ABC57 sits down with candidates for Michigan's 4th Congressional District ahead of the primary election
BERRIEN COUNTY, Mich. -- Michigan's 4th Congressional district is up for grabs this fall. There's a challenge on both sides of the ticket. One candidate looks to unseat Republican incumbent Bill Huizenga.
On the Democratic side, two candidates are hoping to flip the seat blue and face the winner of the Republican race in November.
Diop Harris, a former congressional staffer. Phil Tanis, a director at a college with political history and Sean McCann, a current state senator, are all looking to take their unique experiences to Washington, D.C. to serve Michigan's 4th district.
We did attempt to set up an interview with incumbent Representative Bill Huizenga ahead of our primary election coverage but were not able to arrange that in a timely manner.
We spoke with Democrat Diop Harris, Democrat Sean McCann and the lone Republican challenging Huizenga, Phil Tanis. Three men, one seat, one goal: to make a change. They each sat down with ABC57 to answer the following questions.
Q: Why are you running for Michigan's 4th Congressional District?
Diop Harris: So that we have a fighter in Washington looking out for the rest of us. We need someone that understands what our people are going through and understands how to maneuver Washington to get it for our people. I used to be a congressional staffer working under Senator Sherrod Brown, so I've worked with constituents' time in and time out to help deliver resources and introduce and pass legislation on Capitol Hill. I think I'm uniquely qualified to represent us on Capitol Hill.
Phil Tanis: Well, sometime in the last year, I just started getting frustrated with the state of politics in in the U.S. and in particular, with our current incumbent Congressman Bill Huizenga. I've known Bill for decades now. I used to vote for him, really supported his work, but he seems to have lost touch with the district and kind of just joined in the politics in Washington and kind of just gotten subsumed by that and has just stopped representing this district. I've seen people protest. I heard friends writing letters, people posting on social media, which you know I don't give much credence to, but there was a lot of frustration, and the only real way to make a change is in the voting booth. Bill announced that he would run for re-election and no one in the Republican Party challenged him, and I thought I'm going to step up to be a challenger, to be a choice, an alternative to what Bill does and what he represents, or doesn't represent, so that people, Republicans can, and any independents, disaffected Republicans, can protest through a vote.
Sean McCann: I want to see a change happen in Southwest Michigan. Congress and the Congressmen here are leading us not in the right direction as a state or a country; people are being harmed. The country is going in the wrong direction. Costs are high for people, despite promises to do the contrary. Healthcare is being taken away from folks across the country and here in Southwest Michigan. I've worked to do the opposite of these things, and so for me, I'm driven to take that next step to Washington D.C. to fight to make lives better for people, to stop really sort of, the corruption and insider trading and people at the top of the scale getting better off while everybody else is not doing very well right now.
Bill Huizenga: There's still a lot of work that needs to be done. This is my hometown where I grew up. This is the area that has been home my entire life, and I'm a complete homer when it comes to Michigan, and I want to be that voice. I want to continue to be an effective voice in Washington, D.C. for the great people in Southwest Michigan.
Q: How does your experience set you apart from the other candidates?
Diop Harris: I worked as a congressional staffer, and a lot of what I did was maneuvering the budget process for constituents, making sure that congressionally directed spending was reaching communities where investments were needed, ensuring that grant funding was going to communities such as to rebuild aging infrastructure, to revitalize community theaters, even to help harden places of faith and worship. What we did was deliver resources to people in our district or to the state. What I'm noticing here in Southwest Michigan is that we have a lack of that investment, a lack of a reliable federal partner. So, my time as a staffer, I want to deliver that level of service that we performed under Senator Sherrod Brown under or for our new congressional district and allow for us to look at our member of Congress or our federal office as an opportunity. I've monitored the Banking Committee and the financial market, so I understand Wall Street's pervasiveness in our daily lives, and we have a Congress person right now who receives a majority of his PAC funding from the big banks. We're seeing what that corporate influence looks like right now, and I'm a candidate that's rejecting it. We're going to start to see new outcomes for our people here.
