Scholten launches second ad in west Michigan congressional race

WASHINGTON — The campaign to reelect Democratic U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten on Wednesday launched its second ad since she cruised to victory in her party's primary last month.

The 30-second ad, titled "New Kind," treads familiar ground for the first-term Grand Rapids congresswoman as she tries to appeal to voters of all stripes ahead of the general election.

"Partisanship is tearing this country apart," Scholten says in the ad. "And that's why I'm building something new here in west Michigan. We're bringing people together around the things that unite us rather than divide us."

She will face off against Republican challenger Paul Hudson, an East Grand Rapids attorney, in a November contest for Michigan's 3rd Congressional District. Political handicappers have rated the race as a likely win for Democrats, but Hudson figures to be a more formidable candidate than her last GOP opponent.

Scholten used similar messaging in her 2022 run, positioning herself as a candidate who cares about "right and wrong, not right or left" and calling out Democrats and Republicans alike in Washington for failing to rein in inflation.

The congresswoman, who grew up in Hudsonville near Grand Rapids, told The Detroit News that her upbringing helped her learn that west Michigan is a place where "there are a lot of people who don't have a strong partisan identity."

"They're going vote for the person, not the party," Scholten said in a phone interview before the new ad release. The ad makes no mention of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris or GOP nominee Donald Trump, who Michigan voters are almost evenly split on, according to a new Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll released Tuesday.

Scholten trounced Republican John Gibbs, a former Trump administration appointee and eventually a fired Ottawa County administrator with a penchant for conspiracy theories, by more than 13 percentage points in 2022.

Her current opponent Hudson, a former Michigan Supreme Court candidate, has avoided divisive rhetoric and pitches himself as a common sense conservative modeled after Gerald Ford, the former president from Grand Rapids who also represented west Michigan in the U.S. House for 25 years.

Hudson defeated financial planner Michael Markey Jr. of Grand Haven in the GOP primary by about 9.4 percentage points.

The 3rd District encompasses portions of Kent, Ottawa and Muskegon counties, encompassing Grand Rapids and reaching out to the lakeshore following Interstate 96.

In an interview on the Aug. 26 episode of the MIRS Monday podcast, Hudson indicated he's taking a similar approach to Scholten in trying to gather support across the political spectrum.

"My approach is, I mean, if there are voters there, I'm going to go talk to them — whether they're Republicans, or Democrats, centrists, disaffected voters, whatever it is," Hudson said. "I think we need to get back to talking to people, not villainizing people of either side."

Scholten's first ad of the general election season, titled "Traditions," debuted on August 13. Hudson's campaign has not released any new ads since the primary.