Congressional District 1 Candidate Forum Set for April 1 at NMC

The same four candidates who appeared at every prior stop in the MI-01 forum series showed up again Tuesday at NMC's Milliken Auditorium. The two who skipped every other forum, including one who lives in Traverse City, were absent once more.

Democratic candidates Kyle Blomquist of Iron Mountain and Wayne Stiles of Traverse City, Republican challenger Justin Michal of Grayling, and Independent Zebulon Featherly of Traverse City took questions from local voters during the 90-minute event inside the Dennos Museum Center, running 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Incumbent Jack Bergman, who has held the seat since 2017 and won re-election in 2024 with 59.1% of the vote, did not attend. Nor did Democratic candidate Callie Barr, a Traverse City resident who lost to Bergman last November and is seeking a rematch.

The forum was organized by Traverse Indivisible Education and Solidarity (TIES), part of a network of eleven Indivisible-affiliated groups coordinating the series across MI-01's wide geographic reach from the Lake Michigan shoreline through the Upper Peninsula. Earlier stops in the series included Menominee, Ironwood, Houghton, and Escanaba; Petoskey is still ahead.

Doors opened at 5:15 p.m. for an informal meet-and-greet before the moderated session began. After the formal program closed, candidates moved to the Sculpture Court for open conversation with attendees.

The questions bearing most directly on Grand Traverse County are concrete: federal Great Lakes protection funding, housing costs in a market shaped by seasonal tourism economics, infrastructure investment in rural broadband and roads, veterans' services across the district's dispersed communities, and health care access gaps that stretch far beyond the reach of Traverse City's Munson Medical Center.

The August 4 primary is the field-narrowing moment, and Tuesday's forum was among the last scheduled opportunities for local voters to assess the candidates side by side. For those who could not attend in person, TIES made streaming and recorded access available through the event's Mobilize listing.

That Barr, a Traverse City resident, chose not to appear in her own city adds particular weight to her absence. Bergman, now facing two Republican primary challengers in Matthew DenOtter and Justin Michal, has declined every forum in a series designed specifically to give northern Michigan voters direct access before the August ballot.