Courtesy of Carl Marlinga's campaign
Carl Marlinga is running for a second time for the 10th Congressional District.
By just a half percentage point in 2022, Republican John James narrowly defeated Democrat Carl Marlinga for an open congressional seat that covers Macomb County and neighboring Rochester and Rochester Hills in Oakland County.
Marlinga, a former county prosecutor, judge, and U.S. attorney, is running for the seat again, and part of his campaign’s strategy is focused on appealing to the sizable Black population in the 10th Congressional District.
“I think the Democratic Party, which gets good support from the Black community, doesn’t get involved enough in campaigning and working hard in precincts that are in Black communities," Marlinga tells Metro Times. "I want to make sure I’m not guilty of any of those mistakes.”
Since 2000, Macomb County’s Black population has surged from 21,326 to 103,840, a nearly five-fold increase. To put that into perspective, Marlinga lost the 2022 race by just 1,600 votes.
Nearly 14% of the county is now Black.
As a sign that he’s not taking Black voters for granted, Marlinga tapped prominent Detroit political strategist Adolph Mongo to serve as a consultant to help spread his campaign’s message that he’s serious about racial and environmental justice, voting rights, creating jobs, improving education, and providing access to affordable child care.
“Marlinga’s got a progressive record as a prosecutor,” Mongo tells Metro Times. “He’s the only Democrat that can beat John James. Now all he has to do is broaden his appeal to the African American base.”
Mongo says James has hurt his chances in the Black community by remaining a loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump, whose history of making racist statements has made him immensely unpopular among Black voters. In July, James, who is Black, endorsed Trump, despite his previous claims that the former president “can’t be trusted” and is “not fit to lead.”
In the 2020 presidential election, Black Americans overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden 92% to 8%.
“James has hooked his coattails to Trump. He’s following a cult leader,” Mongo says. “How can you lead when you have someone telling you what to do and say? You are drinking the Trump Kool-Aid.”
Marlinga, on the other hand, has a long history of supporting Black residents. When he became the Macomb County prosecutor in 1984, he inherited an all-white office of 65 assistant prosecutors, 61 of whom were men. He quickly diversified his office and became the first Macomb County prosecutor to hire a Black assistant prosecutor.
“The Free Press wrote about me breaking the color barrier,” Marlinga recalls. “I almost felt embarrassed for Macomb. That story helped because other African-American lawyers applied, and I appointed them to positions of true responsibility and power. The only drawback was that they were so good that many of them quickly left to become judges or take jobs at big firms.”
When Marlinga was a defense attorney, he dedicated much of his time to the Innocence Project, a national effort to exonerate wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and other scientific advancements. Black defendants are far more likely to be falsely accused or convicted, studies show.
“Obviously the African American community is probably more aware than most communities of the wrongful accusations and convictions, and that’s something I intend to highlight in my campaign,” Marlinga says. “A prosecutor’s job is to convict the guilty, but just as importantly, it’s to set free the innocent.”
After getting elected to the Macomb County Probate Court in November 2012, Marlinga played a pivotal role in establishing a mental health court to help low-level offenders get psychological help and other resources. When a vast majority of the people taking advantage of the court were white, Marlinga worked behind the scenes to ensure more Black offenders also received help.
“After about six months, the applicants were coming in, and 30% to 40% were Black after about a year of setting up the court,” Marlinga says.
In 2021, Marlinga became a leading voice in urging Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to appoint Teri Lynn Dennings to a vacancy on the Macomb County Circuit Court.
“In Macomb County, we have this reputation and history of not being racially sensitive, and now is the time to make up for it with this countywide position,” Marlinga recalls saying at the time.
A year after Dennings’ appointment, she became the first-ever African American to be elected to the circuit court.
Many political observers believe Marlinga would have defeated James in 2022 if he had the same support from the national Democratic Party that James had from the national GOP. At the time, Democrats in Washington D.C. didn’t think a Democrat could win the seat because of the county’s shift to the right.
Marlinga proved them wrong.
Without the national support, James vastly outspent Marlinga in 2022, $6.2 million to $1.1 million.
“I thought he got a bum deal two years ago,” Mongo says. “Democrats left him out hanging. They shot themselves in the foot.”
This time around, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says James' district is among the 33 GOP-led or open seats across the country that it plans to target with funding in 2024.
“The Democratic Party has said this is a priority seat, it’s the third highest on their list of 33,” Marlinga says. “That is a big difference in terms of national funding. Nobody in Washington thought this was a winnable seat. Now that I have proven that it is, their minds have changed. That’s going to make a big difference moving forward.”
Marlinga, who most recently served as a special assistant to Attorney General Nessel, running her Elder Abuse Task Force, says becoming a congressman “is my lifelong ambition, and it’s the one position I’ve wanted more than anything else in my life.”
His inspiration to serve the public came from civil rights leaders, he says.
“I loved to hear Dr. (Martin Luther) King talk, and of course, the assassinations were again a motivating factor in getting me on this road because I realized you can kill individuals, but you can’t kill the idea,” Marlinga says. “I’m glad that in this campaign, that fire still burns in my belly. Equal justice for all still inspires me to do this. Politically, it’s wise to campaign heavily in African American precincts, but in terms of the moral compass — what drives me — it’s where I want to be.”
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