Democrats drawing largest field in 90 years to challenge Barrett

Matt Maasdam at a recent 7th Congressional District town hall in Lansing sans U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett. Maasdam is one of five Democrats who have filed to run in next year’s Democratic primary in the hope of defeating Barrett, a Charlotte Republican. – Raymond Holt for City Pulse

Given the chance, Matt Maasdam can tell you a story.

How he walked onto the University of Michigan water polo team as a freshman and told the coach he’d be the captain by his senior year.

How he met his wife, Laura, at “survival school,” where the U.S. Navy uses starvation and sleep deprivation to teach military how to act as prisoners of war.

How President Barack Obama asked his assistant in the Washington Hilton before a correspondents’ dinner if he was going to remembered in history or lost in obscurity like Millard Fillmore.

Photos courtesy the Maasdam campaign Maasdam brings a glamor element to the Democratic race as a former Navy SEAL who served as President Barack Obama’s military attaché — the one who carried the “nuclear football.” (Pictured left) Maasdam in Afghanistan in 2003. (Right) With Obama circa 2010.

The former Navy SEAL will have another story about a year from now.

How a former ambassador; Betsy DeVos’ harshest critic; a perennial candidate; a furry; and himself all ran for the Democratic nomination in Michigan 7th Congressional District.

Unlike the prior three stories, Maasdam doesn’t know how this will end. Nobody knows.

We know how it started, though.

Michigan’s 7th Congressional District — Ingham County and the counties surrounding it — was drawn politically competitive. Last year’s race was close. The 2022 race was close. Actually, they’ve all been close since 2018.

Democrats lost the seat in 2024. D.C. Democrats want it back. Some of the best in the business have lined up clients to run. Some queued up behind Bridget Brink, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who moved to Lansing this year to make the run.

Some like Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University professor and education policy expert.

Yet, other have hitched their wagon to Maasdam, a hockey dad who regularly drives his sons from their Ann Arbor home to East Lansing’s Biggby Ice Cube.

The winner of next year’s August primary will face first-term U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, in November 2026. It will be one of a couple dozen races that will decide if Republicans stay in power for two more years or if Democrats can be a road block to President Donald Trump.

“There are a lot of Democrats calculating — damage to their brand notwithstanding — that the party of the president in their second mid-term is going to struggle,” said Adrian Hemond of Grassroots Midwest.

As of today, five Democrats have filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission to raise money to run in this seat.

Can activist/furry Elyon Badger (otherwise known as Samuel Smeltzer) or repeated candidate Muhammad Salman Rais round up 1,000 valid signatures to get on the primary ballot? We’ll see.

In the meantime, the Lansing congressional seat will feature an expensive, high-profile Democratic primary for the first time since maybe the 1950s. Like the Kalamazoo-based 4th District or the Macomb County-based 10th District, there’s no shortage of Democratic candidates.

“I think it says good things about the Democrats,” Maasdam said. “I think it says we’re ready to fight to win this race. I want to bring some alpha energy and some fight to this race. I think we, as Democrats, probably didn’t bring enough of that fight over the last few years.

Raymond Holt for City Pulse Josh Cowen (foreground right), a Michigan State University professor and education policy expert, shaking hands at a 7th Congressional District town hall in Lansing last month. Cowen is one of the five Democratic candidates campaigning to run against Barrett next year. Maasdam is standing on the left. In the distance and looking over Cowen’s shoulder are cardboard cutouts of Barrett, who has declined all invitations to attend live town halls, preferring phone-in ones. – Raymond Holt

Cowen, the East Lansing resident and MSU professor making his first run for public office, has a different take.

“Anybody with even a passing interest in the district can see that Tom Barrett has completely abandoned his role representing us,” he said. “Lots of people want to stand up and try to stop this guy, and that’s certainly what I’m doing.”

Where are Barrett’s town halls? Why is he voting as if the 7th district is a “Super Trump” district?

Cowen wants to know.

He’s not alone. Democratic interest groups, led by a pro-clean energy group called “Protect Our Jobs,” have dumped $830,000 into TV and internet ads so far this year, claiming Barrett voted to raise electric rates and cut clean energy production.

“It’s all just giving rich people another big tax cut,” the ad’s narrator says.

