I’ve written a couple of diaries over the past year about my friend Nicole Bedi.
Nicole is a dietician who’s been active with Moms Demand Action and EveryTown for Gun Safety for years, including testifying at state legislative hearings and so forth after a colleague of hers was shot and killed at the hospital they worked at together.
In 2016, Nicole ran for a state House seat in Michigan’s traditionally solid-GOP Birmingham / Bloomfield district (aka Mitt Romney’s hometown) two years ago, coming very close (she hit 47% in a district where no Democrat had ever broken 42% before) against an entrenched 2nd-term Republican incumbent with no particular personal scandals. She also managed to raise more money than any other Democratic candidate for MI-HD40 had before.
She fell a bit short, but gave it another shot this year. The GOP incumbent is term-limited out, and she ramped up her campaign significantly.
The other big difference this time is that Nicole faced a primary challenger—a younger woman named Mari Manoogian (she’s in her mid-20’s). Mari interned for John Dingell and the Council on Foreign Relations, then went on to work in the Office of English Language Programs at the U.S. Department of State and at the Office of eDiplomacy.
It was a hard-fought primary campaign, but one which both women can be proud of: They both kept it completely positive, building up on their strengths without trying to tear each other down.
Both are young light-skinned women (Mari is Armenian...not sure whether that’s considered “white” or not?) and both live in the same city within the district, so there was no obvious geographic or ethnic advantage either way that I know of. Both are smart, strong, well-spoken progressive Democrats, so there was little room between them on policy issues. Both blew away fundraising numbers: Each of them raised over $90,000, well ahead of the $50K that the top-raising Republican brought in (and nearly all of his money was self-funded). In fact, each of them independently raised nearly as much as all six Republican candidates combined (remember: this is for one of the wealthiest districts in the state, and one which has been GOP-held since its inception over 50 years ago).
Heck, they were probably even matched on the name front—Nicole had residual name recognition from having come so close two years earlier, while the name “Manoogian” carriers weight around Southeastern Michigan thanks to philanthropist Alex Manoogian (the Manoogian Mansion is even used as the official residence of Detroit’s mayor). I remember asking Mari about whether or not she was related but honestly can’t remember her response.
UPDATE: Nope, no connection; apparently “Manoogian” is a pretty common name in the Armenian community, like “Smith” or “Jones”. To her credit, Mari never tried to claim otherwise.
The biggest difference from the average voters’ POV was probably their personal situations--Nicole is older with a husband & two young daughters, while Mari is younger, single with no kids.
I worked the polls on election day last Tuesday. There were campaign workers at the precincts for both Nicole and Mari...and as far as I could tell, not for anyone else. Not only didn’t I see anyone from any of the GOP candidates’ campaigns, I didn’t see anyone for any other races either, which I found odd.
Multiple voters chatted with both myself and someone helping Mari throughout the day. Several voters admitted that they liked both candidates equally and planned to literally flip a coin to decide which to vote for.
In the end, however, it wasn’t meant to be for Nicole: Mari beat her 53/47, around 1,000 votes out of nearly 17,000 total.
Needless to say, I feel terrible for my friend’s loss...but again, I can’t hold that against Mari.
Nicole’s concession statement is a thing of pure eloquence and class...
Politics is filled with ups, downs, and surprises, and over this past year on the campaign trail, we have certainly had our share of all of the above. Last night, after an amazing ride, we came up short of our goal.
Mari Manoogian for State Representative worked amazingly hard, put forth a professional campaign, and led with a message that she believed in, and for that I admire her. I look forward to supporting her leadership in this community and hope for her continued victory in November.
For all those of you amazing people on #TeamBedi, I am so incredibly grateful. I have always said that this campaign was not about me. I was always in this to build a movement for my children. They deserve clean air and water, a good education, and to be safe in their schools, and there are so many of you who showed up to fight for those things along my side. The fact that you chose me to be the face or the name of that movement is incredibly humbling to me, and I am so honored to have even been along for the ride. Thank you to any of the dozens of strangers who became my friends, my tireless teammates and neighbors, and to anyone who made a phone call, sent an email, raised a dollar, hosted a lawn sign, or talked to their friends.
