Michigan Republican U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman defeated Democrat Callie Barr for a second time in a congressional rematch of the 2024 election in a solid district that supports President Donald Trump, according to race calls by the Associated Press and the Decision Desk HQ.
Bergman, a five-term congressman from Watersmeet, had 54% of the vote to Barr’s 44% with nearly 60% of the vote counted, according to unofficial results. The congressman representing Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula in the 1st Congressional District defeated Barr by 21 percentage points two years ago.
Bergman, a former commercial airline pilot, is an ally of President Donald Trump who succeeded Rep. Dan Benishek, a Crystal Falls Republican, in 2017. He sits on the House Armed Services Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee and the Budget Committee. He previously operated a medical supply business and is a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general who commanded the Marine Forces Reserve at his retirement in 2009.
Barr of Traverse City has said Bergman ignored the needs of northern Michigan families and has run a campaign on affordability, lowering housing costs, and protecting Medicaid and rural hospitals from funding cuts.
She was a high school English teacher, but after her Marine husband, Matt, came home from Iraq with a traumatic brain injury, she became an advocate with Blue Star Families and the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers.
Democrats have surged campaigning efforts in the UP and lower northern Michigan, including Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson, who attended a community forum with Barr.
Andrea Bitely, a political consultant and former spokeswoman for independent gubernatorial candidate Mike Duggan and Republican former Attorney General Bill Schuette, said she recently drove US-2 from the Wisconsin border to St. Ignace, “and I’ve never seen so many signs for Democrats.
“A lot of people forget that the UP was dominated by Democrats for a very long time,” Bitely said.
Bergman spokesman James Hogge in October dismissed Democrats’ “blue tsunami narrative” as fake and noted that the voters of Michigan’s 1st District “already rejected Callie Barr by more than 100,000 votes last election.”
GOP political consultant John Yob both dismissed suggestions that Barr had a chance in the 1st District during a barroom chat with Michigan Information and Research Service editor and publisher Kyle Melinn on Oct. 15 at Kelly’s Downtown in Lansing. Yob argued Democrats were making a “mistake of riches” by exaggerating the reach of the blue wave likely to hit on Nov. 3.
Democrats are trying to “score points on Twitter with these little PR stunts in order to make it look like the map was growing bigger than it was,” Yob said.
“I think they’ve made some mistakes in spending money that could have been spent elsewhere,” Yob added.
