Republican who withdrew last month beats Trump-backed rival in Michigan

Thomas Smith, whose name remained on ballot, beats Republican rivals in primary contest for eighth district

Thomas Smith withdrew from the Republican primary contest for Michigan ’s eighth district last month. On Tuesday, he won the nomination.

Unofficial results show Smith with more than 50% of the vote, according to the Associated Press, defeating the man he endorsed, anti-abortion activist Al Lemmo, and the man Donald Trump endorsed, former federal law enforcement officer Amir Hassan.

In a statement on Wednesday, Smith said he was “humbled and honored that Republicans have chosen me to take the fight to Kristen McDonald Rivet”, the Democratic incumbent in the battleground House district.

“I look forward to working with Speaker [Mike] Johnson and the entire Republican team to expand our House majority and advance President Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda to lower costs for working families and make America affordable again,” he added.

In June, Trump endorsed Hassan, an African American navy veteran who worked for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Transportation. The president also appeared with Hassan at a campaign event in Michigan . Hassan said during his campaign that he had recently converted to Christianity from Islam. Nonetheless, social media commentary suggests Republican voters did not view Hassan’s conversion as authentic and were apprehensive about nominating a Muslim candidate.

“It was a tough race, but over the last year I’ve had some incredible dealings with people across the entire district,” Hassan said in a video posted to X and Facebook. “The biggest conservative value is that we don’t make excuses.”

In a statement, Joe Gruters, the chair of the Republican National Committee, congratulated Smith on a “hard-fought, well-earned primary victory”.

Smith, who did little campaigning, posted on social media in July to endorse Lemmo, describing Hassan as a crypto-Republican. In Michigan, a US House candidate must withdraw their candidacy before 24 April for election officials to have enough time to remove their name from ballots.

The Federal Election Commission has no electronic campaign finance filings from Smith. It does have a handwritten letter dated 12 July declaring $1,850 in fundraising.

“I could not file this electronically because I have had no success logging in and have not been able to get a response from the helpdesk,” Smith wrote in a postscript on the letter.

The Flint native and retired General Motors engineer made a brief appearance at a Republican unity event hosted in Macomb county by Mike Rogers, the party’s newly minted Senate candidate. Smith said he intended to “unseat communist comrade Rivet”.

Though the victory on Tuesday of Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic Senate primary has drawn national attention to progressive politics in Michigan, Rivet has signaled her relative moderation as one of 10 House Democrats to join Promise to America, a congressional initiative led by US representatives Tom Suozzi of New York and Adam Gray of California explicitly embracing capitalism and rejecting socialism.

The congressional district along Michigan’s Saginaw River, connecting Flint to the Saginaw Bay, was one of 13 districts nationwide that voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election while also electing a Democratic representative to Congress.