Michigan

Michigan House primary: Newly-elected Xiong faces challengers in redrawn 13th District

Published

1 year ago

July 31, 2024

Michigan House primary: Newly-elected Xiong faces challengers in redrawn 13th District

Three Democrats and four Republicans are hoping to advance past the Aug. 6 primary for southern Macomb County’s redrawn 13th House District — a seat that for the last three months has been held by Democratic Rep. Mai Xiong, Michigan’s first Hmong American lawmaker.

The district’s boundaries look drastically different than they did last spring, when Xiong won a special election to join the House. Instead of centering on Warren and a slice of Detroit, the district now runs east from Warren, into Roseville and St. Clair Shores. Xiong’s Warren residence remained inside the revamped district.

”There is an education component to our campaign because people are confused about the redistricting process,” said Xiong, a former Macomb County commissioner.

Xiong beat Republican Ronald Singer in the April 16 special election that was needed after Lori Stone of Warren vacated her House seat to become mayor of Warren. Xiong’s victory helped Democrats regain a narrow 56-54 majority in the House.

Now, the 39-year-old mother of four has drawn a few serious challengers as she seeks a first full two-year term in office.

In the Democratic primary, Richard Steenland, 62, is a former state representative who has served several other roles in both Macomb County and Roseville city government over the years. Patricia Johnson Singleton, 61, is a caregiver for mentally disabled people who is also a substitute teacher and previously served a stint on the Detroit Board of Education.

In the Republican primary, Singer, 73, is running again. He is an electrical and mechanical engineer who has long been involved in GOP politics. Mark Foster, 61, has long owned a real estate firm and been involved in local government in St. Clair Shores. Jerrie Bowl Bilello, 53, is a claims processor making a first run for office. John Sheets is the final GOP candidate who didn’t respond to requests for more information on his candidacy.

More: Michigan House primary: Two Dems challenge incumbent Edwards in redrawn 12th District

Democrats

Xiong arrived at the state Capitol just as the hectic budget process was underway, calling her early weeks “a learning process of how things happen in Lansing.” Nevertheless she said she was proud to work with colleagues to bring back several infrastructure investments for her area, including money to repair Roseville’s sewer and pump station, water system fixes, and money for additional fixes to Mound Road.

“I’m also really proud of the investments we made in education,” she said, citing the passage of legislation that allows students to attend community college tuition-free. Xiong said she also pushed bills around consumer protection and healthcare, including one that would ensure the state has a robust pipeline of respiratory therapists.

The new lawmaker said she’s consistently heard from constituents about the rising cost of living. “I want to find ways to lower costs for families, to address the cost of living, and put more resources into services like our food pantries, because families are relying on these,” she said.

Steenland previously served stints on Roseville’s City Council and as its city clerk, and in 2020 he was elected to the House, serving one term, before he lost his reelection in 2022. He also worked in Macomb County government over the years, primary in the the courts system. He said he has unfinished business in Lansing.

“I didn’t feel like I was ready to go when I left,” Steenland said. ”I work very well with the other side of the aisle. My job is not to worry about politics, but worry about the people.”

Steenland said his deep experience in government and the court system helped him navigate the Legislature, and he had multiple pieces of legislation signed into law. One that he was most proud of involved ensuring municipalities had a way to approve raising tax revenue for police and fire services. He was also focused on helping military veterans.

“Experience does matter, and that’s one of the things I’m going for right now,” he said.

Singleton, of Roseville, pledged she would be a strong voice for the mentally disabled community if elected, having served as a caregiver for a decade. She pledged to advocate for improved conditions inside Michigan’s adult foster care homes, and also argued that Michigan’s mental health code is outdated and needs a thorough review.

Education would be another area of focus, said the former school board member. Singleton said the state must look more closely at how to keep more talented teachers from leaving, including by a fully funded teacher pension fund, as well as the ability to hire more paraprofessionals in classrooms.

Republicans

Singer, an engineer for an automotive supplier who lives in Warren, has long volunteered for Republican campaigns and causes in Michigan, and now says he has the urge to step up himself.

