Hill Harper, 32-year union member, Detroit small business owner, cancer survivor, actor, author and a single father, is running for U.S. Senate in the Michigan Democratic primary on Aug. 6.
“I am not a career politician, but I have a set of lived experiences I think for this moment are very valuable for that 100-person body (Senate),” he said. “The diversity of that lived experience is what brings me to this role in this place. When we think about where we are right now in our democracy, there’s a necessity for different types of voices to be heard.”
Harper, 58, said he is proud to be one of the first U.S. Senate candidates in the nation to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“We have to stand up to human rights violations and genocide around the world,” he said. “We cannot participate in allowing our tax dollars to fund any types of human rights atrocities and/or genocide anywhere in the world. And anytime we see it, we have to call it for what it is and we have to act quickly and swiftly… I truly believe there’s no good war and there’s no bad peace. We have to lead on peace.”
Harper is competing with U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly). Slotkin was one of 62 House Democrats and 206 Republicans who recently voted yes on bill 269-144 to pass a ban on the U.S. State Department from citing the Gaza Health Ministry for death toll statistics. Slotkin also was among the 42 Democrats in the House who voted with Republicans Representatives
Harper said he had a meeting with leaders from the Arab and Muslim communities in November. If elected he said he hopes to have a congressional staff that reflects the diversity of Michiganders, including someone from the Arab and/or Muslim community to be a “top part” of his staff. The American Muslim Political Action Committee recently endorsed him and the influential Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) will be issuing its endorsements for the primary in the middle of July. Most likely he will be among the endorsees.
Hill Harper meets with Arab American leaders, Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans and Deputy County Executive Assad Turfe at the offices of The Arab American News in Dearborn, Michigan, November 2023 – Photo by The Arab American News
“After that meeting it was very clear that I had to make this call (for a ceasefire),” he said. “I had to lead in that way. This is the type of senator I want to be. I want to be the type of senator who sits down with folks, truly listens to things that I may not even be aware of and then once you learn of it, you can’t act like you don’t know. That’s part of the problem and why people don’t trust these politicians.”
Harper said American tax dollars shouldn’t fund or subsidize Department of Defense expenditures and/or contractors “profiting off of the death of innocent civilians around the world.”
“They (people) try to say it’s anti-patriotic to want to make military spending more efficient. That’s wrong,” he said. “As a U.S. senator, I will take a sharp look at that spending on Department of Defense contractors, a sharp look at making it more efficient and better and reallocating that spending so we’re spending on and investing in people here, and we’re not investing in the death of folks overseas.”
Harper said other policies he will fight for if elected include universal healthcare — including mental health — common sense gun laws and the PRO Act in support of unions.
“The number one cause of personal bankruptcies in this country is catastrophic medical (incidents),” he said. “One-third of all GoFundMe (campaigns) are medical-related. Big pharma spent more than 370 million in 2022 on elections. We understand that there’s people deciding between paying for life-saving procedures and medicine or their rent. It’s unacceptable. We have to fix our broken health care system. I’m going to fight through that fight for Medicare for all, plus mental health care.”
Harper graduated with a bachelor’s in economics and sociology from Brown University, a MPA with honors in government from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a JD from Harvard. While in law school, he met Barack Obama. In 2012, then-President Obama appointed Harper to the President’s Cancer Panel, where he served making recommendations to the White House on cancer policy.
If elected, Harper said he would be the only active union member, one of two parents of an elementary-aged child and one of a few small business owners serving in the U.S. Senate.
Harper said he was offered and refused $20 million dollars to run in the primary against U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib in the primary election for Michigan’s 12th District.
Harper said he “didn’t intend for a private phone call to turn public”, but he confirmed a large donor to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) offered him $20 million to run against Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress. – File photo
He said he disagrees with the Citizens United v. FEC (2010) case that allows nearly unlimited corporate funds into election campaigns. He said he has not and will not take any money from any corporate Political Action Committees because he wants to be the people’s voice.
“I want people to rethink what the U.S. Senate is,” he said. “It’s not sending Hill Harper off to the Senate to sit in a seat and hope that I do what folks want me to do over the next six years. It’s us locking arms and going there together and saying, ‘I want the community to walk in there with me. I want the community to be a part of this.’”
Harper said he knows he can’t win without high Arab and Muslim voter turnout.
“It’s time that we have more unity,” he said. “It’s time that we bring communities together: The African American community, the Arab and Muslim community, the immigrant community, the Latino community, environmentalists, progressives, small business owners and union members. We have to fight, work and vote together, and if we do that, we’ll win and be represented. Right now we’re not.”
In the primary election, voters will have to choose to vote for either the Democratic or the Republican candidates. Harper urged voters who want to support him to vote in the Democratic primary, as only the winner of the Aug. 6 election will be the Democrat on the Nov. 5 ballot.
“Sitting at home is not an option,” he said. “All of those folks that turned out and voted ‘uncommitted’, all of those folks who are frustrated with the way our federal spending is, we have to grab our family members, grab our friends and vote for Hill Harper… The Senate makes all these decisions about where the money goes. The president doesn’t do that. The Senate decides what’s getting funded. That’s why this seat is so important. We need people shouting from the rooftops that ‘This is it. This seat is it.’”
Harper is running against Slotkin in the Democratic primary, while Justin Amash, Sherry O’Donnell, Sandy Pensler and Mike Rogers will face off in the Republican primary.
Michigan’s long-time Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow’s decision in February 2023 not to seek reelection opened up a Senate seat in a key swing state. Stabenow, 73, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, defeating one-term Republican Senator Spencer Abraham.
Polls open for early voting up to 29 days before the election depending on the polling station, and Michigan election officials recommend absentee voters apply at least two weeks before the election. The official primary Election Day is Aug. 6. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.
In Dearborn, the 2024 primary early voting schedule is as follows:
Days: July 27 – August 4. Early Voting is open nine (9) consecutive days beginning on the second Saturday prior to the election and ending the Sunday prior to the election.
Time: Early Voting 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. daily.
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