That’s just one interest group’s line of attack. More will follow.

The Barrett campaign is preparing for it.

As of today, they’ve raised $2 million after having raised a combined $5.1 million for the entire 2024 campaign. The goal is to get to $10 million. Barrett consultant Jason Roe said he doesn’t see why that isn’t achievable.

“This is one of the purplish seats in the country, and the Democrats have no path toward retaking the majority that doesn’t involve winning this seat,” he said. “Obviously Congressman Barrett is a first-term member who hasn’t had an opportunity to solidify his hold on the seat, so obviously the Democrats would come after him.”

Three weeks ago, City Pulse featured Brink, the 56-year-old former ambassador to the Ukraine, who moved her family to the Moores River neighborhood a few months ago after disagreeing with Trump’s approach with Russia.

Who most observers see as her top primary opponent is Maasdam. He’s the 50-year-old from SEAL originally from Nebraska, who grew up on the edge of a cornfield with his doctor father and his middle school music teacher mom.

A state champions swimmer, he fell in love with the state after attending the University of Michigan in the ’90s.

His physiologist professor was helping the Navy SEAL teams with hypothermia. While assisting with some work in San Diego, Maasdam was enamored.

“I’m like, ‘This is amazing,’” he remembered. “You know what I mean? These are like superheroes. They’re warriors in the water protecting America with guns.”

Photo by Raymond Holt Cowen and his wife, Emily, shopping recently at the Meridian Township Farmers Market. Cowen lives in East Lansing, which is part of the congressional district he wants to represent. Maasdam lives outside the district in Ann Arbor, although he said he is looking at property in Brighton, which is part of the 7th District. – Raymond Holt

Maasdam gave it a try after graduation. Of the 116 in his SEAL training class, 16 graduated on time. He was one of the 16. From there, he served the United States in Asia, Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq.

He and Laura married and got jobs together in San Diego. He trained the SEALS, “the best warriors on earth.” She trained helicopter pilots. They moved to Boston, where he went to business school at Harvard. Then he took an assignment at the U.S. Navy’s Central Command Center in Bahrain.

After that, Maasdam was selected to be Obama’s military aide, the guy charged with carrying the nuclear football. He ended up leading the 3,000-person White House Military Office, coordinating the president’s emergency responses.

When it came time to settle down to raise their family, the Maasdams picked Ann Arbor. He said they wanted Midwest values. It was only a few-hour drive to her parents’ home.

Over the last 10 years he’s done ecommerce for Under Armour, was the COO for Revtown, and then co-founded PECOS Outdoor. The company sells portable outdoor tables. For the last couple of years, he’s given leadership speeches and done some writing.

When he got the idea to run for Congress, he bounced the idea off then-U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, being a national security person; former Naval officer U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa., and former U.S. Army military intelligence officer U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y..

He pushed back on the presumption in Michigan’s political circles that he’s “Slotkin’s pick,” even though his launch manager, Emma Grundhauser, is a Slotkin alum.

Courtesy Brink campaign Bridget Brink (left) pictured in June in downtown Lansing, where she moved after quitting as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in April to protest President Donald Trump’s policy at the time. (Above) Brink, a native Michiganian and career diplomat, is pictured with President Obama in the White House.

“She and I traded phone calls from time to time,” he said. “It’s more that we know of each other than know each other.”

He’s running in the Lansing-based 7th District, not the 6th, where Ann Arbor is located. It’s a public relations hurdle, not a legal one. As long as you’re at least 25 years old, a Michigan resident and have been a U.S. citizen for seven years, the Constitution lets you to run in whichever district you want.

The Maasdam clan is looking at places in Brighton. He ends up spending a lot of time there with one of his boys playing a lot of hockey at Brighton’s ice arena. It’s more centrally located to everything. And it is in the 7th district.

“I love, love, love the folks here. It’s just great,” he said. “I like that it’s a purple district. It’s a 50/50 seat. I think that’s good for Michigan. I think it’s good for America. I’m really motivated by service to the country, so this is one of those spots where you can make a difference.”

So, what makes him a Democrat?

“I want to help people who need the help,” he said.

