Opinion: How personal ambition, leadership vacuum catapulted Shri Thanedar to Congress

What's it called when an event that is both entirely predictable and avoidable comes to pass, because no one would do the things required to prevent it?

It might be "Congressman Shri Thanedar." A crowded field, a lack of clear political clout, and some really touchy issues around race and gender — all of those things contributed to Thanedar's decisive victory over eight opponents in the race for the 13th Congressional District seat.

The Indian-American millionaire had previously mounted an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2018 and a winning run for the state House of Representatives in 2020, spending buckets of his own money. Thanedar declared that he was prepared to spend $5 million in a bid for the 13th District seat, raising the stakes for even well-positioned candidates who lacked such resources.

Here's the good news: Thanedar has served a term in the state Legislature, giving him some experience in elected office. He moved to Detroit in 2020, establishing a connection to the community he represents. He says his childhood of poverty in India acquainted him with the hardships Detroit's poorest residents face, equipping him to advocate on his constituents' behalf even more urgently, he argues, than his well-heeled Black opponents. And Thanedar seems as committed to learning the work of political representation as he was to establishing a successful business.

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More: Shri Thanedar wins Democratic race for congressional seat in Detroit

But none of that is any consolation to Detroit's Black political establishment, staring down a future in which the Blackest city in America doesn't have a single Black representative in the U.S. Congress.

Detroiters have been represented by a Black Democrat in congress since 1955, when the late Charles Diggs Jr. was elected. He was joined in 1965 by the late John Conyers Jr., who left office in 2017. A portion of Detroit has been represented by U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Southfield, since 2015; this year, Lawrence announced that she would not seek re-election, creating an open seat in a newly redrawn 13th District, which encompasses most of Detroit, the Grosse Pointes, Hamtramck, Highland Park and parts of Dearborn and the downriver suburbs.

Every Black political insider I've talked to during this election cycle told me that defeating Thanedar was of paramount importance.

Yet the businessman outperformed his eight primary opponents, winning 22,302 votes, 28.3% of ballots cast, even winning Detroit by a narrow margin. The second-highest vote-getter, state Sen. Adam Hollier, D-Detroit, took 23.5% of the vote; Focus:HOPE CEO Portia Roberson won 16.9%. Because the district is so solidly Democratic, the winner of the primary contest is the de facto winner of the seat.

That Thanedar will take a seat in the U.S. Congress without a majority of votes cast, in a primary contest in which more than 70% of voters cast ballots for someone else, is another problem. In solidly partisan districts, runoffs ought to be required, giving voters a chance to narrow their choices — that's what happens in a bipartisan district, when primary victors face off in a general election.

But I digress.

It's not difficult to imagine that in a smaller field, one in which Thanedar faced one or two Black Detroiters, things might have gone differently.

"There were too many candidates who split up the vote, and Thanedar has a rock-solid Detroit base as evidenced by the fact that when he ran for governor, he got more votes in the City of Detroit than Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did," said Sheila Cockrel, a 16-year veteran of the Detroit City Council who is now the president of Crossroads Consulting. "Had there been a consolidation behind an African-American Detroit candidate, we could have had a different outcome."

Despite the broad recognition that a nine-person race overwhelmingly favored Thanedar, none of the other eight candidates were willing to stand down, a source of consternation for more than one political insider.

No modern political figure holds the kind of sway enjoyed by, for example, legendary party boss Ed McNamara — in other words, no leader can credibly counsel a candidate with little likelihood of winning to leave the race, or promise support in a future election after such a departure.

"The black community these days is struggling with unity," said Stephen Grady Muhammad, Wayne County Executive Warren Evans' deputy chief of staff. "In the old days we had leaders who were able to come together and almost force the community to unify."

The unity initiative that failed

Evans, Muhammad said, made a "valiant attempt" to do just that, convening a group of prominent political and community leaders (facilitated by Muhammad) to rally support behind a consensus candidate. But when the group chose Hollier, the divide in Detroit's political establishment deepened.

Black women resented the male-dominated group's choice of Hollier over female candidates like Roberson or former state lawmaker Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, a member of the Detroit school board. Copious PAC money supporting Hollier didn't lessen those feelings.

"Black men feel cheated," said a political insider who worked with one of the unsuccessful candidates. "Some of them feel white men have a level of power they have yet to reach or actualize, and feel disenfranchised. They saw this as an opportunity to assert black male power."

Muhammad said the group was simply trying to select the best candidate, and that he still believes Hollier was that person. But he acknowledged that to some, electing a woman to the Congressional seat was important.

During an endorsement interview this summer, Hollier told the Free Press Editorial Board that compared to Black women, Black men are underrepresented in political office.

The insider pushed back on the notion that Black women outnumber Black men in the halls of power.

"It depends on the position," the insider said. "Who has been the Black female mayor, who has been the Black female (county) executive? Black men are comfortable with Black women in certain positions, and it's not always in executive positions. A month after the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled Roe v. Wade, it's not the time to tell Black women that you don’t need representation."

Because there were three women in the race, the vote was divided even further.

The insider noted that the three female candidates in the race — Roberson, Gay-Dagnogo, and former Detroit City Councilmember Sharon McPhail — collectively earned more votes than Thanedar.

"After the Roe v Wade decision, a large number of women who I personally know felt it was incumbent to make a statement that women are supporting other women running for political office," Cockrel said. "But you had three or more women in the race who all had some modicum of a base or constituency. If everyone had consolidated behind Portia, the outcome could have been different."

Now, the Black political establishment is looking toward 2024, when Thanedar will have to defend his newly won seat.

It's difficult to know if anything will change. Muhammad said he believes the community will reassess itself, and determine a new path forward.

But these divisions, and the resulting resentments, are real, and the unity Muhammad says is essential doesn't appear to be within reach.

If Detroit's Black voters can't find true consensus in 2024, Thanedar's re-election is all but assured.

Nancy Kaffer is a columnist and member of the Free Press editorial board. She has covered local, state and national politics for two decades. Contact: [email protected]. Become a subscriber at Freep.com. 

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Opinion: Shri Thanedar's improbable congressional win was inevitable