He cited concerns about the Democratic-controlled Legislature’s “out-of-control spending that causes tax increases,” and in his view had made the state less competitive. He said he’s also worried about what he views as an underperforming Michigan public education system.

Singer also said his engineering background would be useful in Lansing, especially as lawmakers consider subsidizing clean energy sources such as wind or solar, or clean transportation options, such as hydrogen-powered cars. “From an engineering perspective, you need to figure out what works and what doesn’t,” he said.

Foster runs The Fosters Real Estate firm in St. Clair Shores, and unsuccessfully ran for a House seat once before. He spent almost 20 years serving in an appointed position on the St. Clair Shores zoning board of appeals.

He said he’s most passionate about the economy, election integrity issues, and the border, though he acknowledged, “I don’t know how much we’ve have to do with the border” in the Michigan Legislature.

Foster said he’d advocate for only allowing in-person voting on Election Day, eliminating early voting unless voters were approved for certain reasons to vote early. However, in 2022, 2.5 million Michigan voters voted to enshrine nine days of early, in-person voting in the state constitution, meaning the Legislature has little recourse to curtail early voting.

Bowl Bilello said she stepped up to run because the Michigan House needs more “good people,” who “won’t be bribed or blackmailed or threatened.” She said she started to become more politically engaged during the pandemic lockdowns, which she said were wrong, and decided to switch to the Republican Party in 2020.

She pledged to have an open-door policy with constituents, if elected, including by holding small meetings and town halls frequently in the district. Bowl Bilello said she would want to serve on the Education Committee, because the believes some Michigan schools are “indoctrinating our children” by having sexualized books in curriculums and libraries, noting she has protested at local school board meetings in the past.

“Our future of our country is in the children’s hands,” she said. “It’s very important that we stop this indoctrination that they’re trying to do to these children.”

lramseth@detroitnews.com

@lramseth

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Michigan

Overheard in Michigan State’s locker room: Lethal on the lob and a physical threat

Published

16 hours ago

November 21, 2025

Press Room

Overheard in Michigan State’s locker room: Lethal on the lob and a physical threat

EAST LANSING – When Nick Sanders checks into a game, that’s usually a good sign for the Spartans.

The walk-on senior guard burying a 3-pointer immediately after getting on the court was the final exclamation point as No. 17 Michigan State (5-0) rolled to an 84-56 win against Detroit Mercy on Friday night at the Breslin Center.

Here are notable quotes from coach Tom Izzo and players following the victory:

Izzo on following an 83-66 win against No. 12 Kentucky on Tuesday in the Champions Classic with a victory against the Titans: “I just didn’t think we played as good as we can play so we’ll get better.”

Jeremy Fears, who scored a career-high 18 points to go with 11 assists, on sparking the team with his shot and passing: “Somehow, someway making sure we get a bucket kinda to stop the bleeding, stop their run.”

Izzo on Fears, who put together his second double-double of the season: “I think he’s just starting to come into his own.”

Coen Carr on scoring 11 of his 13 points in the first half after scoring only six against Kentucky: “I was definitely trying to be aggressive in the beginning. Fears set me up for some nice plays, I got two open 3s. … I was just trying to be confident in myself, that’s all they’ve been telling me.”

Izzo on his team putting up some ugly misses: “We airballed some wide-open shots, I mean airballed them. If you ask me, the guy that should be upset is Fears not me, he would have had 15, 16 assists tonight if they just hit regular shots.”

Sanders on knocking down a 3-pointer immediately after checking in late in the second half: “Coach gives us the opportunity to play at the end and we try to take advantage of those moments.”

Carson Cooper on Sanders taking a shot: “We said we were going to beat him up if he came in one of these games like this and didn’t get aggressive like he does on scout team when we play against him because he scores so much on scout and he hits shots on scout team.”

Izzo on Cooper and Fears connecting on alley-oops: “Him and Jeremy are lethal on that lob stuff.”

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‘We Not Done’: How Detroit rapper 42 Dugg’s song took over Michigan high school football

Published

1 day ago

November 21, 2025

Press Room

‘We Not Done’: How Detroit rapper 42 Dugg’s song took over Michigan high school football

After a 10-6 win over Harper Woods in the Division 4 regional finals, Dearborn Divine Child coach Chris Laney delivered an impassioned speech.

