{"id":29055,"date":"2026-08-05T22:22:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T17:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=29055"},"modified":"2026-08-05T22:22:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T17:22:46","slug":"candidate-who-dropped-out-beats-trumps-pick-in-a-battleground-gop-house-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=29055","title":{"rendered":"Candidate who dropped out beats Trump\u2019s pick in a battleground GOP House primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260805-michigan-elections-vsb-0017-59a9bf.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-af249a\" class=\"body-graf\">Thomas Smith, a political unknown who raised almost no money for his campaign, defeated President Donald Trump\u2019s endorsed candidate in a Republican primary for a Michigan congressional seat the GOP hopes to contest this fall, NBC News projects. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8d7ec7\" class=\"body-graf\">Trump had backed military veteran Amir Hassan in his bid to take on Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet in the 8th District, which the president carried by 2 points in the 2024 election. But Hassan lost to Smith, who suspended his campaign in mid-July, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freep.com\/story\/news\/politics\/elections\/2026\/08\/05\/thomas-smith-leads-in-michigans-8th-district-primary-after-dropping-out\/91177609007\/\" target=\"_blank\">local<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/michiganadvance.com\/2026\/08\/05\/gop-voters-select-candidate-in-8th-congressional-district-who-suspended-his-campaign-last-month\/\" target=\"_blank\">media<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/story\/news\/politics\/elections\/2026\/08\/04\/amir-hassan-thomas-smith-al-lemmo-gop-primary-congress-michigan-flint-saginaw-midland\/91157512007\/\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-9c7adc\" class=\"body-graf\">With nearly all of the vote tallied, Smith led with 50% of the vote, followed by Hassan with 33%. A third candidate, Al Lemmo, took 16%. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-947e92\" class=\"body-graf\">Smith had appeared to be a non-factor in the GOP primary race. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/docquery.fec.gov\/pdf\/094\/202607210300532094\/202607210300532094.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">handwritten letter to the Federal Election Commission <\/a>last month, a rarity given how the vast majority of candidates file electronically, Smith wrote that his campaign raised $1,850 through June 30. He added that he was filing its paperwork by hand because of issues logging into the FEC\u2019s candidate portal. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-93ff6b\" class=\"body-graf\">The last post on his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/people\/Tom-Smith-for-Congress\/61590850209861\/\" target=\"_blank\">campaign\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> came on July 15. Lemmo also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/reel\/1344957407180337\" target=\"_blank\">posted a video on Facebook featuring Smith <\/a>announcing, \u201cI am suspending my campaign and putting my full support behind Al Lemmo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-575667\" class=\"body-graf\">Michigan\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/mi-boe.entellitrak.com\/etk-mi-boe-prod\/page.request.do?page=page.miboePublicReport&amp;electionType=PRI&amp;electionYear=2026\" target=\"_blank\">official candidate website <\/a>did not list Smith as having withdrawn his candidacy. Smith\u2019s campaign did not immediately return an email seeking comment. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-9ad6b8\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">An engineer who worked at General Motors, Smith later opened a salsa company with one of his sons, a Marine veteran, <a href=\"https:\/\/tomsmithformi.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">according to his campaign website<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Smith, a political unknown who raised almost no money for his campaign, defeated President Donald Trump\u2019s endorsed candidate in a Republican primary for a Michigan congressional seat the GOP hopes to contest this fall, NBC News projects. Trump had backed military veteran Amir Hassan in his bid to take on Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260805-michigan-elections-vsb-0017-59a9bf.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}