Detroit — Hill Harper is a best-selling author, famous actor, philanthropist, father, business owner, and activist.
On Tuesday, July 11, at Cadillac Square in downtown Detroit, Harper officially launched his first political campaign – a campaign that he hopes will end with him winning the Michigan U.S. Senate seat vacated by longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow when she retires at the end of her term on Jan. 3, 2025.
“I’m very proud to have launched my campaign for U.S. Senate right here in Detroit. Obviously, the U.S. Senate is a statewide race and I’ve had the chance the last couple of months to speak to people all over the state and I’ve really been attempting to understand what it is that Michiganders really want out of their next U.S. Senator and if I can provide that,” Harper told the Michigan Chronicle in an exclusive in-studio interview. “We’re excited about this campaign because we feel like we can. We can have a campaign that’s powered by the people.”
WATCH: Hill Harper’s First Sit-Down Interview After Launching U.S. Senate Campaign
Harper noted that he doesn’t see himself as a politician and that he hasn’t always aspired to hold political office. Instead, he said he’s really just a candidate to represent the people of the state.
In addition to Harper’s film and television career where he starred in “CSI: NY” and “The Good Doctor,” he’s established himself as a dynamic public speaker and a generous philanthropist, too. He is a graduate of Brown University who first became friends with President Barack Obama while they were students at Harvard Law School, and he was appointed to the President’s Cancer Panel by Obama in 2012.
“I’ve always wanted to have impact and legacy in a real powerful way, and I felt like I could do that first as an actor. If you’re an artist you have to be political, but you don’t have to necessarily hold office to be political. You can be an activist, which is what I’ve been,” Harper said.
“But we need independent voices who are willing to stand up to lobbyist, stand up to big-dollar donors, and stand up to special interests and say ‘we’re going to make a change.’ “When you look at how little trust is in our democracy and when you look at working families, who’s actually advocating for them? So that’s the question I’m asking. I believe good people have to run for office and so many good people aren’t.”
The issues
In his run for the U.S. Senate seat, Harper outlined the five most important issues he plans to tackle if elected by the people of Michigan to fill the position.
“One is student loan debt relief and free pre-k through 16. College is the new high school. It used to be that if you got through high school, you were job ready and there were trade schools and all sorts of things you could do,” he said. “But in this idea economy, you need technical skills and or college, and the fact that we are saddling you people with the cost of education that has way outpaced inflation is simply wrong.”
The second issue Harper outlined was healthcare.
“If you get sick in this country, you should be able to go to a doctor and not feel like you should have to file for bankruptcy. Personal bankruptcies around catastrophic medical (conditions) is the number one bankruptcy filings. We are crushing people who may not have the top-tier healthcare coverage and that has to end,” he said. “GoFundMe cannot be a medical plan and over one-third of the GoFundMe campaigns are medical related.”
Harper’s third issue will likely be a controversial one for residents of the state who might not understand the nuance in his concern. He said his third most important issue is banning weapons of mass murder.
“We can’t allow folks to define what weapons of mass murder are in that way. People try to get into an argument around the Second Amendment, but no. Weapons of mass murder need to go and be banned, and we have to protect our children,” he said. “I’m not going to say the Second Amendment is not more important than second graders’ lives. And that’s a key piece for me.”
Another major issue is economic development.
“What makes strong communities are small businesses. We have to create jobs and we have to work on economic development,” he said.
Lastly of his five most important campaign issues, Harper said that addressing issues related to the environment is of extreme importance.
“There’s a climate crisis going on and we have to protect our Great Lakes at all costs. I want to protect our Great Lakes from any types of invasive species whether it’s manmade or not,” he said. “So we’ve got to protect them from Asian carp, but we’ve also got to protect it from oil pipes potentially exploding and causing poison.”
Harper, who has been a Detroit resident since 2016, has been aggressively meeting with leaders in big and small cities around the state, including Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, and Saginaw, and recently served as the keynote speaker at the Michigan Chronicle’s Men of Excellence banquet, where he spoke about his desire to be a strong voice for Michigan’s democracy.
“Without question, the most challenging part of my campaign will be convincing people to be able to reclaim their power and reclaim their vote. The largest voting constituency in Michigan is the one I have to appeal to, and those are people who don’t vote,” Harper said.
“We have to be able to bring those people back. They’ve lost trust in the system. They elected these career politicians over and over, they see nothing materially changing in their individual lives, and (they figure) why should they trust me, the guy who’s not a politician who says I’m not going to be like that and I’m actually going to fight for you? Are they going to believe it? So, I have to cover this state – all 83 counties – and speak to everybody across this state, whether it’s a farmer in Remus or a single mother at the corner of Mack and Drexel. I think fundamentally we all want the same thing.”