Illustration by Tabitha Walters
Morgan Foreman handily won the Democratic nomination to replace Felicia Brabec as representative for Michigan House District 33—and she did it with half as much money as her opponent, Rima Mohammad. Morgan, until recently Brabec’s constituent service director, got 11,258 votes to 5,572 for Mohammad, an Ann Arbor public schools trustee and professor in the U-M’s clinical pharmacy department.
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“I ran a positive campaign, and … knocked a lot of doors,” Foreman said by phone the day after the election. She thinks mailers and social media were both “very important” and says her campaign took in “about $50,000” to pay for those and other expenses.
While Mohammad “did out-raise me by about two to one,” Foreman says, “we had endorsements from elected officials and organizations that are from this area and that the voters know and trust. Those things don’t require a lot of money.” Mohammad’s leading role in ousting superintendent Jeanice Swift last year may also have played a role. “Her record on the school board preceded her,” Foreman says. “When I was on doors, people were not happy about that.”
Asked what impact her school board work had on the election, Mohammad emails, “I truly only want to provide my statement provided previously,” in which she thanked her family, friends, and supporters. “I am still on the AAPS school board till 2026,” she notes, and plans “to continue to focus on the work that [is] impacting our schools.”
Saline’s Jason Rogers topped five other candidates for the Republican nomination, but the district leans heavily Democratic. If Foreman wins in November, she says, she will “continue some of the things” Brabec did, as well as “focus on very core areas of human rights and mental health care.” The district includes southern Ann Arbor, the city of Saline, and all or portions of Pittsfield, Saline, Lodi, York, Bridgewater, and Scio townships.
County clerk and register of deeds Larry Kestenbaum also prevailed over Eberwhite Elementary School teacher Shelly Brock, 35,453 votes to 20,544. He suspects her strong showing for a political unknown may be connected to the fact that “roughly 60 percent of the voters in the Democratic primary are women.” Some of them may have decided, “‘When in doubt, vote for the woman,’” he says. “That’s not an unreasonable choice.”
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Kestenbaum also campaigned but didn’t spend much: “It was about $1,500 for signs,” he laughs. He’ll need them again in the November general election, because for a change, he’ll have a Republican opponent: Samantha Strayer beat Adam de Angeli in her party’s primary by 6,670 votes to 5,285. (Strayer has not replied to multiple interview requests.)