Phil Tanis: "I think in a couple of couple of ways. Formatively, my six years serving Holland City really established my perspective. My time in Bulgaria really cemented my idealism, and I'll claim it: my idealism for democracy and for the potential of this country, and for the revolutionary ideals that I think we we're still living into, the call for equality for everyone, and equal opportunity for everyone, and everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. Seeing people voting in that presidential primary (in Bulgaria), I did voter checks, making sure everything was legit and above board. We worked with a dozen different groups, first locally, and taught them how to campaign. Wrote a campaign manual."
Sean McCann: I have a long track record of standing up for everyday people, it's rooted in basically my whole adult life to try to help people get ahead, to serve people, help them if they're in a difficult situation, and I have a long track record of doing that, and that stacks up to my work as a local elected official, as a state elected official, and I'm very proud of the things that have been accomplished and that I've helped accomplish through my life. Again, to see those things being undermined and taken in the wrong direction is a real concern for me.
Bill Huizenga: The work I'm really, really proud about is being co-chair of the Great Lakes Task Force. For example, having colleagues of mine across the spectrum and across the aisle come to me, and as we try to figure out, for example, how to deal with issues on the Great Lakes, whether it be invasive species, whether it be PFAS, whether it be both the economy or the ecology of the Great Lakes, and that that's a that's a big issue that we're continuing to work on, making sure that that energy is affordable and accessible. I think my record speaks for itself. I'm my own person. I call balls and strikes, and whether it's with the Biden administration, the Trump administration, or going back to the Obama administration, I'm an advocate for West Michigan. I'm an advocate for my constituents, and I'm not afraid to speak up, no matter who the no matter who the president is, or which party is in majority, and so I will continue to do that.
Q: What concerns are you hearing from people in your community?
Diop Harris: Skyrocketing costs of healthcare has got to be a concern across the board. The lack of availability and the rising cost of affordable housing across the board. We've got to build more housing, but we've got to do it in a way that's equitable, not just handing out tax credits to the biggest builder, but ensuring that we're securing housing for the most amount of people in our communities, and the rising cost of energy, and the threat data centers pose on our communities, I'm fighting for a one-year moratorium at least, so that we can have a federal standard in place on the construction of these, and also to ensure that we have protections in place on AI, like consumer protections, environmental protections, as well as labor protections. I'm hearing those at every single door.
Phil Tanis: One concern that keeps popping up is, well; it comes in as a word of thanks. People have thanked me for stepping up. They're sick and tired of the politics they see in Washington, they want to return to politics of civility. Let me be clear: politics of civility isn't politeness necessarily. We can get heavy into debates and arguments over policies and things, but it's a way of respecting your opponent. It's not calling names. It's not accusing people of things they haven't done, or money they haven't accepted, or influences that they haven't got. It's respecting the other party across the table, understanding that we do have differences, and then working through those differences for the good of the country, and I think we've lost that, and I know there's a lot of disaffected Republicans out there who feel that, you know.
The other I've been hearing a lot of is people are concerned about just being able to get by day-to-day costs in healthcare, gas prices. I've been feeling that. I mean, I'm having to fill up the tank to go down to Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, and it's not cheap, and so I've been able to you know talk about tariffs, which are just another tax being levied with or without congressional approval. That's something I would stand against. I talked to another individual who's still working on paying off the $30,000 it costs to birth his child. That was three years ago, and he's still paying it off. I would be bringing a different set of ideals and priorities to Washington than I think Bill would, and perhaps the Democratic opponent would, in that Bill supported tariffs. He's supported the war in Iran. He's kind of let whatever the administration says go, and the impacts that we're seeing now, almost two years into this, are just hitting people hard, hitting people really hard.
