Michigan's 2026 primary election is on August 4 in the state's 7th Congressional District. Three candidates are running in the Democratic primary, and the winner will face Republican incumbent Tom Barrett this fall. As part of Michigan Public's Election 2026 coverage, All Things Considered is featuring a series of interviews with all three Democratic candidates.
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Matt Maasdam served 20 years as a U.S. Navy SEAL and co-founded two e-commerce businesses. He spoke with All Things Considered host Rebecca Hector.
Rebecca Hector: What will your top three priorities be if you are elected?
Matt Maasdam: People are tired of the corruption. They don't want to see members of Congress or anybody going to D.C. to line their pocketbooks. They want to see them go into Congress, into Washington, D.C., so that they are supporting and making sure that their constituents are taken care of. That's it. It's about service, not about self-aggrandizement. So, corruption is one.
Two is people's wallets. Everything is getting more expensive, whether it's housing or health care or energy or gas or groceries, it's all going up. Wages aren't keeping up, and people are hurting because of it.
Three is fighting for the Constitution. Whether it's reckless ICE agents or unnecessary wars overseas, violating the Constitution is one of those things that people want to see the President and others be held accountable for.
RH: We’ve been hearing a lot from people who are worried about their ability to find high quality, high paying work. What legislation that you would propose or support to help bring and keep those kinds of jobs in the seventh district?
MM: The [Protecting the Right to Organize] Act is number one on my list. I'm a big union person. I've been endorsed by the most unions in this race. Everybody from the plumbers and pipefitters, to the electricians to the firefighters and teamsters, they're all supporting my campaign, and I want to see them do as well as possible. When they do well, everyone does well. [Senator] Elissa Slotkin is a big supporter in that space as well, and she endorsed me for this race, which is a really big deal.
RH: Affordable Care Act premiums increased significantly across the country this year. Costs of other health plans are also up, and people feel like plans are covering less than they were before. What should Congress do differently to make health care affordable?
MM: The [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] really, really hurt health care, and Tom Barrett, who's our current congressman, voted for it. It kicked tens of thousands of people in this district off of health care and made everybody's health care more expensive.
We can stop the self-inflicted wounds of kicking people off of health care. We can make sure the Affordable Care Act subsidies continue. There are a lot of people I've talked to [who are sick], and they got kicked off of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, and their premiums went from, like, $200 to $2500 a month. It's absolutely unacceptable.
RH: Should the federal government change the way that it regulates AI companies and data centers?
MM: I want to see Congress talking about AI a lot more than they do. We need to win that race, but there's a lot of things we need to consider. I have kids, and I want to make sure they're safe. I want to make sure that we test the products in the market before they go to market. It's really important that we don't release things that are unsafe.
These are really important and fast-moving items, and we want to set up a framework and have some oversight of what's going on, so that we don't do anything reckless or dangerous.
RH: What should Congress’ top priority be to bring down inflation and improve affordability?
MM: There's a lot we can do there. I would say don't go to war. Bombing other countries costs a lot of money. It risks American lives and it drives up costs for everything, including oil, fertilizer, and gas. The cost of everything goes up. Tariffs are another thing. Blanket tariffs are bad for American business, and so they drive up costs. They drive up groceries. People are paying a lot more everywhere, because we're doing these things.
These are self-inflicted wounds, and the nice thing is they're problems that are solvable. In the Navy, I would say we don't complain about problems, we solve them. That’s what I want to see. I want to see us address these problems moving forward, so we can bring down costs for everyone.
RH: How about the mass deportation efforts that we are seeing from this administration? How do you think Congress should respond to that?
MM: I had a particularly visceral response to all of the ICE incidents that resulted in loss of life. As someone who was a Navy SEAL for 20 years, when I see that stuff happen, an American citizen getting shot in America by American forces, it's nauseating, saddening, and enraging all at the same time. If a SEAL had done that, that SEAL would be in jail. I want to see that kind of accountability writ large across the United States government.
Congress has the ability to provide oversight on those things and funding. You want to make sure funding goes in the right direction, and that people are trained to do the job they're there to do, and they do it right. These mass deportations aren't what we want to see, and we need a lot of oversight in that space. It's not there right now.
RH: Is there anything else you’d like voters to know?
MM: This district wants a fighter, and I'm excited to fight for the district. We have a lot of energy in this district. It's one of the seats we need to win and flip to win back the House and make it blue. I'm excited to be that fighter. I'm excited to have Sen. Slotkin's endorsement, and we're going to get this thing done in August and in November.
Editor's note: Some quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can play the full audio of this interview near the top of this page.
