Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) will face a second primary challenger for the 2026 election, with the latest drawing support from the Justice Democrats in Michigan.
Thanedar, who has represented the Detroit area in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District since 2023, will face primary challenges from Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney after former state Sen. Adam Hollier announced his candidacy earlier this month.
Hollier is back for round three — he mounted a second unsuccessful run against the congressman last cycle, but his campaign sank after a petition scandal led to his disqualification from the ballot.
However, the more notable challenge to Thanedar’s incumbency is now coming from McKinney, who announced his campaign Monday. He is the first candidate of the 2026 cycle to be endorsed by Justice Democrats, the progressive group that helped launch Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) upset candidacy in 2018.
The pair have faced each other in an election before. Thanedar defeated McKinney in an eight-way Michigan state House primary in 2020, 35%-20.4%.
Several Democratic incumbents are facing early primary challenges, mostly from more progressive candidates, with 18 months until the 2026 election. Democrats are coming off stinging defeats in the 2024 elections, during which they lost the presidency and control of the Senate, and many grassroots candidates are urging a generational turnover of leadership in Washington.
In a press release announcing his campaign, McKinney, 32, contrasted himself with Thanedar, who is a multimillionaire. McKinney’s campaign called the incumbent “Detroit’s own Elon Musk.”
“I’m not running for Congress because I’m a millionaire or a billionaire,” McKinney said. “I’m running because I’m not. I’m running because our community deserves to have someone fighting back against the Trump-Musk administration who knows our struggles of housing insecurity, of wages that haven’t kept up with the cost of living, of environmental racism, and more — someone who has lived those struggles, and will fight for us with the urgency that this moment demands.”
Thanedar’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
McKinney could be a formidable opponent. During his time in the state House, he helped win over $10 million in community violence intervention programs for his district. An environmental justice activist, he also won $600 million in federal funds to replace lead pipes in Detroit and its suburbs.
The endorsement of Justice Democrats, the group’s first in four years, marks an attempt to rebuild the ranks of progressive “Squad” Democrats in the House.
Founded by advisers to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) after his 2016 presidential bid, the group has also helped propel firebrands such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) into the national spotlight.
The group faced a setback in 2024, however, when two of its aligned incumbents, Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), lost their primaries to more centrist challengers. The races to oust the “Squad” members were largely funded by pro-Israel groups upset with Bush and Bowman’s pro-Palestinian support and anti-Israel rhetoric in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks in October 2023.
The Israel-Hamas war may become a focal point in Thanedar’s race, as well. Thanedar was previously a critic of Israel during his time in the Michigan House, but he renounced his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America after the Hamas terrorist attacks. He later took a trip to Israel sponsored by a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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In a rare public dispute between members of the same congressional delegation and party, Thanedar criticized Tlaib’s use of the word “resistance” back in 2023 regarding Hamas’s invasion of Israel. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, then told the Detroit News in a statement that Thanedar was an absent congressman who failed to provide adequate constituent services.
“While he is busy posting memes, his residents are calling my office asking for my assistance because he is absent from doing his job,” Tlaib said. “He isn’t putting in the work of a public servant and is leaving his working-class communities across his district with no real advocate.”