He told his players how proud he was of every single player on the roster, how the only belief the team needed was inside the locker room and how the road continues into the state semifinals against an undefeated Goodrich team defending its state title.

At the end of the speech in the south end zone at Westland John Glenn High School, with a crowd of family and fans sitting behind him, Laney finished his message with the three most popular words of the 2025 Michigan high school football season.

“We not done,” Laney said, leading to his players mobbing him in celebration.

Divine Child players were singing “We Not Done” over and over after pulling off the upset of the playoffs. The phrase comes courtesy of Detroit rapper 42 Dugg, who released a hit song called “We Not Done” in May.

John Glenn officials in the press box played the song during the halftime break, causing both sidelines to erupt with energy as Dugg’s signature whistle and the one-of-a-kind voice started bumping through the school’s speaker system.

The night before, Detroit Cass Tech students who bused down I-94 to watch the Technicians beat Saline 42-28 in the Division 1 regional finals chanted “We Not Done” throughout the win as senior C.J. Sadler dazzled with a four-touchdown, two-interception performance.

“Our student section, our student body around Cass is, it’s just we’re not done,” senior linebacker/nickelback Marcus Jennings said Friday. “We’ve got to finish what we started.”

The song has become the anthem of the 2025 football season in metro Detroit for players and students. The song’s title and oft-repeated hook share the same message as what coaches and players preach throughout the summer and fall as they vie for a run in the single-elimination playoffs to reach the state title game at Ford Field.

In the playoffs, players and coaches are fighting against elimination in a 48-minute battle on the gridiron. The victorious team celebrates gets to spend one more week preparing for another battle with its brothers, lining up with the message of “We Not Done” that 42 Dugg says 22 times in the 2-minute, 55-second song.

In the Division 2 district finals between Orchard Lake St. Mary’s and Birmingham Brother Rice, the suit-and-tie-wearing Brother Rice student section chanted “We Not Done” throughout the first half of the Catholic League rematch.

By the end of the game, which St. Mary’s won 35-14, the Brother Rice students dispersed and it was St. Mary’s assistant coaches singing the song’s hook to themselves and laughing after dealing out a dose of revenge against their rivals.

For Cass Tech, it has been a subtle reminder from the players, starting in the summer during seven-on-seven competitions all the way up to the state semifinals. The Technicians are the defending Division 1 champions and on a 22-game winning streak, but have loftier goals they are still fighting for.

So if you were wondering where one of the main messages from the 2025 Michigan high school football season originated, it started with one of Detroit’s own.

Nominate a high school athlete for the Detroit Free Press boys and girls athlete of the week.

Jared Ramsey covers high school sports for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jramsey@freepress.com; Follow Jared on X or Bluesky.

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On-the-rise Michigan gets biggest test yet in No. 1 UConn: ‘Our kids want this’

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2025

Press Room

On-the-rise Michigan gets biggest test yet in No. 1 UConn: ‘Our kids want this’

Kim Barnes Arico had plenty of questions about her still-very-young Michigan women’s basketball team heading into last Saturday’s game against then-No 18 Notre Dame, and the Wolverines answered every last one of them.

Michigan was more than ready for Notre Dame, walloping the Fighting Irish, 93-54, at Wayne State Fieldhouse in Detroit, for arguably the signature regular-season victory of Barnes Arico’s 14-year tenure in Ann Arbor.

Now it’s on to the next test ― and, well, this one makes Notre Dame look like a pop quiz.

No. 6 Michigan (4-0) plays No. 1 Connecticut (4-0), the defending national champion, in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut at 8 Friday night. The game will air on Fox, the latest taste of national exposure for a Wolverines team whose win over the Fighting Irish was on NBC.

“It’s really exciting. I think it’s a great opportunity for us,” Barnes Arico said earlier this week. “Our kids want to be in this situation and they want to match up against the best.”

This game marks the first meeting between Michigan and Connecticut, the 12-time national champion, in women’s basketball. But it’s not the first meeting between Barnes Arico and Connecticut legendary head coach Geno Auriemma. When she was coaching at St. John’s, her team beat Connecticut on Feb. 18, 2012, to snap the Huskies’ 99-game home winning streak. That was one of just 22 losses for Connecticut in a 13-year span.

