UPPER PENINSULA, Mich. (WLUC) – On Tuesday, voters across the U.P. will decide nominees to represent each party in the race for Michigan\u2019s 1st Congressional District.<\/p>\n
Jack Bergman has represented that district in the U.S. House of Representatives for the last 10 years. A retired Marine, Bergman says his priorities would stay the same if re-elected.<\/p>\n
\u201cChairing the readiness subcommittee on armed services, and readiness touches everything- personnel readiness, equipment readiness, all things readiness for us as United States Military to keep our citizens safe and secure whether it\u2019s at home or abroad,\u201d Bergman said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s hoping voters will decide in November to give him the chance to serve a sixth term. But before then, he needs to beat out two challengers in a Republican primary that includes another veteran in Justin Michal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spent my entire life serving others, and especially people who don\u2019t have a voice,\u201d Michal said. \u201cIn my PhD in conflict analysis and resolution, I\u2019ve worked a lot with research on human rights both in Gaza and Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Businessman and healthcare executive Matthew DenOtter is also running. DenOtter says he brings with him a viewpoint of someone who is not a politician.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can go achieve things because I\u2019m approaching them from a business perspective instead of maybe a VA or Military background which is good, but their leadership style\u2019s different, so you want to ingrate different kind of styles together,\u201d DenOtter said.<\/p>\n
Bergman enters Tuesday\u2019s primary with the support of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe setup of the White House today is really spectacular for both Democrats and Republicans who want to get a good message of \u2018here\u2019s what we can do\u2019 to the President,\u201d Bergman said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a strong Congress right now because of his leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michal says what sets him apart from others in the race is a willingness to engage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that\u2019s not present and hasn\u2019t been present for a long time.\u201d Michal said. \u201cI don\u2019t talk about what\u2019s happened in the past, I like to focus on what I can do today to make tomorrow a better future for people\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a sentiment DenOtter shares regarding his own experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make this about a team, it\u2019s not about a \u2018me,\u2019\u201d DenOtter said. \u201cIt\u2019s really about us, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m going to use you as like stakeholders, my board, when I go and form groups of the community and I\u2019ll actually get feedback from the locals on what those issues are and be able to drive those, and that\u2019s why I feel I\u2019m different.<\/p>\n
This is the second consecutive election cycle in which Bergman has faced a challenge at the primary stage. In 2024, he secured just over 79 percent of the vote within his party.<\/p>\n
Watch Beyond the Ballot<\/a> live at 8:00 ET on the TV6 Livestream<\/a> or on demand for full-length interviews, including with every candidate running the 1st Congressional District.<\/p>\n The video above will feature the TV6 livestream<\/a> until staff can clip the corresponding story, if available, from broadcasts or other TV6 content. You can subscribe to our YouTube page<\/a> or download TV6+<\/a> to stream the latest local news and weather.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WLUC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPPER PENINSULA, Mich. (WLUC) – On Tuesday, voters across the U.P. will decide nominees to represent each party…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[176842,23,338480,338483,1340,338481,13961,338482,1303,3,34180,25244,329028,21,19,22,20,25,145415,24,19043,248442],"class_list":["post-797569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-1st-congressional-district","tag-america","tag-bergman","tag-beyond-the-ballot","tag-congress","tag-denotter","tag-election","tag-michal","tag-michigan","tag-news","tag-primary","tag-republican","tag-tv6","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-usa","tag-vote","tag-wluc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}