Michigan
State canvassers finalize Michigan’s U.S. Senate and U.S. House races • Michigan Advance
The race for the Democratic nomination for Michigan’s soon-to-be-open U.S. Senate seat is now officially down to just two candidates after the Michigan Board of State Canvassers on Friday formally rejected the petitions of Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun.
The decision leaves actor Hill Harper and U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) to battle each other for the opportunity to succeed U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) who is retiring.
The board, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, accepted a staff report issued last week that said Beydoun improperly used a post office box on all 2,924 petition sheets, which require a street address. Thus, staff invalidated all of his sample signatures and said he was ineligible for the ballot.
Beydoun argued to the board that while the petition forms supplied by the Secretary of State made clear a P.O. Box could not be used by those who circulate or sign the petition, but it doesn’t specify that the header of the petition itself cannot have a post office box in it.
“For you to remove us from the ballot because of an issue on an address that has no material bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the petitions, I find that unjust and does not support democracy and allowing the citizens of the State of Michigan to choose when the primary comes on August 6th,” said Beydoun.
Michigan Elections Director Jonathan Brater pointed out that state law requires a residential address, which has been supported in past court decisions.
“Just to clarify, it’s not us putting it on the form. This is in the Michigan election law,” Brater said. “This is the language that the Michigan Legislature requires us to put on the form, and that that language, street address, has been interpreted by a court to mean not a P.O. Box. So, it’s not a definition that we’re providing. It’s a definition that’s in the law that we are obligated to follow.”
Several board members also expressed regret for Beydoun’s circumstance, but said their duty was to follow the law, and unanimously rejected his petitions.
A separate challenge against Slotkin made by the Harper campaign was rejected, with her petitions approved.
Meanwhile, the board rejected a request by Democrats to investigate claims of “apparent fraud” in GOP Senate petitions, noting the requests by the Michigan Democratic Party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee were filed past the challenge deadline and did not sufficiently refute the petition sampling procedure used by the Board of Elections staff.
Republican board member Tony Daunt questioned Brater about that process.
“I think it’s clear that the fraud has been happening across the board,” said Daunt. “With random sampling, how confident are we that random sampling is able to catch the fraud that’s in these petitions?”
“100% confident,” responded Brater, who noted that while third-party claims about the U.S. Senate petitions were “completely irrelevant” to their determination of whether they have 15,000 valid signatures, that doesn’t mean the issues aren’t being looked at.
“We’re reviewing these letters, and as we did two years ago, we’ll refer anything suspicious for law enforcement investigation, but it has no impact on our projection of validity of these candidates,” said Brater, referencing an 2022 incident of a signature fraud scandal that resulted in five Republican gubernatorial candidates in Michigan being kicked off the August 2022 primary ballot.
This year, questions about fraudulent signatures have resulted in derailing the candidacy of former Democratic state Sen. Adam Hollier of Detroit, whose candidacy for the 13th Congressional District was challenged by incumbent U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Detroit).
The canvassers’ decision to reject the Democrats request cleared four GOP candidates to be on the ballot: former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.), businessman Sandy Pensler and physician Sherry O’Donnell.
Congressional candidate challenges
The board also heard from representatives of 10 Congressional campaigns that had challenges lodged against their nominating petitions.
Former state Sen. Curtis Hertel (D-East Lansing) had his candidate petitions for the 7th Congressional District challenged for not correctly listing the office he is seeking. Because Hertel wrote “U.S. Congress” instead of the U.S. House, former canvassers board member Norm Shinkle, a Republican, filed to have Hertel disqualified.
Shinkle recalled past instances that the board rejected petitions for what were seemingly minor errors, but still in violation of the law.
“Everything we’ve done today is under the notion of strict compliance,” said Shinkle. “We got rid of a fake Tea Party because they didn’t use the word ‘the’ correctly. That was strict compliance. And strict compliance should be used today. This petition should be disallowed.”
Board Vice Chair Richard Houskamp, a Republican, pointed out that when Shinkle was on the board in 2022, he voted to approve a number of petitions for Congress, including U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Bruce Twp.) who listed “U.S. Congress.” When Shinkle said that was because those weren’t challenged, Houskamp was skeptical.
“Even though they weren’t challenged, they were no issue for you,” he replied.
Brater agreed.
“In this case, with all due respect to our esteemed former board member, we did not find that Congress was inappropriate here. It is clear what office is being referred to,” he said.
The board agreed and unanimously approved Hertel’s petitions. He is now the lone Democrat seeking the nomination, and is expected to face off against former state Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte) for the 7th Congressional District seat being left open by Slotkin due to her Senate run.
