Two locals strike out again in election

By Charles Sercombe
Once again, Hamtramck City Councilmembers Mohammed Hassan and Mohammed Alsomiri had their hopes dashed to move up the political ladder at Tuesday’s primary election.
Both lost their bids to unseat longtime incumbent Martha Scott on the Wayne County Commission, according to the unofficial election results.
Scott, who turns 89-years-old in November, is a Democrat and handily won that party’s primary. Since there is no Republican rival, she will easily coast back into office.
Hassan also lost his bid to win the Democratic primary state representative for the newly-drawn 7th district. He actually stood little chance since he ran as a write-in candidate.
He received 24 votes in Hamtramck and less than 100 district-wide.

Mohammed Hassan

In that race, the heavily favored Tonya Myers Phillips won. She was endorsed by State Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck), who had initially filed to run for re-election in this district but abruptly dropped out.
Like many communities in the metro area, turnout was light on election day, mostly because of an all-day heavy rain. But there were periods when the rain stopped.
At about 6 p.m. at the Hamtramck Community Center on Charest, where there are usually dozens of candidates and their campaign volunteers mulling about, none were to be seen on Tuesday.
That is something not experienced in decades.
But it was illustrative that overall voter participation was down this election cycle in Hamtramck. A paltry 1,828 voters, out of about 13,000 registered voters, participated in Hamtramck.
Most of the votes, 1,140, were cast by absentee ballots, and 29 voters took advantage of early in-person voting. That mirrors what happened statewide where about 1.2 million people cast their vote by absentee ballot or in-person early voting.
Some 659 people braved the gloomy weather here and voted on election day.
There were some setbacks for local community leaders in two key races.
Mayor Amer Ghalib and others endorsed Hill Harper over Elissa Slotkin, who is currently serving in congress, in the Democratic primary race for U.S. senator. That seat is open because Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat, is retiring from public office this year after serving for 24 years.
While Harper won here in Hamtramck, Slotkin outperformed him statewide, winning 76 percent of the state Democratic vote. She will face off with Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, in November.
Rogers won Republican support here in town.
Community leaders also struck out in their support of Detroit City Councilmember Mary Waters for the Democratic primary for U.S. Congress in the 13th District. Again, she won here, but she soundly lost in the district-wide vote, insuring that incumbent Shri Thanedar has an easy re-election this fall.
Local leaders here, most of whom are Muslim, did not back Slotkin and Thanedar for their support of Israel, in light of the ongoing Gaza war.
Hamtramck already paid a price for community leaders criticizing Thanedar and endorsing Waters. A federal grant worth millions of dollars was slated to come to Hamtramck but was redirected by Thanedar after losing support here.
Mayor Ghalib explained on his Facebook page the purpose of his endorsements: “Our goal is to use our votes as a means of punishment for those who misrepresented us in Congress, so large turnout is the only way to achieve that goal.”
In an unexpected move by voters, they supported a county millage renewal for county parks.
Voters here have not been so generous in recent years when it comes to renewing a millage renewal for the Hamtramck Public Schools.
The school district may hope that feeling of generosity will last through the Nov. 5 election when it will seek two millage renewals on top of a renewal of a county schools millage.
Posted Aug. 9, 2024