In close Michigan congressional contest, 2 former colleagues spar

Two years ago, the election for the U.S. House seat in Michigan's 7th District — a Lansing-based district also comprised of rural areas, suburbs and smaller cities stretching from Eaton County to metro Detroit's outer ring communities — was one of the most-expensive congressional races in the U.S., with Republicans testing whether they could win in a sharply divided region considered a political tossup against a well-known Democratic incumbent.

They couldn't.

But this fall's race for the 7th District seat promises to be just as hard-fought and just as expensive if not more so, especially given that the Republican Party, represented by former state Sen. Tom Barrett of Charlotte − a former Army helicopter pilot who lost to U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, in 2022 by 6 percentage points − sees some advantages, not all of which he had in his last run at the office.

Slotkin, for one, is not in the race, running instead for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat, and Barrett is facing former state Sen. Curtis Hertel Jr., of East Lansing, as the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, inflation and a surge in illegal immigration along the southern border under the Biden administration still look like they could be winning issues for the GOP in the region. And having former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Barrett in this election after not having done so two years ago, at the top of the ticket as the presidential nominee likely helps as well. Trump came within a percentage point of beating President Joe Biden within the 7th District's boundaries four years ago and beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton there by 4 points in 2016.

Trump, in fact, made two visits to the district in about a week-and-a-half in late August, a sure sign of how significant this district may be to his, and to Barrett's, chances.

"Nothing is the same," said Barrett, a staunch conservative who made his name known as a foil for Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns while in the state Senate and who has a reputation as a strong and persistent campaigner. "The circumstances are different and I feel that we can build off the momentum that we had from two years ago to win this campaign."

Hertel and the Democrats have a message of their own: Not so fast.

"I have a record of working across the aisle to try to solve problems for people," Hertel said, characterizing himself as a voice for bipartisanship and common sense, much as Slotkin has. "Tom Barrett is an extremist," he said, using the same term for his opponent Slotkin did two years before.

Hertel doesn't have Slotkin's federal resume, that of a former intelligence officer who did three tours in Iraq under presidents from both parties and who rose to become acting assistant Pentagon secretary before flipping what had been a reliably Republican seat in 2018. But he does come from a family with deep roots in the state's political circles and is well-known to much of the district. He enjoys a close political relationship with Whitmer, who is popular in the district; his uncle, Dennis, is also a former congressman from metro Detroit. And he may have caught a break with his party nominating Vice President Kamala Harris — setting off a wave of enthusiasm especially in and around Lansing — after President Joe Biden stepped aside in late July.

"It's a total brawl," said Andrea Bitely, founder of Bitely Communications in Lansing and a consultant who worked with Republican former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. "Neither candidate has really forced a decision on anyone yet, they’re spending like mad and they’re going after every conceivable demographic. I think it's going to come down to the top-of-the-ticket turnout and whether Trump's base comes out in the out-counties (Eaton, Clinton, Shiawassee and Livingston) or Harris' base gets out in Lansing (and Ingham County)."

Not much independent polling has been done in the race. An Inside Elections poll had Barrett ahead by 7 in early July. But that was shortly after Biden's disastrous late-June debate against Trump and before Harris became the nominee. The respected Cook Political Report, a handicapping site in Washington, still considers it a tossup.

And financially speaking, the race isn't going to lack for money: Hertel had raised $4.2 million, with about $3.3 million left in the bank, as of July 17, the last reporting period before the August primary in which both were unopposed. Barrett had less, having raised $2.8 million with $1.2 million left in his campaign coffers. But in such a contested race — and one considered a bellwether nationally — expect plenty of funds to flow into the candidates' accounts or be spent by outside sources supporting either side.

Two years ago, nearly $41 million was spent on the race, most of it by outside forces, according to Open Secrets, a website that tracks campaign spending. Only two other House seats in the U.S. saw more spent.

For all that, though, Hertel — who has been in elected office for most of the last quarter-century and whom Barrett characterizes as a "career politician" and a "ladder-climber" — and the Democratic Party are clearly looking to employ much of the same script Slotkin used against Barrett two years ago: Depicting him as a threat to abortion rights, including those now enshrined in the state's constitution; as having supported the pharmaceutical industry in the past; and as someone who has, as a state legislator, rejected incentives to bring business, namely a General Motors battery facility, into the district, arguing that corporate welfare, as he calls it, is wasteful.

The abortion claim may be the one Democrats plan to hammer the hardest.

