DAY THIRTY-SEVEN - HILLARY SCHOLTEN

Oct 5

Day Thirty-seven | Hillary Scholten | MI-03
767 Sawbuck Patriots | $8138 pledged today | $334,230 donated overall

Team:

THE SITUATION: Today we’re in Michigan’s third district. It includes Grand Rapids and the counties of Barry, Ionia, Kent, Calhoun, and a small portion of Montcalm. It’s currently represented by Justin Amash, the one Libertarian member of Congress (the only one currently, and the only one ever!), who is declining to seek re-election after five terms. Formerly a Republican, Amash was the first Republican Congressman to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump. As you may know, he then quit his party, chose to identify as an independent for a year, until he decided to run for President as a Libertarian earlier in 2020 – a campaign he quickly abandoned.

Amash is fascinating; only 41, we’ll hear more from him in the future. If Republicans are stomped in this election in such a fashion that their leaders are ousted by their own small remaining membership, I would expect that Amash would be one of the people looked at as leadership for a new conservative party, or a newly reconstituted Republican party.

Traditionally, Ds have not done particularly well in this district; the last time a D represented the Grand Rapids area was 1985. However, the underlying math for this district that supported Trump in ’16 is changing, wildly. A month ago, when I started Sawbuck Patriots, I looked at this race and summarily passed it over, as I didn’t see a winning path for the D candidate.

I was wrong. There’s a path. And that’s because the candidate and her campaign are ferociously over-performing.

THE COMPETITION: Peter Meijer (pronounced Meyer) is the R. A 32-year-old member of the supermarket chain Meijer family, he grew up in wealthy circumstances. Gotta say, however, this fellow didn’t just coast. An Army Reservist, he served a year in Iraq as an intel advisor. He’s got a MBA from NYU, worked as a business analyst and at a real estate company, and announced for this seat even before Amash announced he would retire. He’s being funded by the DeVos family, the Bissell family, and his own family (Michigan’s wealthy elite), and a variety of leading lights in the Republican Party, as well.

He’s a compelling candidate who can substantially self-fund. However, the trends aren’t moving his way. He’s said that he’d repeal Obamacare without a replacement but is attempting to backtrack from that position, and others, as of late. He’s anti-choice, is a don’t-touch-the-second-amendment-at-all-in-any-way-ever zealot, and is supportive of various Trump initiatives on his website, including being a fan of Trump’s dumb wall.

(Narrator voice: “It’s SUCH a dumb wall.”)

OUR CANDIDATE: Hillary Scholten served in the Department of Justice during the Obama Administration, working in the federal government on immigration issues. Before that, she used her degree in social work to assist homeless women and people from the LGBTQ+ community who have suffered housing discrimination. An attorney, Hillary clerked at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and she’s worked with the Times Up Legal Defense Fund, a group that gets legal services to women who have dealt with workplace sexual harassment. She supports the ACA, opposes changes to Medicare and Social Security, and is supportive of restorative justice measures.

And the polling – which wasn’t great in this traditionally conservative district for most of this race – has been moving her way. The district’s underlying demographics, which have traditionally been more supportive of Republicans, have changed as well – more residents of the third district today are Democrats, independents, and persuadable Republicans than have been in years past.

Her fundraising is breaking records, with the vast majority being from small-dollar contributors like us. A month ago, polls showed her four to seven points down, but in the past week, recent polling has showed Scholten pulling AHEAD of Meijer.

So, as you may have seen me point out a time or two – THE MATH SAYS SHE CAN WIN.

Sawbuck Patriots, it’s go time: click HERE and send $10 (or more, as it goes to eleven!) to Hillary's campaign. Our collective effort will invest $8138 today.

- Alex

Alex Clemens

DAY THIRTY-SEVEN - HILLARY SCHOLTEN

Sawbuck Patriots, it’s go time: click HERE and send $10 (or more, as it goes to eleven!) to Hillary's campaign. Our collective effort will invest $8138 today.

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT - DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL

DAY THIRTY-SIX - SPINAL TAP AND PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATS

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