A candidate with arguably deeper ties to the area is Cowen, 46, a Michigan State University education policy professor who came to East Lansing via the University of Kentucky, where he taught for five years.

A Chelsea native, Cowen earned a bachelor’s at U of M and a master’s at Georgetown University in Washington. He joined a U.S. Education Department program that bankrolled aspiring educators through higher education training. The goal was to help these future professors educate policy makers on how to improve education across the board.

He finished his training with a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin and, up until recently, has made a living as an academic who guides public officials, future superintendents and teachers with their education policy.

What programs are working? What programs aren’t working?

He’s investigated school vouchers quite a bit that would pay parents to send their children to private schools. This is where his passion against former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos comes from.

The wealthy DeVos family of Grand Rapids tried for years to steer public dollars into private schools through a few different initiatives. Cowen calls these attempts tools used to disinvest in working families. He’s been to 23 state legislatures and numerous media outlets to talk about it.

Raymond Holt for City Pulse – Raymond Holt

He wrote “The Privateers: How Billionaires Created A Culture War” on the “dangers of education privatization.”

Now Cowen sees these same tactics being used in different arenas. The “Big Beautiful Bill” is bound to suck health care and food assistance away from those who need the help more than anyone else, he said.

“It’s the same playbook,” Cowen said. “We’re going take something that’s really bad for the middle class, really bad for working families, or at least for some, and we’re going to call it a policy solution for the working class.

“That exactly what they’re doing with the voucher stuff.”

It’s this mission creep that Cowen said drove him to a congressional run. He brought on veteran elections adviser Jeremy Levinson to help with the effort. Levinson was campaign manager for 11th District U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Oakland County.

They’re raising dollars through the regular avenues. He sent out the standard fundraising email pitch last week about needing to raise just a “little” more to show “that this campaign has the grassroots power to win. That MI-07 is ready for change.”

Cowen explained what’s driving him.

“People have a right to be successful, to build out our families’ future,” he said. “And just because you’ve amassed billions of dollars, you shouldn’t get an extra seat at the table and call the shots while families in our communities get screwed.”

Another person inspired to throw his hat into the ring is an LGBTQIA+ activist and small IT security company owner, Samuel Smeltzer, who is running under the name Elyon Badger. A 14-year Lansing area resident, he served in the Michigan National Guard from 2009 to 2011, when he received a medical discharge.

He told the Clinton County Democratic Party his goal is to make universal health care a constitutional amendment and to build a high-speed elevated rail service along the interstate.

He’s on social media wearing a badger-looking head-covering. He says he’s a “furry,” who “has some real teeth that are gonna bite back at the Republican fascists that are f*cking over this country.”

A fifth candidate to file paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission is a familiar candidate, Muhammad Salman Rais, 49, of DeWitt, a physician for the past 25 years who is affiliated with UM-Sparrow Hospital and other Lansing-area medical centers. He works primarily with underserved populations.

He graduated with honors in 1999. He did his residency at Loyola University and Forest Park Hospital. The Pakistan native did his medical school training at Nishtar Medical Center in Pakistan.

Eylonbadger.com image Another of the five candidates is Eylon Badger (whose given name is Samuel Smeltzer). Badger, who lives in Sturgis, Michigan, is a self-described Michigan Army National Guard veteran, LGBTQIA+ activist and small contractor. He describes himself as a “furry,” a subculture that celebrates animals with humanlike characteristics.

The 2026 race would be Rais’ fourth straight cycle on the ballot. He ran unsuccessfully for the Clinton County Board of Commissioners in 2024, the state Senate in 2022, the state House in 2020.

If all five make the ballot, it will be the first time since 1936 the Democrats have fielded that many candidates for a Lansing congressional seat.

Taking a final stab at what’s stirring this excitement is Josh Hovey, a partner at Bellwether Public Relations:

“Take your pick of the issues: Maybe it was Republicans voting to gut Medicaid funding while adding trillions of dollars to the deficit. Or maybe it was the Trump administration denying people their constitutional right to due process.

“It also could have been Trump’s tariff chaos hurting the economy or his peddling of meme coins in clear violation of the emoluments clause.

“Democrats aren’t just ‘enthusiastic.’ They’re enraged.”

That’s the story for now.