Bridget Brink was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine before she resigned abruptly in April, citing President Donald Trump’s friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL, carried the “nuclear football,” a briefcase of nuclear codes, for former President Barack Obama before retiring to the private sector.

Their profiles as candidates, highlighted on their websites and in videos announcing their campaigns, are just one data point for voters inundated with ads in what is likely to be one of the most expensive House races of the 2026 cycle. In a bid to overturn the GOP’s two-seat majority, Democrats will also emphasize Trump’s tariff policies and newly passed reforms to Medicaid.

Voters in mid-Michigan have nonetheless gravitated to the calls of public service associated with recent successful House candidates. Before Barrett, the 7th District was represented by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA analyst and Pentagon official.

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In an interview, Barrett, a former helicopter pilot who served 22 years in the Army, conceded the race could become another battle of national security credentials. He unsuccessfully challenged Slotkin in 2022 before winning two years later when she left the seat open to run for the Senate.

However, Barrett’s critique of his rivals, who will compete for the nomination in next August’s Democratic primary, is hyperlocal.

“I live in this district. I’ve raised my family in this district. I didn’t import myself in here,” Barrett said.

“I didn’t spin a wheel and say, ‘Where am I going to run for Congress?’ because I have some glamor fixation, an obsession of like, climbing the social ladder of what I’m gonna have as a title on my tombstone someday,” he added.

Maasdam, in particular, has more recent ties to Michigan, having been raised in Nebraska, while Brink grew up in the Grand Rapids area of Michigan before leaving for a career in the Foreign Service.

A third candidate, Joshua Cowen, is a professor at Michigan State University who resides in Barrett’s district.

Democrats have elsewhere attempted to use the same carpetbagger message, including in the race for Michigan’s 10th Congressional District. Still, a national Democratic operative, speaking on condition of anonymity, invoked Slotkin to argue that voters would not penalize their candidates’ absence from the state.

Slotkin, who worked at the Defense Department, returned to the area when she decided to run for the House and won three times.

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As an incumbent, Barrett has been able to build upon his work on veteran services that began in the Michigan statehouse. He chairs a House subcommittee on technology modernization focused on improving the Department of Veterans Affairs’s data systems.

Early in his tenure, he had unique insight as a pilot into addressing the safety failures that led a Black Hawk helicopter to collide with a passenger plane at an airport outside of Washington, D.C., in January. 

The annual defense bill that passed the House this month includes language he sponsored to commission a study geared toward adding anticollision technology to military helicopters.

The bill is one of more than a dozen that Barrett has drafted since he arrived on Capitol Hill almost nine months ago, and nearly all focus on veterans or the VA.

Barrett does not shy away from politics — he mounted a full-throated defense of the work requirements Republicans added to Medicaid as part of Trump’s tax law — but he has also generally kept his head down and focused on what he calls “meat and potato” matters in Congress.

“It’s not supposed to be about headline-grabbing stuff,” Barrett said. “It’s supposed to be about, what are you doing to fix the problems the country has?”

His comfort with Republicans’ legislative agenda will be a point heavily litigated in 2026, when Democrats attempt to reclaim a seat they held for years.

The Democrats seeking to challenge him made bipartisan overtures in their announcement videos, highlighting that they served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, while the national party apparatus believes Barrett is vulnerable because he has not protested Trump’s tariffs or the more controversial elements of the tax bill.

“Tom Barrett is a career politician and political insider who puts his Washington bosses first and Michigan last,” Katie Smith, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

“Thanks to Barrett, Michiganders are losing their healthcare, facing layoffs at their manufacturing jobs, and paying higher prices everywhere from the grocery store to their electricity bills,” she added. “Barrett can’t defend his record, and he’ll be a one-term congressman.”

Barrett is well aware of how heavily his seat will be contested. When he challenged Slotkin, it was the third most expensive House race of the 2022 cycle. Two years later, more than $27 million in outside spending alone was poured into the 7th District.

“I flipped a seat. They’re going to want it back. That’s the natural way of doing things,” Barrett said. “I remind people that the Democrats are wrong, but they’re not stupid. They know their pathway to victory comes through the seats that they just gave up last cycle.”

“I’m kind of the canary in the coal mine,” he added.

The worst outcome for Republicans would be a blue wave that hands the House to Democrats, as happened in the midterm elections during Trump’s first term.

Republicans renewed Trump’s tax cuts earlier than they did when the law first passed in 2017 and are banking on the economy to stay healthy to keep their narrow majority. They also have very few GOP seats in districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris won last year — three versus the 13 Democrats in Trump-won districts.

However, a string of off-year special elections and local races across the country have hinted that enthusiasm could be strong for Democrats again as voters sour on the party in power.

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In the 7th District, Barrett noted that he overperformed the top of the ticket last year, winning by 4 points against Curtis Hertel, the Democratic nominee, to Trump’s one-point margin against Harris.

“You know, they’re not going to catch me off-guard,” he said. “I’m going to be ready. I’m preparing.”