Detroit Councilmember Mary Waters enters 13th district Democratic primary

Detroit City Councilmember Mary Waters announced Thursday her bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, in Michigan's 13th Congressional District.

Waters joins former Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency Director Adam Hollier in the Democratic primary fight against Thanedar. Hollier — who also served previously in the Michigan Senate — announced his campaign last fall.

Waters organized an announcement event in Hamtramck for Thursday morning. The 13th Congressional District covers most of Detroit and all of Hamtramck and Highland Park, extending east to encompass the Grosse Pointes and Harper Woods and southwest to a large swath of Downriver. In the solidly Democratic district, the primary all but guarantees the winner of the general election.

In the 2022 primary election — the first held under the newly drawn district — Thanedar won 28.3% of the vote in a nine-candidate primary field. Hollier came in second with 23.5% of the vote. Thanedar went on to win the general election, and incumbent U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib won reelection to represent the rest of Detroit in Congress. Their victories marked the first time Detroit did not send to Washington a Black member of Congress to represent the majority-Black city.

Elected and faith leaders backing Hollier have called on voters to unite behind his candidacy to regain Black representation in Congress in hopes of avoiding a repeat of the 2022 election in which Detroit voters split their support among a crowded field of Black candidates.

Waters did not run in the last election. But her announcement Thursday marks her fourth congressional campaign. In 2008 and 2012, she lost the Democratic congressional races. In 2018, she was disqualified from running in the primary to serve out the remainder of Rep. John Conyers Jr.'s term after the Detroit Democrat resigned from the 13th District.

13th District Democratic primary: US Rep. Shri Thanedar has massive cash advantage over challenger Adam Hollier

Waters served three terms in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006. She became an at-large member of Detroit City Council in 2022.

Unlike the other candidates in the Democratic primary in the 13th Congressional District, Waters has backed calls for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

"We must free hostages immediately and demand a ceasefire now," Waters said in a statement ahead of her campaign announcement. "As a member of Congress I will work to cut the Pentagon War budget and use the dollars for safe streets in America by funding community police foot patrols and fighting poverty while increasing social security payments for our seniors."

Thanedar has faced backlash for his unequivocal support for Israel amid the country's military operations in Gaza that have resulted in the death of civilians for which he has blamed Hamas, not Israeli military actions.

The pro-Israel lobby buoyed Hollier's first primary fight against Thanedar. But the latest campaign finance filings for the current election cycle show funding from the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) going to Thanedar's campaign.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect Waters' participation in three previous congressional races.

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Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit councilmember Mary Waters joins race to unseat Shri Thanedar