Sean McCann: Well, not surprisingly, costs of living and health care. The fact that gas prices are up because of this unnecessary war that's going on in Iran, the tariffs and the chaos that are affecting people's grocery bills, but also the ability of a small business owner to run their store because they don't have predictability for their company, and even large companies in the district are roiled by this constant uncertainty of what's happening in Washington D.C. Utility bills are up because there's a decrepit old power plant north of here in the district that should have been shut down by now. Those costs are being passed on to people through their electric bills and as we started talking about at the beginning, loss of health care, loss of Medicaid, you know, loss of the Affordable Care Act tax credits that the current Congressman won't vote to restore. These are all going to hit people's bottom lines in healthcare costs and in cost of living, and it's just becoming harder and harder and harder for people to make
Bill Huizenga: I'm a small business owner myself. We have some of those employees who, by the way, have benefited from no tax on overtime. They've benefited from some of the other provisions from the working families' tax cut. The Biden era inflation and the spending that came out of COVID really caused us to have massive amounts of inflation here in the United States. Whether it's groceries, whether it's energy, all those things, we've seen those costs just skyrocket, and so trying to bring those back down has been tough. It's been hard as we've been trying to turn that that ship through the policies that we in the in the Republican Party have been trying to drive. So, I get it. I fully understand it. I'm filling up my vehicle just like everybody else. We're going to the grocery store just like everybody else, and but I do know that the policies that I've been an advocate for will help in the long run to make sure that this is a better place to work, play, and live.
Q: If the primary election does not go your way, can your community still count on you to fight for them in some way?
Diop Harris: "This is my home so I'm going to continue to be here. Whatever that fight looks like, we're going to figure out we're going to figure out what that looks like on August 5th. But our intentions are to remain in this fight, take on Bill Heisinger, flip the fort, and bring some people power up to Capitol Hill."
Phil Tanis: "If I get 5% or less, I don't know. I don't know if I've got that fight in me. If I start to get more than that, I think yes, absolutely. Even if I don't win, Bill will know that there is a growing number of people who are watching him, and I would be happy to be in that mix. And if not running again in two years, supporting someone who runs again in two years. If if Bill is reelected in the fall."
Sean McCann: "I have time left in the state senate, and I will continue to do the work that I've done very hard, with all my energy and all my effort to serve people and get results for them. When I ran and had lost a state senate race and then I had been in the House and I ran for the state senate, and I lost that race. I still went into things that really spoke to my values and were about service and helping others. I helped raise money to help low-income kids access city recreational programs, and that was really important to me. I was elected to the Michigan Senate after that gap, but I didn't know how that would work out. So, regardless of the outcome, for me, it's in my DNA. It's in my programming. I get the biggest reward from solving a constituents' issue or helping them. In fact, as I was driving over, I was talking to a young woman who's struggling with her utility bill, and I'm going to make some calls and see if I can get her some help on that utility bill because that's where I get the most personal satisfaction."
Bill Huizenga: I'm a small business owner here in this community. This is home. My dad served for 32 years on city council here. I live just down the road. This is home, and will always be home. So I'm going to fight and be an advocate for Michigan. Anybody that knows me and who's ever met me out in Washington, I'm kind of famous for walking around pointing to my hand where the district is and where I'm from. I'm a Homer for Michigan, and of course, I'm going to continue to be that.
ABC57 has spoken with many Democrats during this election season and have heard people share their loss of faith in the Democratic party.
Q: Many people have expressed a loss of faith in the party, how do you plan to regain people's trust in not just the party, but politics overall?
Diop Harris: "I think it starts by recognizing that I am walking into a pit of mistrust laid by politicians and failed promises from years and decades before I even stepped into this role, Also realizing that the the role of in the work of rebuilding trust has to start somewhere. So for me, that means showing up. It means being involved in in being present in communities, not someone that you just see on social media, but somebody that you see cleaning up and folding up chairs in the park. I'm somebody that's rejecting corporate PAC money, which allows me to have this conversation with voters across our district. Voters are tired and fed up with the status quo, and politicians who have been bought off from both sides of the aisle in the fact that I'm rejecting corporate PAC money and I'm still building a grassroots movement. The people can respect that and are willing to then listen, open their doors and have a conversation about the other things that we're going to be fighting for here in Southwest Michigan. You can open that door if you demonstrate that you're not a politician, but you're here to be a public servant."
