CREATING A RACE

The open 11th District congressional seat, created when current Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D-Oakland County) announced she was running for the open U.S. Senate seat that developed when Senator Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township) announced his retirement, is getting busier. While rumors have swirled for months (often self-generated) that Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chair Dave Woodward would jump into the Democratic primary for the seat, it’s looking less and less likely with an ethics controversy starting to cloud his name. State Senator Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Beverly Hills) had announced last spring he was running for the seat, and has generated great excitement – and funding – so far raising just over $627,000 since the start of last May. Despite rumors that Woodward had intimidated donors not to give to Moss pending his entrance to the campaign, Moss said that is absolutely not true, and that no one he had approached had declined him. “With redistricting, between the two Senate seats I have served half of the residents of the 11th District,” he noted. “Anybody can throw bombs; anybody can get likes on social media; and anybody can introduce bills. Not everyone is a lawmaker like I am.” Moss is facing primary opposition from Don Ufford of Bloomfield Township, a retired Ford engineer who said he raised about $350,000 since announcing his campaign in August. “The early momentum we’ve built shows that our message is resonating and that we have the resources to win,” Ufford said in a statement. Also running for the Dem nomination is attorney Aisha Farooqi of Sterling Heights, who has served on the zoning board of appeals for the city of Sterling Heights and has been a member of the Macomb County Black Caucus and the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council of Detroit.

Aisha Farooqi

Don Ufford