Republican John James faces off against Democrat Carl Marlinga in Michigan's 10th Congressional District election
- Republican John James is running against Democrat Carl Marlinga in Michigan's 10th Congressional District.
- The 10th District is centered around southern Macomb County.
Republican John James faces off against Democrat Carl Marlinga in Michigan's 10th Congressional District.
Michigan's 10th Congressional District candidates
James is a businessman who graduated from West Point and served eight years in the Army, participating in multiple tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Prior to running for Congress, he unsuccessfully ran as the Republican nominee for the US Senate elections in Michigan in 2018 and 2020, losing both times to Democratic incumbent Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters.
This year, James handily defeated his GOP primary opponent, bringing in over 85% of the vote.
Marlinga, James' opponent, is a former judge on Michigan's 16th Judicial Circuit Court and Probate Court. Prior to running for Congress, Marlinga, 75, served for almost 40 years as the Macomb County prosecutor and worked as an assistant US attorney. Like James, Marlinga lost two previous bids for Congress.
Marlinga defeated four challengers in the Democratic primary, bringing in nearly half of the vote.
Voting history for Michigan's 10th Congressional District
Michigan's 10th Congressional District is centered around southern Macomb County, long been considered as the state's bellwether, and home to the state's third and fourth largest cities, Warren and Sterling Heights. It also includes Rochester and Rochester Hills in Oakland County.
President Joe Biden had a 13 percentage point margin of victory over then-President Donald Trump under the district's previous boundaries in 2020. The new district was redrawn to extend farther north and include some of the solidly Republican territory in Michigan's first-ever citizen redistricting process following the 2020 Census, changing its partisan lean from Democrat to Republican.
The money race
According to OpenSecrets, James has raised $6.25 million, spent $4.3 million, and has more than $1.9 million on hand, as of October 19. His opponent, Marlinga, has raised about $931,000, spent $814,000, and has less than $117,000 cash on hand.
As of late October, several dozen super PACs, national party committees, politically active nonprofits, and other non-candidate groups have together spent about $2.3 million to advocate for or against candidates in this race, including during the race's primary phase. Republican-backing groups have dominated the outside spending game, with pro-James super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund alone accounting for more than half of this outside spending.
What experts say
The race between James and Marlinga is rated as "lean Republican" by Inside Elections, "likely Republican" by The Cook Political Report, and "leans Republican" by Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.