This will be the fourth time Michigan ever has played a top-ranked team, and third time in the last two seasons ― after losing to South Carolina and UCLA last regular season. UM also lost to No. 1 Iowa in 1988.

Michigan did beat No. 5 Baylor in the 2021 Hall of Fame Showcase, a win that first helped signal that the program was starting to arrive. A win over Connecticut ― which has four more national championships than the second-best team (Tennessee, with eight; nobody else has more than three) ― would obviously mean even more than that.

“We’ve kind of been working all year for these kinds of games,” sophomore guard Olivia Olson, last season’s co-freshman of the year in the Big Ten, said after the win over Notre Dame, in which she had 20 points.

“We want these games. We want these top matchups.”

Michigan is led by three sophomores, who also led the team last season as freshmen ― Olson (17.8 points per game) and fellow guards Mila Holloway (14.2) and Syla Swords (12.2). But while the Wolverines often played all guards last season, they’ve got more size and inside presence this season, with the additions of forwards Ashley Sofilkanich, a junior transfer from Bucknell, and Te’Yala Delfosse, a freshman. Both also are averaging in double digits scoring.

Michigan is averaging 92.3 points a game, 11th in the nation, fresh off scoring 120 against Binghamton, the second-most points in program history, and most under Barnes Arico.

In Connecticut, Michigan will face a team that has four players on the watch list for the Wooden Award, which goes to the season’s top college basketball player: grad-student Azzi Fudd, senior Serah Williams and sophomores Sarah Strong and Kayleigh Heckel. Michigan has one, Olson.

Connecticut just scored 100 against Ohio State; it also has wins over No. 20 Louisville, Florida State and Loyola-Chicago, the latter which the Huskies held to 31 points.

“Can we handle their pressure?” Barnes Arico said in listing off the keys to the game. “The defensive intensity in the halfcourt is something that I don’t know if our kids have ever faced. I do have a recollection of it. It’s been a minute, but I still can remember how hard it is to even get in your offense because they’re so physical and so aggressive.

“Can we rebound with them? We’re going to have to have this toughness and this grit about us to do that. I know we did against Notre Dame (50-28), but not it’s even going to be dialed up to No. 1.

“I think it will be an unbelievable test for us.”

To be fair, the same might just hold true for Connecticut. Michigan has moved up to No. 6 in the Associated Press poll, its highest ranking since it was No. 6 in February 2022. (Fun fact: With the UM men’s team ranked No. 7, it’s the first week both teams have been in the top 10 at the same time.)

The Huskies have the tradition, with all those national championships, 24 Final Fours and 36 consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

The Wolverines are building something in their own right, with seven consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (a program record). They made their first Sweet 16 in 2021, and their first Elite Eight in 2022.

Last season ended up with a second-round loss to Notre Dame, and, well, UM exorcised those demons last weekend.

Now, it’s time for the next test ― and it’s a doozie.

“After seeing what we did today, you know, you want to say, ‘Oh, you know, this is the year,’ but we can’t get comfortable,” Michigan’s Alyssa Crockett, a senior forward, said after the win over Notre Dame. “We know what we want. We’re going to go get it.”

Michigan is one of seven Big Ten teams in the top 25, along with UCLA (3), Maryland (9), Southern Cal (11), Iowa (19), Michigan State (22) and Washington (25).

The Wolverines stay in Connecticut to play Syracuse (4-0) on Sunday (noon; FS1).

They then play next Wednesday against Detroit Mercy at Calihan Hall, the site of Michigan’s WNIT championship win in 2017 ― a major turning point in the program, which hasn’t missed the NCAA Tournament since then. The Wolverines have come so far. Just how far, we might be about to find out.

“They’re really good,” Barnes Arico said of UConn, a little over a year after Michigan narrowly lost to then-No. 1 and defending national champion South Carolina, 68-62. “They will test us in every space, and this early in the season, I think it’s good for us to be tested in that way and for us to see where we need to grow and improve.”