Former State Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte) and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) take questions from reporters ahead of a rally in Lansing on Oct. 19, 2024. | Kyle Davidson
As U.S. House Republicans across the nation are campaigning hard to preserve their slim majority, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and a posse of prominent conservative House members made their way across Michigan on Saturday, drumming up support for candidates in multiple competitive districts.
At Campbell Press Repair Inc. in Lansing, Johnson threw his support behind former state Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte), who is facing off against fellow former state Sen. Curtis Hertel (D-East Lansing) in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, a key battleground seat that encompasses Ingham Livingston, Clinton and Shiawassee counties, as well as parts of Eaton, Oakland and Genesee counties.
“I’m delighted to be here with Tom. I think [the 7th District] is one of the best pickup opportunities in the country, certainly in the Midwest, because, you know, he came so close last time and now it’s an open seat,” Johnson told reporters ahead of his speech.
“Tom’s a well known entity as well. Of course, he served in the state Legislature, and he’s been at this for a while, so he didn’t have to introduce himself to voters. They know him and they know his record and they trust him,” Johnson said.
In his previous House campaign in 2022, Barrett tried to knock off U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), but Slotkin prevailed with 52% of the vote to Barrett’s 46%. Slotkin is now battling former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake) for the U.S. Senate seat that’s open with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) retiring.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated Michigan’s 7th Congressional District a “toss-up,” and it’s widely considered one of the most competitive in the nation.
Johnson and U.S. Reps. Jason Smith (R-Miss.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), Bill Huizenga (R-Zeeland), John Moolenaar (R-Caledonia) and Tim Walberg (R-Tipton) stumped for Barrett in the Capitol City.
The speaker and Jordan were set to make a stop in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District — another key battleground district that’s open — in support of former prosecutor Paul Junge, who’s squaring off against state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City). Rogers and former Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon were also set to appear alongside Johnson and Junge in Freeland.
And Johnson and Jordan also had a stop scheduled in the 10th Congressional District alongside first-term U.S. Rep. John James (R-Shelby Twp.), who’s being challenged by former Judge Carl Marlinga.
Johnson has been traversing the nation as Election Day draws ever nearer, making stops in Iowa and Nebraska on Friday, with additional events planned in Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to reporting from Fox News.
While Barrett promised to deliver improvements on the cost of living, the southern border and national security, Johnson previewed his agenda should Republicans take the majority on election day, expressing his full confidence that Republicans will win the presidency and take control of the Senate.
Promising attendees the most aggressive first 100 days of Congress they have ever seen, Johnson said Republicans would work to secure the border by passing the equivalent of the 2023 Secure the Border Act, which has sat dormant in the U.S. Senate since May 2023.
Johnson echoed former President Donald Trump’s proposals of U.S. domination in the energy sector and pledged to renew expiring portions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, often referred to as the Trump tax cuts.
“You’ve heard President Trump talk so much about American manufacturing, the importance of emphasizing that, and we do that with favorable tax policy and also with an aggressive regulatory reform. And we have big plans to do that, to get the government off the backs of people who are trying to provide jobs and provide for the American economy. That’s a very important, a key piece of what we’ll be focused on,” Johnson told reporters.
Following the rally, the Hertel campaign released a statement blasting Barrett and Johnson on abortion.
“Speaker Mike Johnson has called abortion ‘an American holocaust,’ so it is rare for him to stump for someone who holds even more extreme anti-choice views than he does. But that is who Tom Barrett is,” Hertel campaign spokesperson Sam Kwait-Spitzer said, pointing to Barrett’s previous support for reinstating Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban following the fall of Roe v. Wade and his introduction of legislation creating penalties for providing a “partial-birth abortion,” a non-medical term for a procedure called dilation and extraction (D&X), which has been banned nationally since 2003.
With Michigan residents voting to pass Proposal 3 in 2022, amending the state’s constitution to include protections for abortion and reproductive healthcare, the Barrett campaign previously told the Advance that he “does not believe Congress has the authority to override the will of the people of Michigan, and only they can amend the changes resulting from Proposal 3.”
“That is not something that I feel is within the authority of the United States Congress. So that’s not something, I don’t support things that are outside of the authority of Congress,” Barrett said in a more recent interview.
Barrett also said he would focus protecting the Hyde Amendment — which bans the use of federal funding for abortion with exceptions for pregnancies that endanger the life of the pregnant person or that result from rape or incest — as well as ensuring doctors are not forced or coerced to provide abortion care if they have a conscientious objection and expanding opportunities for adoption in the U.S.
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