Candidate who dropped out beats Trump’s pick in a battleground GOP House primary

Thomas Smith, a political unknown who raised almost no money for his campaign, defeated President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate in a Republican primary for a Michigan congressional seat the GOP hopes to contest this fall, NBC News projects.

Trump had backed military veteran Amir Hassan in his bid to take on Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet in the 8th District, which the president carried by 2 points in the 2024 election. But Hassan lost to Smith, who suspended his campaign in mid-July, according to local media reports .

With nearly all of the vote tallied, Smith led with 50% of the vote, followed by Hassan with 33%. A third candidate, Al Lemmo, took 16%.

Smith had appeared to be a nonfactor in the GOP primary race. In a handwritten letter to the Federal Election Commission last month, a rarity given how the vast majority of candidates file electronically, Smith wrote that his campaign raised $1,850 through June 30. He added that he was filing its paperwork by hand because of issues logging into the FEC’s candidate portal.

The last post on his campaign’s Facebook page came on July 15. Lemmo also posted a video on Facebook featuring Smith announcing, “I am suspending my campaign and putting my full support behind Al Lemmo.”

Michigan’s official candidate website did not list Smith as having withdrawn his candidacy. Smith’s campaign did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

An engineer who worked at General Motors, Smith later opened a salsa company with one of his sons, a Marine veteran, according to his campaign website .