Peter Meijer, a Republican who lost his reelection bid for Congress after voting to impeach Donald Trump, announced Monday he’s running for an open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.
Meijer, 35, the grandson of the founder of the Meijer supermarket chain, joins a crowded field vying for a seat held by Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who is retiring.
Other high-profile Republicans running for the seat are retired Detroit Police Chief James Craig and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of Brighton, who has the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“We are in dark and uncertain times, but we have made it through worse,” Meijer said in a statement. “If we are to see another great American century, we need leaders who are not afraid to be bold, will do the work, and can’t be bought.”
The Democratic field is led by U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Holly. Other Democratic candidates include actor Hill Harper of Detroit, former state Rep. Leslie Love of Detroit, and State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh of Saginaw.
Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said Meijer has a shoddy past and his inclusion in the race will create even more havoc in an already caustic primary.
“Michigan Republicans’ nasty, chaotic Senate primary is getting even messier,” Barnes said. “Their intra-party fight is guaranteed to leave them with a nominee who is badly damaged and out of step with working families. Meijer has a long record of leaving Michigan families behind, from his support of the 2017 tax giveaway to the wealthy and large corporations — including his own family — to his record of supporting dangerous abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest.”
Meijer, a former Army reserve officer who served in Iraq, was elected to the U.S. House in 2020 at the age of 32. But after voting to impeach Trump, Meijer narrowly lost reelection to far-right conspiracy theorist John Gibbs.
Gibbs went on to lose in the general election to Hillary Scholten, a Democrat.
Meijer’s Senate campaign logo is very similar to the one used by the grocery store for two decades beginning in the mid-1980s.
Peter Meijer, grandson of the founder of a Walker, Mich.-based supermarket chain, has a Senate campaign logo that may look awfully familiar to longtime Michigan shoppers of “Meijers.” https://t.co/OYN2dxdSFz pic.twitter.com/F0NrbVhtru
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) November 6, 2023
The race will be closely watched in Washington D.C., where Democrats hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate.
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