TWO STRIKES AND OUT
Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Rochester Hills, west Oakland and western Wayne County) has only been in Washington DC representing Michigan's 11th District since January, and she already has a target on her back for 2020. The Washington Post and Politico, along with Stevens' own fundraising emails, claim an internal National Republican Congressional Committee poll has Republican John James (Farmington Hills) potentially defeating her, although local Republicans claim he is not interested in running for that office. James is still sitting on a $500,000 war chest left over from running against Senator Debbie Stabenow (D), and he raised around $9 million for that race. One Washington staffer said of the talk about James, still contemplating running against Democrat Senator Gary Peters (Bloomfield Township) in 2020, “it's pretty unusual to speculate about someone who has never won anything.” One observer even noted that if James makes a run against Peters and does not make it, then that will seal his fate for any future run for political office. Meanwhile, Peters raised nearly $1.9 million in the first quarter of 2019, a record for a U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, and has $3 million on hand.