I saw a level of engagement in my community this year like I've never seen before, and I know that my community won't stop holding their elected officials accountable for the future of all of the families of the 40th district. To have been even a small part of that makes me overwhelmingly proud.
To my amazing team and husband, I love you and adore you, and thank you for all of the work you've done to better this great state of ours.
...as was Mari’s victory statement:
When we began this campaign last year, we faced some long odds. Today, I’m honored to be your Democratic nominee.
Whether it’s fixing our roads, taking on high prescription drug costs or protecting our environment from corporate polluters, our community deserves a change from politics as usual.
I also want to say thank you to Nicole Bedi for everything she has done to serve our community. She ran a great campaign and I know that she made me a better candidate in the process.
With your help, we are going to win this race in November and bring a new generation of leadership up to Lansing.
If you’re ready to win this thing, stand with me and chip in now.
While I wish Nicole had prevailed, this was everything a good Democratic primary should be. Other Democrats could learn a lot from these two smart, driven women.
As for me, I promised to do everything I can to help flip MI-HD40 blue for the first time in history, and I’m going to stick to that by helping out Mari now.
Oh, one more thing: Remember I mentioned that the two Democratic candidates each came close to outraising the entire GOP field? Well, check out the primary results:
That’s right: Mari + Nicole combined racked up 16.7K votes...vs. just 11.7K for all six Republicans combined. The Dems outperformed the GOP by 43%...in Mitt Romney’s literal hometown.
BUT THAT’S ONLY HALF THE STORY.
I’m sure you’re all familiar by now with the situation at the top of the ticket here in Michigan:
Michigan’s all-female ticket may mark the start of something different
This year, Democrats in Michigan have done something unprecedented. They have selected women to be their standard-bearers for every statewide office on the November ballot: governor, U.S. senator, attorney general and secretary of state.
...With Tuesday night’s primary results in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington, records have been set for the number of women winning major-party nominations for governor (11) and the House (185), according to a tally by Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.
...but it’s when you take a look at the state legislative results that things get even more interesting:
- 59 out of 110 Democratic state House nominees are women.
- 16 out of 38 Democratic state Senate nominees are women.
That’s a total of 75 women nominees out of 148 total...or 51%.
I don’t know what the prior numbers have looked like in past years, but I gotta imagine that’s the first time over half of our legislative contenders have been women.
#TheFutureIsFemale, and as a dude I’m totally fine with that.
BUT THERE’S MORE.
I decided to take the MI-HD40 turnout numbers to the next level. Take a look at the tables below; I’ve compiled the total party votes for every MI legislative primary race...that is, the total number of voters who showed up and voted in each party’s primary. In some cases the candidates were running unopposed; in others there were up to 7 or 8 candidates running. I’ve removed any Libertarians from the totals (the Green party didn’t even make the primary ballot); these numbers are strictly Dem vs. GOP. Check it out:
First, the state Senate. Michigan has 38 state Senate districts. The Dems are way down here, holding only 10 seats to the GOP’s 27-seat Supermajority (there’s one open seat which I believe is in a heavily blue area):
If you look strictly at the primary turnout and nothing else, in addition to the seats they already hold, Dems outperformed the entire GOP field in 6 GOP-held districts, and came within 10% in another 2. If they’re able to run the table in November, they have an outside chance of getting a tie Senate, 19-19 (presumably with a Dem Lt. Governor acting as tiebreaker).
How about the state House?
Right now the Dems hold 46 out of 110 seats (plus, again, 1 open seat in heavy blue territory). They need to flip 9 seats to get the majority (while retaining what they have, of course).
Guess how many GOP-held seats the Dems either outperformed the GOP in or came within 10% of doing last Tuesday? Fourteen.
Guess how many Dem-held House or Senate districts the GOP field outperformed the Dems in? ZERO. The closest they come to this is in HD110, where they came within 2% of Dem turnout.
