Scholten defeats Gibbs in west Michigan U.S. House race

Grand Rapids — Democratic immigration attorney Hillary Scholten defeated Republican software engineer John Gibbs in Michigan's 3rd Congressional District in Tuesday's election, becoming the first Democrat to represent the Grand Rapids area since the 1970s.

Scholten of Grand Rapids had 55% of the vote and Gibbs of Byron Center had 42% with 99% of the estimated votes counted Wednesday morning. The Associated Press declared Scholten's win around 2 a.m.

The 40-year-old Scholten will not only be the first Democrat to represent the Grand Rapids area in Congress since 1970s but also the first woman ever. As her campaign awaited results Tuesday night, she told supporters that they had built "a new political home" for people across the political spectrum "who are tired of politics as usual."

"Who are ready to cast aside the old frame of division, us versus them," she said, "and join hands together for a better, brighter west Michigan for all of us."

Gibbs conceded to Scholten shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday.

"Through no fault of our own, the results did not turn out the way we wanted," he said in a statement.

If 43-year-old Gibbs had won, he would have been the first Black Republican in Michigan's congressional delegation — Republican John James is also running in Michigan's 10th District — and the first Black person to represent west Michigan.

In a short interview Tuesday night at his campaign headquarters in Wyoming, south of Grand Rapids, Gibbs said "it's good for the country" that more Black Republicans are getting involved in politics and said it's part of a "long term trend" of "the Republican Party is really becoming the party of working people."

The race between Gibbs and Scholten was one of the most closely watched in the nation and is considered one of Democrats' best chances to flip a seat in a year when they are predicted to lose control of the chamber to Republicans. The area is currently represented by GOP Rep. Peter Meijer of Grand Rapids Township, who was defeated by Gibbs in the primary.

Michigan's newly drawn 3rd District includes portions of Kent, Ottawa and Muskegon counties, encompassing Grand Rapids and reaching out to the lakeshore following Interstate 96.

Kent County become more Democratic and diverse in recent years, but it remains a competitive seat with GOP roots and a history of centrist representatives. In the 2020 presidential election, the district would have voted for President Joe Biden by more than 8 percentage points.

Scholten has spent at least $2.9 million on her second run for U.S. House — nearly triple the $1.1 million spent by Gibbs’ campaign through Oct. 19, according to federal disclosures.

Outside spending in the race totaled more than $7 million as of Nov. 7, according to the non-partisan California Target Book. Republicans had narrowly outspent Democrats with $3.7 million to $3.6 million, respectively.

Scholten grew up in Grand Rapids and previously worked as a social worker, then as an attorney vetting deportation cases at the Department of Justice under former President Barack Obama. She returned to west Michigan to work for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center before running for Congress for the first time against Meijer in 2020, when she lost 47% to 53% under old district lines. Since then, she has been working for law firm Miller Johnson.

On the campaign trail, she has emphasized her dedication to passing a federal law protecting abortion rights and to fiscal responsibility. She has pitched herself as a political moderate, calling upon her own party to "stop the spending" and for Republicans to "stop putting politics before people," and highlighted her Christian faith.

Tonia and Carl Pace, 40 and 35, took their three children to the polls Tuesday to set a good example of civic engagement. Tonia said she voted for Scholten because she's "going to stand for women's rights."

"I'm really concerned about that," she said. "Just being a woman and carrying babies is hard enough and dangerous enough without not being able to get the proper care that you need If you have to make a decision between your life and your child's life."

Kees Vanliere, 25, of East Grand Rapids said he voted for Scholten because "she's local, she's passionate" and aligns with his views.

"And then certainly, compared to John Gibbs, who is hardly from Michigan," he said. "I don't think he necessarily has the best interests of the local community at heart."

Gibbs grew up in Lansing and worked as an engineer at startups in Silicon Valley, including Apple, and as a Christian missionary in Japan. He later joined the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Donald Trump, where he managed homelessness programs. Trump allies recruited Gibbs to move to west Michigan to challenge Meijer, who drew the former president's wrath after voting to impeach him.

He pitched himself as a conservative who will fight the "insanity" of the Democratic Party, work to rein in inflation, increase energy independence and support "parental rights" in schools in response to Republican cultural concerns.

He said he would support a federal ban on all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and does not back exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. He also said it is "mathematically impossible" that Biden won the 2020 presidential election and would push to eliminate the use of electronic voting machines in elections. Claims of widespread election fraud in Michigan's 2020 election and elsewhere have been dismissed by courts, legislative investigations and audits for a lack of evidence.

Democrats have hit Gibbs for authoring a website in college that argued against women voting or working outside the home, and claimed that he would support a plan to repeal Social Security and Medicare, which he has said he will not support. Republicans have claimed that Scholten has donated to groups that want to "defund the police" and dismissed property destruction after protests against police brutality in the summer of 2020, which Scholten called an "outright lie."

Jakob Jackson, a 39-year-old from East Grand Rapids, said he cast his vote Tuesday for Gibbs: "There were some Christian values that I could relate to."

Nancy Oconnor, a retired nurse from Grand Rapids, said she has voted in almost every election but considers this "probably the most important one" because she's seeing members of her community struggling to make ends meet.

She voted for Gibbs because she felt Scholten didn't do enough to support the police during the summer of 2020, when some of the protests against police brutality turned violent, and voted Republican generally because "the lack of border control" is the most important thing to her in the election.

"I see it as a trickle-down effect to the economy, to health care, to living situations to transportation, gasoline prices, everything," she said. "We have more people and less financial ability to take care of it. We aren't that great country that we once were."

rbeggin@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @rbeggin