House Majority PAC, a committee that works to get Democrats elected to the U.S. House, put out an ad recently noting state legislation Barrett sponsored in 2019 that would have made providers who performed some second-trimester abortions widely considered safe among the medical community to face a felony conviction and possibly prison time. In 2022, he sent out mailers saying he was "100% PRO-LIFE − NO EXCEPTIONS." Democrats claim Barrett and other Republicans would support a national ban that could override constitutional guarantees in some states, including Michigan, to protect abortion rights.

The fight to pass many of those state protections on ballot referenda two years ago, following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that summer to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the decision that had guaranteed a person's right to abortion since 1973, also helped Democrats overperform, especially in states like Michigan, in 2022 midterm elections. But it's far from clear whether Michigan voters will be as motivated by the issue this year, with a right to abortion already enshrined in the state constitution.

For his part, Barrett said he did not support that ballot referendum in Michigan two years ago and remains opposed to abortion. But like many other Republican candidates — not least Trump, who opposed abortion rights and appointed the conservative justices who overturned Roe vs. Wade — Barrett said he wouldn't support any national ban that would thwart Michigan and other states' decisions to protect it.

"It's going to be up to the people of Michigan to decide if and how they want to put some guardrails on that (state guarantee) and amend that proposal," he said. Barrett added that he sees Congress' role as ensuring federal funds aren't used for abortions and that doctors aren't forced to perform the procedure in violation of their own consciences. He also sees a role for Congress in making sure minors aren't transported across state lines to receive an abortion without parental consent and trying to make adoption more of an acceptable option.

"At the federal level, I can't overturn a state constitutional amendment," he said. "It wasn't the federal government that created the states, it was the states that created the federal government, and it will be up to the people of Michigan to decide if or how they want to change the proposal that was adopted here."

Hertel, on the other hand, argues Barrett can't be trusted on the issue, should Republicans in Congress propose such a ban or other restrictions.

"I believe that when people show you who you (they) are, you believe them. And so Tom's record on this is clear. He supported legislation that would have put doctors and nurses in jail," Hertel said. "He absolutely supports a national abortion ban ... He wants to run away from that now. I'm sure he does, because women are sick of it."

A marquee race between two middle-aged white men

One thing that stands out about the race in the 7th District is that it is two middle-aged, white men facing off in a marquee contest. In recent years in Michigan especially, it has been women — notably Democratic women, in contests for the governorship, attorney general and key congressional seats — who have seen significant gains.

Barrett and Hertel know each other and appear to respect one another; their time overlapped in the state Legislature before Barrett, who also spent four years in the state House, left the Senate after one four-year term in early 2023 (after losing his race against Slotkin) and Hertel was term-limited after two Senate terms at the same time. The latter joined Whitmer's administration as its chief lobbyist. Barrett, a former state Treasury analyst, did consulting work.

Both have former congressmen in their families. Barrett, who grew up in Madison Heights, is the great-grandson of Louis Rabaut, a longtime Democratic congressman perhaps best known for adding the words “under God,” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Hertel's uncle Dennis served six two-year terms in Congress before deciding not to run in 1992 after his district was combined with that of a good friend, former U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Royal Oak.

Hertel, however, has far more political ties than that in his family. His brother, Kevin Hertel, now serves in the state Senate. Their father, Curtis Sr., was co-speaker in the Michigan House. Another uncle, John, ran the Michigan State Fair for more than a decade and chaired the board for the Huron-Clinton Metroparks system.

Barrett, who is 43, went into the Army after his high school graduation and remained with in it part-time even after he returned to the state to attend Western Michigan University, being deployed to Guantanamo Bay, guarding detainees, and serving in Iraq before getting into flight school. Hertel, who is 46 and married to Elizabeth Hertel, director of Michigan's Health and Human Services Department, became an Ingham County commissioner shortly after graduating from Michigan State University and served as Ingham County register of deeds before being elected to the state Senate.

Both Barrett and Hertel are sharp, easy-going and laser-focused on their messaging in this election. And they're not afraid to take shots at each other.

"I was over in Korea, freezing my butt off just next to the DMZ while he was out running for his first political office," Barrett said of Hertel.

"I think at the end of the day, they (voters) should look at the results," Hertel said. "I've been a public servant and worked with Republicans and Democrats (to) cut taxes, worked with Republicans and Democrats to deliver 5,000 jobs for the district." As to Barrett, he says that his calling somebody else a career politician is "kind of laughable," considering Barrett spent eight years in the Legislature and "has been running for Congress for three years."

