Congressional Black Caucus chair backs Hollier over Rep. Thanedar for Detroit seat

The CBC through Friday's endorsements is saying the group thinks there ought to be at least one black Detroiter in the Congress, said consultant Adrian Hemond, a Democrat and CEO of the firm Grassroots Midwest.

"Separate of what anyone thinks of Shri, the endorsement is partly the message here ― that there’s not a Black Detroiter in Congress, which for one of the Blackest cities in America feels weird," Hemond said.

Thanedar, who is Indian American, won a nine-way Democratic primary contest in 2022, with Hollier coming in second with 24% to Thanedar's 28%. The vote splintered among eight African American candidates, leading to victory for Thanedar, who put $6 million of his fortune into his campaign and whose TV ads ran on heavy rotation.

Hollier has tried to cast Thanedar as an "out-of-touch millionaire" who doesn't understand working families and hasn't made tangible progress on priorities such as affordable housing or gun violence. The congressman, also a former state lawmaker, has chided Hollier for being over-focused on political "insiders" and has criticized him for negative attacks and benefiting from "dark" money.

Thanedar is self-funding his campaign again, having loaned his campaign over $3.3 million since December and reporting over $5 million cash on hand in his campaign account as of March 31.

"That hopefully will be more than sufficient to be able to communicate with my constituents, and we intend to extensively communicate about the work that I have done in Congress and the positions that I will be continuing to work on," Thanedar said this week about his campaign.

"I'm big on workforce development and promoting entrepreneurship, making small business grants and loans accessible to small business owners, especially in the Black and brown communities. Also working on low-income housing and flood relief."

Hollier this week noted it was the second quarter during which he'd outraised Thanedar in terms of donations to his campaign. He raised just over $347,180 last quarter and closed out with $570,207 in the bank.

"Thanedar’s biggest supporter is his pocketbook, but people are sick and tired of out-of-touch multi-millionaires who buy their way into Congress and then don’t lift a finger to help hard working families here at home,” Hollier said.

At-large Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters also has filed to run in the Democratic primary in the 13th. She reported $9,811 in receipts and just over $5,000 in cash reserves as of March 31.