Sean McCann: "My goal is to go everywhere and listen to everyone, and I've done that here in this campaign so far, and again in my life of service. I'm not focused on whether someone's a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. I'm working to serve everyone, and that's always been my approach: is to serve everyone. In fact, I take a legacy of constituent service and try to deliver from people like Carl Levin, Fred Upton, Debbie Stabenow, who didn't care if someone had an R or a D after their name, if they needed help with something that involved the federal government, they were going to get that help, and they were going to get that responsiveness."
ABC57 has spoken with Republicans who say they have noticed an unwavering loyalty to the current administration and are concerned a Republican won't be a lonewolf and stand up to the Trump administration if needed. A few people have specifically asked about the possibility of a third Trump term.
Phil Tanis: The Constitution is very specific. Presidents are to serve two terms. George Washington set that precedent for a reason. FDR, in extraordinary World War circumstances, broke it. I wish he hadn't, but that brought the constitutional amendment in, and I would hold firmly to that constitution. I think, for whatever reason, that it keeps getting floated, whether it's for distraction, whether it's to poke fun or whatever, it's not helpful. Instead, the administration should be focusing on the current issues in front of them and the the problems that are being generated right now that have to be solved. Why not? No, drives me crazy. Yeah, yeah. And I've heard that too, you know, and I wouldn't support. So, I wouldn't support Trump running for a third term, and if he does, I would certainly not support Obama running against him. Both are unconstitutional.
Bill Huizenga: The third term isn't constitutional for anybody; that's very clear. I think the leading candidates, frankly, in the Republican Party are J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio. You're going to have some other governors, some other people that are probably going to be tossing their hat in the ring as well. I think each candidate is their own person and needs to be their own person. Whether it's at in the House, the U.S. Senate, or the President, or frankly, even at the local level, you need to go and make that that case with your constituents as to why you're the best person to go and represent them at whatever local level, or state level, or national level.
Phil Tanis and Incumbent Representative Bill Huizenga both shared with ABC57 they've known each other for years. Huizenga recalls meeting him in 1986. During the interview with Tanis, he stated "I've known Bill for decades now. I used to vote for him, really supported his work, but he seems to have lost touch with the district and kind of just joined in the politics in Washington and kind of just gotten subsumed by that and has just stopped representing this district."
Representative Huizenga responded to claims of being out of touch with the district.
"'Ive known Phil for almost 40 years, know the family. His brother and I were high school friends, college friends. Interestingly enough, he's never once called me, never once, and he's got my number. His brother has my number. I'm very accessible, and I will tell you that when he's out there collecting signatures to get on the ballot at No Kings Rallies and at protests at my office with Democrats, you got to kind of wonder where he is politically. I can tell you that those of us that actually know him know he's not a Republican. But nonetheless, he's out for making a protest. He's very anti President Trump. And here's the thing: that's fine. You can be that. I'm my own person. I go and I'm an advocate here for West Michigan, and that's what my job is to go do. I'm home every weekend. My kids throughout the entire time, we finally have launched our last one out of high school relatively recently. I'm home every weekend. I'm at the gas station. I'm at the grocery store. I'm at church. I'm in this community. This is my community."
Huizenga also touched on access to his office.
"I will say this, maybe much like my primary opponent who claims that that he can't get a hold of me, they haven't tried. They certainly haven't tried. Our office is extremely accessible. And look, one of those things that we measure success by is how we are helping our constituents. Half of our staff is located here in Michigan; the other half is out in Washington, D.C."