In the Legislature, Barrett was a voice for veterans, befitting his background, and championed many of the traditional Republican stances, including protections for gun rights; he also was a key figure in legislative attempts to restrict Whitmer's powers to unilaterally order shutdowns during COVID.

Hertel has a long legislative history as a behind-the-scenes force for Democratic priorities and a friend of organized labor. With the Whitmer administration, he was considered instrumental in securing the repeal of a law that allowed workers to reject paying union dues despite being covered by union-negotiated contracts for wages and benefits. He was also a key part of the team that helped pass legislation to cut the state's retirement tax and other taxes on middle-class families.

Barrett hits Democrats on inflation, Hertel fires back on drug costs

While the National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect GOP members to the House, hasn't run any TV ads against Hertel yet, it has trumpeted claims that Hertel was "crooked" for going to work for a nonprofit Flint health care group that received $1.5 billion in a budget bill he helped negotiate after he left the Whitmer administration.

Hertel has defended the move, saying the Greater Flint Health Coalition has been receiving support from the state for decades. "I left the governor's office to go work for a healthcare organization that has a record of improving people's lives," he said.

Barrett and the Republicans may have a stronger argument to make with voters on national issues. Inflation, for one, has cooled considerably but for many goods and services prices are still much higher than they were just before the COVID-19 pandemic and voters consistently rank it as one of their top concerns. Republicans, Barrett included, have argued that spending bills put forward by the Biden administration and adopted by Democrats have exacerbated those prices. And while there is evidence that the U.S. has weathered the post-pandemic market forces better than most western democracies, it's not at all unusual for the party in control of the White House to take the brunt of the blame.

The Republican nominee is on somewhat more shaky ground when he argues that the flow of undocumented immigrants across the southern border is worse now than it was two years ago, since encounters have been declining precipitously in recent months following the Biden administration putting stricter rules for asylum entries in place. But he's correct that for much of Biden's term, illegal immigration has been significantly higher than it was after Trump put emergency border measures in place during COVID.

Hertel, however, may be somewhat insulated from being hit on problems at the border, given that he's been in state government — not the federal government — and that in late May he encouraged Biden to take more executive action to secure the border as a way to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking that was affecting the district. At the time, Biden was preparing to announce his crackdown on asylum seekers without valid claims.

Barrett also argues that his rival — and the Democrats generally — have allowed tensions in the world to fester and worsen and China to increasingly threaten the U.S. And he, like a lot of Republicans, takes issue with what they call a Biden administration mandate to force American consumers to buy electric vehicles. While there is no such mandate, it's true that the Biden administration adopted rules that set emission standards so high over the next eight years that automakers may otherwise have to pay hefty fines if they don't sell many more EVs or come up with other ways of hitting the targets.

Barrett, meanwhile, rejects any suggestion he would cut Social Security or Medicare as Democrats have suggested, but he does believe spending and the national debt must be reined in. "That discipline has been lost at the federal level," he said. "I'm not going to pretend to you that we can balance the federal budget on day one of January of next year, but I am saying we have to get back to a practice of being disciplined about how we spend the people's money."

Hertel, on the other hand, says he not only would be a force for bringing prices down — including by reducing pharmaceutical costs through government negotiations, something he says Barrett has opposed but also by spurring job growth in manufacturing and other industries. "I think we have to acknowledge that families are hurting, and I think that it's easy to find a job in America but finding a job that will pay your bills or help you to raise a family isn't there," he said.

Both claimed the other supported plans to increase gas taxes in Michigan: Barrett, as a member of the state House in 2015; Hertel as a state senator in 2019 reacting to Whitmer's proposed 45-cent gas tax as a way to fund road construction.

Hertel, meanwhile, says it's simple: Compared to Barrett, he would be more of a force for lowering costs, especially when it comes to the prices of pharmaceuticals; protecting freedoms, especially those related to voting and people's reproductive health choices; and lowering taxes for middle-class families. At the same time, he says, he knows how to get things done legislatively. "I have a record on that and I think it's a record that voters want to hear more about," he said.

Ultimately, the performance of the nominees at the top of the ticket will have a big impact on how this race ends. Hertel says he's already seeing a rush of enthusiasm, with volunteers pouring into his campaign offices. Barrett says he expects some of that will die down, but he's still ready for an expensive, fractious race as both parties try to turn out their voters.

"It's gonna be a bumpy road," he said. "I think if we fast forward the tape, I think I'll come out of it ahead. And that's different than the feeling I had two years ago."

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Barrett, Hertel take aim at each other in tossup US House race