MI-11, MI-Sen: On Monday, three Republicans announced that they were running to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Dave Trott in this 50-45 Trump seat in suburban Detroit: businesswoman Lena Epstein, state Rep. Klint Kesto, and ex-state Rep. Rocky Raczkowski. No other noteworthy Republicans were running before this trio announced, though several are considering. Two Democrats were running before Trott retired.
Back in May, Epstein, who co-chaired Trump's Michigan campaign and whose family owns an automotive and industrial lubricant company, announced that she would challenge Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Epstein raised $211,000 during her first five weeks in the Senate race and loaned herself another $250,000, money that she can easily transfer to a House campaign. Kesto is a former assistant county prosecutor in Wayne County who has served three terms in a light red state House seat.
Raczkowski is a former House majority leader and an Army veteran who served in Iraq. Raczkowski has been out of office since 2002, when he lost the U.S. Senate race to Democratic incumbent Carl Levin 61-38. Raczkowski tried to resuscitate his political career in 2010, when he challenged freshman Democratic Rep. Gary Peters for the old 9th Congressional District. (About one-third of that old seat is located in Trott's district.) Raczkowski lost to Peters 50-47, a rare success for Democrats in a swing seat in a horrible year. Four years later, Raczkowski narrowly lost a primary for the state Senate to eventual winner Marty Knollenberg, who has talked about running for Trott's seat.
As we noted last week, Raczkowski's allies and his own antics got him into trouble during his congressional campaign. At a fundraiser for his congressional campaign, prominent conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly drew unflattering headlines for Raczkowski when she declared that, besides "the blacks," the largest group to vote for Obama was unmarried women, because "when you kick your husband out, you've got to have big brother government to be your provider." Raczkowski awkwardly tried to distance himself from Schlafly's comments by saying he "believe[s] in equality for everyone. I'm color-blind and gender blind," coming very close to accidently echoing Stephen Colbert.
Raczkowski also drew headlines in 2010 when he told Politico that he would "love" to see Obama's birth certificate; Raczkowski's campaign later said his comments were taken out of context and that he didn't question Obama's citizenship, though they didn't explain what the proper context actually was.