For 8th District Republican candidate Nikki Snyder, who currently serves on the State Board of Education, the board unanimously accepted the staff recommendation that she lacked the required valid petition signatures for a variety of reasons, including invalid dates by the signer, the signers submitted signatures for other candidates, were not registered at the address they indicated on the petition, or had illegible signatures.
Snyder had joined the 8th District field late, dropping out of the race for U.S. Senate on March 22 to seek the GOP nomination. Other Republicans running are Paul Junge, who lost to Kildee in the 2022 election; former Dow Chemical executive Mary Draves; and trucking company owner Anthony Hudson.
Democrats in the race are Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) and former Flint Mayor and Obama administration appointee Matt Collier.
In the 12th District, three candidate petitions were determined to have insufficient valid signatures, including that of Democrat Ryan Foster, the only challenger for the nomination faced by incumbent U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit).
Foster pleaded his case, noting he didn’t pay for circulators to gather his signatures, which he turned in March 17, but wasn’t challenged by Tlaib’s campaign until May 2nd.
“I did this myself in two months in the snow, in the rain, walking around,” said Foster. “I did everything the right way. In America, this system is falling apart because the only time you can run for a race is if you have money, or you have name recognition, or you are the right color. I did everything right. And then I have some incumbent with a lot of money to pay somebody to challenge my signatures? It makes me very upset’’
When told that a representative from the Tlaib campaign was present via Zoom, Foster addressed him directly.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself, that you’ve helped a candidate that got people chanting ‘Death to America’ to get another person that loves America off the ballot,” said Foster as he gathered his papers and left.
The reference was to an April rally in Dearborn in which the chant arose from the crowd, a video of which went viral, and was denounced later by Dearborn’s mayor and other leaders. Tlaib was not present at the rally.
Tlaib will now run unopposed for the Democratic nomination. The board also voted that insufficient valid petition signatures were turned in by two Republican candidates for the 12th District: Steven Elliott and Hassan Nehme, leaving two Republicans in the race for the GOP nomination: James Hooper and Linda Sawyer.
In the 1st District, the board unanimously accepted the staff report that Republican candidate JD Wilson had insufficient signatures because he did not use petition forms that met state election law requirements including improper formatting and language errors.
Fellow GOP candidate Josh Saul, however, proved to be a more difficult decision. All of his 1,221 signatures were recommended to be invalidated because each of the petition sheets stated the title of the office as “House of Representatives,” and the district line as “1st,” potentially confusing signers that he was running for state House.
But in discussion, Saul argued no one could reasonably conclude he was running for anything other than for the U.S. House as the two districts don’t overlap, which seemed to have an impact on board members. Brater then offered to have staff review the petitions, which several hours later produced a result that put Saul over the top for required valid signatures. The board then voted unanimously to reject the original staff report and approve Saul’s inclusion on the primary ballot, where he will run against Incumbent U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Watersmeet) for the GOP nomination. Two Democrats, Callie Barr and Bob Lorinser, will battle it out to take on the winner in November.
And finally, in the 10th District, the board concurred with staff recommendations that two Democrats were found to have insufficient valid signatures: Anil Kumar, a member of the Wayne State Board of Governors, and Rhonda Powell.
Staff found “clear indications of fraud” on at least 47 of Kumar’s petition sheets. As they did with Saul, they tabled a vote to allow elections staff time to do a review. However, that second look failed to provide enough valid signatures and the board voted to accept the staff recommendation and invalidate his petitions, as they did for Powell, who rejected as immaterial her claim that a supplemental submission turned in by consultant Londell Thomas gave her enough signatures, especially since elections staff said there was no record of such a submission.
Thomas was also at the center of the petition scandal that disqualified Hollier, who admitted the signatures Thomas turned in on his behalf appeared to have been forged.
Thomas’ name is one of 22 listed by bureau staff as circulating petition sheets with “clear indications of fraud,” all of which are being referred for further investigation.
Other Democrats running in the 10th District are Emily Busch, Carl Marlinga, Tiffany Tilley and Diane Young. They all seek to replace the incumbent, U.S. Rep. John James (R-Shelby Twp.), who is running unopposed for the GOP nomination.
Beth Kelley spent most of her life working at Sturgis Hospital. For 32 years, the nurse said it was “unusual to walk down the hall and not recognize somebody.” The independently owned hospital had served its community in rural St. Joseph County for more than a century.
“I like the small hospital atmosphere,” Kelley, 56, told Bridge Michigan. “I know this is maybe a little cliché, but it’s like family.”
When administrators held a town hall last month to tell staff the hospital would close about 70 hours later, Kelley said the room filled with “shock” and “devastation.” The decision left many long-serving employees like herself “scrambled trying to find a job” while they worked their remaining shift hours.
