Former U.S. Congressman and Fowlerville High School history teacher Kerry Bentivolio of Milford announced on Friday that he was joining the race to lead the 7th District Republicans. On Saturday morning, Mike Detmer dropped out of the race, which leaves Bentivolio facing off against Dan Wholihan, a former chair of the Livingston County Republican Party.
In announcing his withdrawal from the race on Facebook Saturday, Detmer said that he believes becoming a “party wonk” isn’t a “smart” move for him. Detmer also said that he would have to be a fiduciary to the party, “meaning that I would be legally constrained and prevented from doing many of the things I want to do to help God fearing, America First candidates and expose and defeat the Democrats and RINOS.”
Two days earlier, on Thursday, Detmer posted this:
I have to wonder whether Bentivolio entering the race on Friday had anything to do with Detmer leaving it on Saturday? The two apparently know and like each other:
Bentivolio recently gained notoriety for being inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He wrote about being questioned after the siege by FBI agents who were, according to Bentivolio, “following a lead from Nancy Pelosi (that) I gave blueprints to the Capitol for the Jan. 6 attack.” Bentivolio blamed the violence that day on “radical left wing communist thugs.” (You can read his Facebook post, titled “FBI KNOCKING AT MY DOOR” by clicking here.)
In an email announcing his candidacy, Bentivolio said that if he is elected, 7th District meetings would be “where every voice is respected, heard, with healthy respectful debates.” He also said that one of his priorities would be instituting a grading system for all Republican elected officials in the 7th District to “help us determine if our elected officials are voting correctly or pretending to be a Republican.”
He also said he’d put an emphasis on making “sound policy and decisions, developing wise strategies and properly vetting, developing, and helping get quality candidates elected to take back our country and state.”
The current chair of the 7th District Republicans is Norm Shinkle, who isn’t running for re-election. Shinkle is the lone member of Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers to not vote (he abstained) to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Besides being a Fowlerville teacher, Bentivolio is also well known for his past appearances as Santa Claus, appearing sometimes with the reindeer he raised at his Milford Township hobby farm. His Christmas side gig played into a piece about him in The Atlantic in which, as an outgoing House member in 2014, he is said to have “saved Christmas” by switching his vote on a budget bill to avoid a government shutdown.
Bentivolio, a Vietnam and Iraq combat veteran, is also known as the “accidental Congressman,” who won the 11th Congressional District in 2012. The incumbent in that race was U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, who was running as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination that cycle. After he ended his presidential campaign, McCotter decided to run again for his Congressional seat, but was disqualified from the Republican primary for submitting fraudulent petition signatures to get on the ballot.
After serving one term, Bentilovio went on to lose in the 2014 Republican primary to attorney Dave Trott in what ranks as one of the Top 10 losses for an incumbent since 1968, losing by 33 points in an era in which the average incumbent lost by 13.3 points.
Trott’s retirement in 2018 created an open Congressional seat. Bentivolio lost in the Republican primary; Democrat Haley Stevens won the seat in the general election. Bentivolio ran in the Republican primary again in 2020, but lost; Stevens won re-election.
Detmer said that he believes he will be more effective “staying behind the curtains and doing what I need to do for all of us without constraints and without being wrapped up in the internal wranglings of party politics,’ which is in large part just useless, counterproductive garbage.”
“I hope you all will understand my decision on this,” Detmer said. “I still have your backs and I won’t compromise my ability to continue our struggle.”
The vote for who will lead the 7th Congressional District Republicans through the next election cycle is set for Friday, Feb. 17, in Lansing.
