Voters in the soon-to-be 7th Congressional District received a robocall over the weekend that has some scratching their heads.
The newly drawn district includes all of Livingston, Shiawassee, Ingham, and Clinton counties, nearly all of Eaton County, and includes small portions of Oakland and Genesee counties.
The call, featuring the voice of Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, was made on behalf of State Sen. Tom Barrett, who is the only Republican on Tuesday’s primary ballot for the congressional seat.
In the call, Maddock claims that fellow Republican Jake Hagg is a “fake America First candidate” who is working as an “unlikely ally” of Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin.
Hagg had filed to run for the Republican nomination for the 7th District, but was later disqualified from the ballot and is now running a long-shot write-in campaign to defeat Barrett. Slotkin is running uncontested in the Democratic primary.
Maddock goes on to claim Hagg is a “Democrat Trojan horse” who is “working closely with Washington Democrats to trick Republicans into voting against Tom Barrett.”
The purpose behind the robocall is unclear as Barrett is the lone Republican on the ballot Tuesday and it is extremely unlikely that Hagg could change the outcome with a write-in campaign.
Brett Gillespie, a Grand Ledge city councilman, was one who received the robocall and asked on Twitter why the Michigan Republican Party would put out a robocall from Maddock “trash talk(ing)” his write-in opponent two days before the primary.
“Seems like an abysmal waste of money,” he said, adding “Do internal polls scare @barrettbrigade1?”
Requests for comment from both Barrett and Hagg went unreturned. Slotkin’s campaign declined to comment.