Sturgis Hospital shuttered its doors June 19, citing “years of ongoing financial challenges” facing rural health care providers. The facility had 84 licensed beds and about 300 associates working, according to the hospital.
There were warning signs. The facility had been winding down services in recent years, even as it obtained a city-issued pandemic relief loan, a state lifeline and new federal status — Sturgis Hospital became Michigan’s first designated rural emergency hospital in 2023, which allows for increased support from the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
It’s not the only rural hospital in Michigan to be impacted by a shifting health care landscape. These health care facilities, sometimes the only medical care providers available for miles, have been navigating several problems, including declining payer reimbursements, rising operating costs, and a federal reworking of Medicaid and Medicare — programs used by the bulk of patients in rural hospital settings.
For Kelley and others, the Sturgis Hospital closure is part of a bigger trend and serves as a wake-up call for her and others in the field.
“As a nurse, we took care of patients, and that’s all we did. It’s all we cared about. We didn’t care about the financial end of it,” Kelley said. “Those days are gone.”
Service cuts
Rural hospital closures, reductions, restructuring and consolidation dominate the contemporary health care landscape in Michigan, according to researchers, physicians and policy advocates working in the field.
For one thing, Michigan’s population is aging, which puts strain on the state’s health care system. In addition, many point to problematic payment models that don’t offset costs for service, and federal program reductions outlined in HR 1 — the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Five rural hospitals have closed in Michigan since 2005, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
As Congress debated the One Big Beautiful Bill last year, the Sheps Center estimated four of 63 rural hospitals in Michigan could be at risk for closure, highlighting facilities that had run a three-year deficit or existed as one of the top Medicaid revenue earners in the country. Sturgis Hospital was not included.
Even if a hospital does manage to remain open, many have to drop major parts of their operation to survive. Last year, the labor and delivery unit at Aspirus Ironwood Hospital and the obstetrics unit at MyMichigan Medical Center in Tawas City closed.
Rural birthing hospitals are costly and difficult to staff, according to Michael Shepherd, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health focused on rural health disparities and health policy in the US.
“Half of births in rural communities are being paid for by Medicaid at the moment,” Shepherd told Bridge following passage of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which calls for slashing Medicaid. “So what you’re talking about is a not very profitable service line — it’s very expensive and one that’s about to face massive financial shortfalls.”
Sturgis Hospital had closed its birthing center in 2018. Last month, it ended the remaining services nearby residents relied on — surgery, laboratory, medical imaging, physical therapy, endoscopy and cardiac rehabilitation services.
From 2 miles to 25
While other clinics exist to fill the gap, the absence of an emergency department in Sturgis has left facilities in Three Rivers, Coldwater and LaGrange, Indiana as the closest alternatives to patients.
That reality has a “substantial operational effect” on the city’s emergency medical services, according to Sturgis Director of Public Safety Ryan Banaszak. When ambulances leave their service areas, he said longer distances and travel times affect their ability to respond.
“What was once approximately a 2-mile transport for patients has now become closer to 25 miles, which takes ambulance personnel and equipment out of service for a much longer period of time,” Banaszak said in an email.
It’s more than distance for some patients — while Parkview LaGrange Hospital may be the closest drive from Sturgis at less than 20 minutes, low-income patients may still face obstacles finding medical coverage.
“If you are a Michigan Medicaid patient, you can’t simply go across the border to another hospital,” said Joe Gavan, CEO of Cass Family Clinic, a federally qualified health center operating in rural southwest Michigan. The loss of the Sturgis Hospital, he said, is “a huge burden on the folks that are impacted the most.”
Rebecca Burns, health officer of the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency, said she is “saddened by the loss” of the hospital. The public health agency continues to operate a site in Sturgis.
“We stand ready to continue to provide public health preventative services to residents as they need them,” Burns said.
Another perspective
Dr. Andrea Wendling sees a pattern play across rural systems which lands patients in emergency rooms and causes hospitals to operate on tight margins.
“People aren’t doing the primary care and they’re not doing the preventative care in between,” said Wendling, a family doctor who practices at a clinic in Boyne City and serves as senior associate dean for academic affairs for the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
“When they’re not able to pay that bill and there’s not insurance for them to pay, that’s a loss for those hospitals, and they need to have a certain percentage of paying customers in order to be able to fund the service that they provide.”
Wendling, who has spent much of her life living and working in rural hospital settings and ensuring its continued workforce, worries the Sturgis Hospital closure is “the first of more closings that we’re going to see over the next few years” in the state.
She said independent hospitals are pressured to join bigger systems for economic benefit: Acquisition allows for smoother negotiations with big insurance payers, stronger purchasing power and reduced administrative costs.
