Candidates in the race to become the next leader of the Michigan Democratic Party are jockeying for position ahead of next year’s party convention. Former state Senator Curtis Hertel is among them, boasting a recent endorsement from the state party’s Black Caucus. Hertel said everyone in the party needs to feel listened to if it’s to recover from steep losses in this year’s November general election. “We need to be the big tent that we are, which means that everyone feels listened to and that everyone has a seat at the table and is part of the decision making process. So that’s what I think building, you know, moving forward, that’s how we get buy in from everyone,” Hertel said Monday.

Listen: Curtis Hertel speaks with WDET’s Russ McNamara about why he is running for MDP chair

Most recently, Hertel unsuccessfully ran to replace Senator-elect Elissa Slotkin in Michigan’s Seventh Congressional District.

When asked what concerns him about the direction of the party, Hertel said he worried things have become too focused on the top of the ticket instead of the down ballot races.

“It’s got to be recruiting great people to run for county commission so that your grassroots is strong. Making sure that we win both the House and the Senate so that it’s not just the governor, but someone that can actually get a working people’s agenda done,” Hertel said.

That’s something Hertel and his challengers have in common.

MDP Rural Caucus Chair Mark Ludwig is also seeking the party’s top spot. He said the party has been unresponsive while he believes money used for the party’s statewide coordinated campaign efforts should have been spent more wisely this past election cycle.

Ludwig noted the large fundraising haul national efforts brought in and decisions to spend a lot of it on marketing for the top races.

“I just really question whether your 15th showing of a commercial to somebody on legacy media is an effective use of campaign dollars, as opposed to just cramming it down the ballot. You know, I think—If all of our 110 state House candidates had just had ten grand dropped on them, which in a rural area, that’s a respectable campaign,” Ludwig said.

Both Ludwig and Hertel said another place the party went wrong was bringing in too many campaign operatives from outside of Michigan who may not have fully understood the state’s political landscape or how to pronounce town names.

The candidates said they’re taking their campaign pitch for party chair across the state.

Ludwig argued what he described as the “activist middle” has felt abandoned and frustrated. He proposed using party leadership positions as one place to help people feel more included.

“We’ve got to use these officer positions as more than, you know, a holding place for career politicians that are, you know, on their way from here to there. We need to do something with, you know, the first, second, third, fourth, fifth vice chair of the Democratic Party,” Ludwig said.

Another candidate in the race for party chair is Detroit-based social justice advocate Al “BJ” Williams.

On his website, Williams proposed focusing more on local organizing efforts about precinct delegates, building community partnerships, candidate recruitment, and bringing on new donors.

More people could still join the fray ahead of the party’s spring convention next year.

Whoever does win party chair will be tasked with leading Michigan Democrats through several high-profile contests in 2026, including for governor.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Democrats are pushing this month to pass legislation they say will improve reproductive health care, in particular the safety of digital health data, ahead of Republicans taking over the state House in 2025.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is backing a bill designed to protect reproductive health data including data logged on menstrual cycle tracking apps. Similar legislation that has passed in other states is aimed at keeping the data from being used to target people seeking abortions.

“This feels like a very urgent need for us to get this done while we have a window in Michigan with the Democratic majority for the next few weeks,” said state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, sponsor of the digital privacy bill.

The rush is a reaction to expectations that it will be harder to pass the reproductive health care policies Democrats favor after Republicans take control of the state House in January. Democrats kept control of the state Senate in the November election.

Republicans have opposed the digital privacy bill over a section they say will stifle anti-abortion advertising.

Other reproductive health bills to be considered during the December session that began Tuesday include a package on Black maternal health and an expansion of access to birth control.

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, some women in states with strict abortion bans began to worry that their health information could be used to track their reproductive status. Apps that track menstrual cycles became a major focus point.

Abortion is constitutionally protected in Michigan. But McMorrow does not trust President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to veto any possible national abortion ban nor his campaign’s efforts to distance itself from Project 2025, which proposed a rollback on abortion and contraception access.

Period tracking apps allow women to take detailed day-by-day notes about their health, from how heavy their period flow is to additional symptoms such as cramping. They can log pregnancies and miscarriages.

“These tools are really valuable,” McMorrow said. “I just want to make sure that the guardrails are there when indications from the incoming federal administration is they would potentially weaponize the data in a way that is very dangerous.”

Federal law bars medical providers from sharing health data without a patient’s consent but doesn’t prevent digital tech companies from tracking menstrual cycles or an individual’s location and selling it to data brokers. Legislation for federal bans have never gained momentum, largely because of opposition from the tech industry.

How the legislation works varies from state to state. Washington state has digital privacy law that broadly covers all health-related data while Virginia has a law that explicitly prohibits the issuance of search warrants, subpoenas or court orders for electronic or digital menstrual health data.

Michigan’s proposal would require businesses or organizations to use reproductive health data only for the services it provides, and consumers must be informed of how the data is being used. In order to sell that data, an entity would need explicit, signed consent from the consumer. Consumers would also have the option to opt out from their data being sold at any time.

It would also regulate retailers, who often compile data to target consumers with advertisements, and the use of geofencing, which allows marketers to target consumers with ads based on their location.

The bill would prohibit identifying who is receiving reproductive health care by using location information and targeting them with advertisements. This would apply to people visiting fertility or abortion clinics.

The geofencing provision of the bill has drawn objection from anti-abortion advocates. Genevieve Marnon, legislative director for Right to Life of Michigan, said in committee testimony Tuesday that the bill would prevent women visiting an abortion clinic from being reached by anti-abortion ads.

“This isn’t safeguarding women’s reproductive health data,” she said. “It is limiting the options presented to women.”

Republican Sen. John Damoose, who voted against the bill in committee, believes the geofencing provision encroaches on freedom of speech and religion by preventing anti-abortion advertising.

The bill was voted out of committee Tuesday on party lines and advanced Thursday toward a final vote in the Senate chamber.

Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy director at the Guttmacher Institute, expects the topic to be taken up by other state legislatures next year. Guttmacher, which supports abortion rights, tracks reproductive health trends.

Over the past two years, Michigan Democrats have passed bills repealing a number of anti-abortion laws, including the state’s 1931 ban, and adding surrogacy protections to state law. Lawmakers are considering a number of others related to reproductive health this month.

A group of bills focused on improving maternal health for Black women would create a doula scholarship, among other measures. The Senate voted its package on the topic through to the House on Tuesday.

Rep. Jaime Churches, a Democrat from the downriver area of Detroit who lost her seat in November, is trying to gain traction for two bills that would require insurance to cover fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination.

Three bills seeking to expand access to birth control through insurance have passed the state House. McMorrow also introduced a series of bills aimed at providing long-lasting reversible contraception, such an implants or intrauterine devices, to patients who have given birth before they are discharged from a hospital.

There is competition among Democrats for time during this short, lame duck session. Advocates for economic development, infrastructure and gun control measures are among the many looking to push through bills in the month that is left. Major contention over new paid sick leave and minimum wage requirements is likely to garner attention. Those discussions could reduce the amount of time available to debate reproductive health measures.

Reporting by Isabella Volmert, Associated Press