Former state House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit jumps into US Senate race
Former Michigan House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit — who has longstanding ties to the city and played football for Michigan State University and in the NFL before becoming a Marine and entering politics — is running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate.
Tate's campaign on May 12 confirmed his run for the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who is stepping down after his second six-year term. The Free Press had earlier reported that Tate, who is in his fourth two-year term in the state House, was considering entering the race.
'Washington has broken faith with us,' Tate said in a video released with his announcement. 'Instead of creating opportunity for all, (President) Donald Trump and the Republicans are cutting taxes for the wealthy and they're betraying our senior citizens, our children and my fellow veterans to do it."
'I'm running for U.S. Senate to lay a foundation for the next generation of Michiganders − one strong enough to protect the promise Michigan holds for every family,' Tate said in the video.
Tate enters an already crowded field of experienced candidates for the Democratic nomination to succeed Peters. U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed, who ran for governor in 2018, have announced runs.
Tate's entry, however, gives the race and Detroit, the state's largest city and one of the largest majority minority big cities in the country, its first Black candidate, and one who became the first and only Black state House speaker in Michigan's history. As such, he can also claim a significant role in having led the first Democratic House majority in more than a decade and helping to pass a repeal of the state's restrictive abortion law and union restrictions, as well as approving education funding increases and gun control measures.
"We delivered for the people who sent us there," Tate said.
But Tate also led the chamber as it became a roadblock during lame duck, failing to garner enough attendance or votes to pass a handful of Democratic priorities. Some House Democrats publicly criticized his leadership in the final days of their majority.
The best-known Republican candidate in the Senate race is former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of White Lake, who ran a close but losing campaign last year to former U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, who went on to replace Democratic former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan since Spencer Abraham in 1994. Several other Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga of Holland Township and former GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, are looking at the race.
Tate, who is 44, would be Michigan's first Black U.S. senator if elected. Currently, there are five Black members of the U.S. Senate.
The former state House speaker, who lost the position as Republicans reclaimed majority control of the chamber in last year's elections, is the son of a Detroit public school teacher and a Detroit firefighter who died after an accident responding to a fire when Tate was a baby. He received a scholarship to play at MSU, where he was an offensive lineman and a two-time Academic All-Big Ten selection. In the NFL, he played on practice squads in Jacksonville, Atlanta and St. Louis.
Ultimately, he joined the Marines as an officer and was deployed twice to Afghanistan on combat tours. He later earned a master's in business administration and a master's in environmental policy and planning from the University of Michigan and worked as a program manager for the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. before winning a seat in the state legislature in 2018.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on X @tsspangler.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Former state House Speaker Joe Tate jumps into US Senate race
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