Navy veteran running for Congress as a Republican in key mid-Michigan district

Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News on Jul 14, 2025

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DETROIT — A Navy veteran and former federal law enforcement officer has moved home to Michigan to run for the U.S. House as a Republican in one of mid-Michigan's most competitive seats.

Amir Hassan, 39, of Flint says he is going to campaign for Congress in Michigan's 8th District, which covers the Tri Cities region and is represented by first-term Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Bay City. Hassan is the first candidate to say he intends to challenge her.

Hassan, who is African American, said the Democratic Party has failed his community and the region in representing the area for the last five-plus decades.

"Anybody who knows the history of Flint, we were a mighty power in the industry, in the country, rivaling Detroit's impact. But since then, it's been a constant decline. It's been a decimation. The way of life has changed tremendously in the most negative of ways, struggling in occupations and population and education system and every metric of life that we judge happiness by," Hassan said in an interview.

"I truly believe in this area, in this district, and that's why I bring my family here, because I want other people's children to be able to come back eventually. I want other industries to understand the workforce and opportunity they have here in district eight, where we have … a legacy and a track record of being some of the hardest working people in this country, let alone state."

In the midterm elections, Republicans are targeting Michigan's 8th District, which both President Donald Trump and McDonald Rivet won last fall. McDonald Rivet, a former state senator, defeated Republican Paul Junge in November by more than 6.6 percentage points.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as "leans" Democratic.

“Mid-Michigan families know Kristen and trust that she has their backs. She delivered the biggest tax cuts for working families in Michigan’s history, and already this year saved the Saginaw Social Security Office and held more than 200 community events," said Katie Smith, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

"While Republicans passed a package that raises costs and takes health care from working families, Kristen gets results and Michigan voters will send her back to Congress to keep fighting for them."

Hassan's grandparents moved to Michigan from the South ― Arkansas and Alabama ― during the Great Migration in the 1930s and '40s. They got jobs with General Motors Co., where his father and several aunts and uncles also later worked, he said.

Hassan grew up in Flint, the son of an educator, and later joined the Navy, at one point serving for a year in Guantanamo Bay in 2009, he said. His time in the Navy spanned 2006 to 2013, with his jobs in the service including military police and, after Guantanamo, serving as an intelligence analyst, he said.

After separating from the Navy, Hassan finished his degree at John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York and then joined federal law enforcement forces for 11 years, including stints with the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and finally the Department of Transportation, he said.

Up until he moved back to Flint this month, Hassan was part of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's security detail, he said. Prior to that, he was part of the detail for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, according to his campaign.

Hassan said he grew up thinking that Democrat "was the only way to be." He never met a Republican before he joined the military but later said he found his home in the GOP, aligning more with the ideas of self-reliance, lower taxes and "working hard."

Hassan didn't vote for Trump in November because he was on the road for work for two-thirds of the year, he said. But he would have, citing Trump's efforts to bring jobs back from overseas, secure the border and reduce the costs of medicine.

Hassan said that if he were in Congress, he would have voted this month in support of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ― Trump's centerpiece agenda of his second term that extends his sweeping tax cuts and also cuts funding to the states for Medicaid and food assistance.

"I am not a congressman, so I don't have a vote on the Big Beautiful Bill, but as I think about it, yes, I will vote yes," he added. "I think it benefits this district tremendously."

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