(Source: MIRS.news, Published 07/18/2024) With the new term limits law taking effect this year, 21 current House members are running for a fourth term, something that hasn't been possible since the 1990s. 

Lawmakers are now allowed to serve a combined 12 years in office as opposed to a maximum of three two-year House terms and two four-year Senate terms. 

In practice, this has meant the following: 

- Two third-term House members have opted not to run for a fourth term, even though they were eligible to do so: Rep. Graham Filler (R-St. Johns) and Rep. Rachel Hood (D-Grand Rapids). 

- One third-term House member couldn’t have run again for a fourth term because he’s served two Senate terms and hit the ceiling under the old term-limits law: Rep. Dale Zorn (R-Onsted). 

- Three House members are stepping away from the House after four years so they can presumably attempt to serve eight years in the Senate: Rep. Andrew Beeler (R-Port Huron), Rep. Felicia Brabec (D-Ann Arbor) and Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck). 

With Rep. Andrew Fink (R-Osseo) running for the Supreme Court and Rep. Julie Rogers (D-Kalamazoo) running for a local judgeship, that’s eight open House seats in 2024. 

By comparison, the third-term House class of 2017-2022 had 39 members. The average term-limited class size in the House during the post-term limits era was 31 based on MIRS research.

With eight open seats, three don’t have a competitive primary. Former Rep. Nancy Jenkins-Arno is heavily favored to win in the Lenawee County-based 34th District. Former Rep. Tim Kelly has token Democratic opposition in the 93rd. He'll be back. Former Democratic Kent County Commissioner Stephen Wooden is squaring off against Republican Jordan Youngquist in the 82nd. 

This leaves five seats in which the eventual winner will be selected in the primary. Here’s where those five seats stand: 

- 7th House District - Aiyash’s departure from this race after the filing deadline left his heir apparent, Tonya Myers Phillips, with a clear path to the Democratic nomination. Phillips, a Sugar Law Center attorney, is running amid a weak field against two perennial candidates. 

- 33rd House District – Brabec staffer Morgan Foreman is gobbling up support from Brabec, former Rep. Yousef RABHI and several other local Democratic officials. She seems to be connecting with voters on the ground. She did live outside the district near Ypsilanti until recently, if that matters to voters, which in Ann Arbor it probably doesn’t. 

She’s running against Ann Arbor School Board member Rima Mohammad, the child of Palestinian refugees, who has support among Ann Arbor progressives and other liberals such as Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City). 

Local reports have Mohammad putting in the work on the campaign trail, but she’s being dragged down by her work on an unpopular school board, which has been forced to lay off 141 staffers amid $20.4 million in cuts. She also sponsored a ceasefire resolution at the school board level that the Jewish community felt was one-sided and an unnecessary distraction given the school board is viewed as being on the verge of a state takeover. 

Foreman would seem to have the edge here. 

- 35th House District – Hillsdale Mayor Adam Stockford is running a much different campaign than the low-energy effort he ran four years ago against Fink, when he finished fourth out of four Republican candidates. Outside of being supported by Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn, the Grand New Party and former state House candidate Steve Meckley, Stockford is being much more visible, giving him an edge amid the MAGA crowd. 

His chief opponent is Branch County Republican Vice Chair Jennifer Wortz, who has the Farm Bureau endorsement and the support of the Consumers Energy PAC, Citizens for Energizing Michigan’s economy. Former Rep. Eric Leutheuser and the more Main Street Republicans are lining up behind Wortz, too. 

The two are putting in the most work on the ground, with Branch County Commissioner Tom Matthew coming in late with some mailers . . . probably too late to have much impact. 

Wortz and Stockford are the favorites, with a slight edge toward Wortz. 

- 40th House District – The Democratic primary is feeling like a blowout in the making with former Congressional candidate Matt Longjohn having been endorsed by the Kalamazoo County Democratic Party. Longjohn, a clinical assistant professor at Western Michigan University made then-U.S. Rep. Fred Upton sweat back during his aggressive 2018 campaign, and he’s bringing that same type of energy to his state House race, sources on the ground say. 

Lisa Brayton pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor earlier this year for running for local office from an address at which she didn’t live. She also ran for the county commission as a Republican. Her Democratic bonafides are clearly now looking a bit suspect. 

- 64th House District – Joseph Pavlov, the cousin of the former Senator, has reportedly knocked a bunch of doors and probably has the best ground game of the three front-runners for the Republican nomination. He’s expected to be strong in Maryville and the district’s south end. 

Former Rep. Gary Eisen isn’t known as a ferocious doorknocker, but he has sent out at least four pieces of mail. A C(4) supporting his campaign has sent out a fifth. From all his prior runs, Eisen has a built-in 20 percent base of support. How much he can get beyond that will be the question. He’s expected to be strong in the district’s more rural areas.

Meanwhile, St. Clair County Commissioner Jorja Baldwin is the most well-connected of the three and is expected to carry precincts in the more well-populated areas of Port Huron and Fort Gratiot. The race is seen as a bit of a three-sided coin flip, the race’s other two Republican candidates are not seen as being consequential.