But acquisition is no guarantee of survival. Sturgis Hospital had been acquired by a health care company in 2023, but city officials reported last August the deal was slow to close “by all indications.” A representative from the company declined to comment.
“Despite extensive efforts by hospital leadership and the Board of Directors to secure the hospital’s future, including pursuing potential acquisition opportunities and partnerships, a sustainable path forward could not be achieved,” Sturgis Hospital noted in its announcement.
The closure underscores the need for rural hospitals to use every tool for financial sustainability, including dollars from the 340B drug cost program and “ swing beds,” according to Lauren LaPine-Ray, vice president of policy and rural health for the Michigan Health & Hospital Association. Under swing bed arrangements, hospitals can shift the use of their beds to provide either acute or post-acute care on an as-needed basis.
“Rural hospitals need sustainable policies that account for the unique challenges associated with providing care in communities with lower patient volumes, workforce shortages and populations that are older, sicker and more likely to rely on Medicare and Medicaid,” LaPine-Ray said in an email.
Michigan has received a $173 million grant from the Rural Health Transformation Program, but the federal initiative has been scrutinized by hospital leaders operating in the targeted areas.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has been criticized because under its grant funding criteria, some populous counties, including Wayne, Washtenaw and Oakland, would qualify as “partially rural” while St. Clair, Monroe, Jackson and Ottawa counties would not.
Looking forward
For Kelley, the change the hospital’s closure forces is out of her hands.
“I was pretty comfortable, so to start over is a little rough,” the nurse said.
The hospital is behind on paying out certain paid time off and retirement benefits, Kelley said, and she’s “doubtful” she’ll get back her vacation and sick time.
Representatives for the Michigan Nurses Association say union members lost health insurance coverage on the day of closure, with some employees reporting issues getting temporary COBRA coverage.
A call to the hospital by Bridge was not answered in time for publication of this story.
Kelley, who lives in Centreville, about 17 miles away from Sturgis, has found new work at Three Rivers Health Hospital as an as-needed nurse working part-time.
It’s an adjustment from her guaranteed, full-time pay position at Sturgis Hospital. “I’m hoping for 40 hours a week, but that’s probably not realistic.”
While the commute will be slightly closer for Kelley, she said the closure of the Sturgis Hospital will mean longer drives for some patients to reach a health care facility.
“For some of those people, it could be a matter of life and death.”
___
This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Michigan football coach Kyle Whittingham introduced to Crisler crowd
Michigan football coach Kyle Whittingham introduced to Crisler Center in Ann Arbor on Friday, Jan. 2, 2026.
Michigan football did the bulk of its work on recruiting its class of 2027 in May and June, but continues to round out its class, which came with another commitment in the trenches.
The Wolverines landed a pledge from four-star interior lineman Lincoln Mageo out of Oceanside High in Oceanside, California, who chose U-M over Utah and Washington on Saturday, July 11. Mageo, who had more than 20 Division I offers including programs such as Ohio State, Texas and USC, stands 6 feet 4 and 280 pounds.
Mageo, who visited Ann Arbor in early June, was named a Polynesian Bowl All-Star.
“Strong customer as a drive blocker in the run game,” 247Sports scouting analyst Gabe Brooks wrote. “Flashes some heavy-handed pop, particularly when traveling and when helping in pass pro.
“Enhancing fluidity throughout lower half will raise the ceiling on pass-pro ability. Projects to the P4 level as a candidate to become a run-game enforcer.”
Mageo is rated the No. 19 interior lineman in the nation, the No. 31 player in California and No. 369 in the class of 2027, according to 247Sports’ composite rankings. He’s the fourth offensive line pledge to sign on to play for position coach Jim Harding, joining four-star Jakari Lipsey, three-star Sidney Rouleau and three-star Louis Esposito (the son of former U-M D-line coach Lou Esposito, who departed for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens).
Michigan now has 21 commits in its class, which was ranked No. 19, per 247, prior to Mageo’s commitment.
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
Saturday, July 11, 2026 2:48PM
CHICAGO (WLS) — Sailors are making their way from Chicago to Mackinac Island on Saturday morning.
The racing division of the Race to Mackinac took off from Monroe Harbor. The first sailors began their journey at 9 a.m.
ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch
The race, spanning over 300 miles into Michigan, brings sailors from all over the world to compete. The event is considered the longest annual freshwater sailing race in the world.
The Race to Mackinac is now on its 117th year and is the Chicago Yacht Club’s signature sailing event. This year, there are 2,000 sailors competing on 252 boats total.
The race’s unpredictable weather and shifting winds on Lake Michigan serve as a challenge for sailors. The event goes on, rain or shine.
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