, and that his team of campaigners and canvassers had followed proper protocol in securing the minimum number of required signatures.
So what does this mean for Hollier’s bid for the 13th Congressional seat? For starters, it could mean that for the second straight election, an 80% Black city could be without Black representation, as the 2022 election marked the first time in 70 years that Detroiters didn’t elect a Black congressperson. Second, Hollier could still appeal the Clerk’s decision through the Secretary of State, but the removal from the ballot would make a write-in campaign much more difficult for Hollier’s run.
Third, Detroit isn’t foreign to the concept of writing in the candidate they want to hold office. See: Mayor Mike Duggan, 2013. Duggan faced similar challenges to Hollier, having been removed from the ballot over the issue of when he established residency within the city, but ran a successful write-in campaign and won his race.
Michigan’s 12th Congressional District also includes parts of Detroit, but Palestinian American U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib has what looks to be a clear path to re-election in that district.
Candidate Mary Waters, whose name will appear on the ballot for the 13th District, could see a significant boost in the polls depending on Hollier’s decision to continue his race or bow out. Waters, a former state House representative, has been relatively quiet since announcing her campaign, and she’s only raised about $10,000 in campaign funds, which would be hard to compete with the financial backing of Thanedar.
Ultimately, the race in 2024 will look a lot different than the previous 13th Congressional District race in 2022. During the race in 2022, nine candidates appeared on the primary ballot. In that election, voters delivered Thanedar the primary victory with 28.3% of the votes, followed by Hollier (23.5%) and Portia Roberson (16.9%). But it was clear that with nine candidates, the Black vote was decidedly split among constituents, and there was no consensus favorite among the Black voters, even with Hollier taking the most votes among Black candidates.
Ultimately, whether or not Detroit will regain Black representation in the 13th Congressional District after this year’s primary on August 6 and the general on November 5, as always, is up to the people. And it could come down to a write-in process if Hollier decides to pursue that option in an attempt to dethrone Thanedar.
About Post Author
