LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – Michigan’s 108th House District covers Delta, Luce, Menominee and Schoolcraft counties, along with portions of Chippewa and Mackinac counties. The seat is open after Republican David Prestin opted to run for state Senate instead. Chris Reynolds, a teacher at Mid-Peninsula Schools and former Marquette County Sheriff’s Office corrections officer, is one of six Republicans competing for the nomination. Rachel M. Keys is running for the Democratic nomination. Michigan’s primary is Aug. 4, with early in-person voting underway.
Q: Tell me a little about yourself: where you’re from and what made you decide to run for office.
My name is Chris Reynolds. I live in Rock, a small rural farming community. My wife, Beverly, and I both teach at Mid-Peninsula Schools, and all four of our kids come to school with us, so we all get to be there together. We also run a hobby farm in Rock that used to belong to my wife’s grandparents. We’ve got goats, chickens, a horse, a donkey, and we’re looking at getting cows.
Before teaching, I worked for the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office for about ten years, seven of them as a jail supervisor. No regrets there, but I realized it wasn’t a career where I’d be able to do as much good as I wanted, so education was a good route for me. I was born and raised in Marquette; my wife is from Rock, which is how we landed there.
Between raising kids and working two professional careers, I saw a lot going on that I wanted to help with. When Ed McBroom was term-limited and Dave Prestin decided to run for that Senate seat, it opened up this seat, and I felt like that was the right opportunity to step up. I tell my own students: if you’re not willing to do something, I don’t want to hear you complain, you have to get up and put in the effort to make change. That’s what I’m doing. The harder answer is that I’m tired of what’s going on. Hardworking families, including my own, are feeling the pinch of the cost of living, and it’s getting too rough. I don’t want to sit around and watch it get worse.
Q: What sets you apart as the strongest candidate in this race?
I have a lot of respect for anyone willing to step up and run, including the other six Republicans in this race. What sets me apart is that I’m not a politician. Some of the other candidates can point to committees they’ve served on, and that’s their story. But I’m not part of the problem we’ve been having. I’m a former corrections officer and a school teacher, I can’t say I’ve worked on anybody’s committees or that I have friends in Lansing, and I’m okay with that, because I want to instill change, not be part of the same thing that’s been going on for so long.
Q: Housing: What would you do at the state level to address housing access and affordability in northern Michigan and the U.P.?
It really bothers me when developers come in promising affordable housing, and then a one-bedroom apartment ends up costing $1,200 a month. That’s not affordable housing. It also bugs me that they’re getting tax breaks and kickbacks to build these projects that don’t actually help us. The majority of the U.P. is working-class families, and throwing up condos on the lakefront isn’t going to help our housing situation. We need to look at the restrictions on what can be built, even the rules against building townhouses right now are far too restrictive. We need to break those restrictions down and bring in developers who actually want to build homes for working families, not big condos.
Q: Healthcare: Given rural hospital closures and provider shortages, what’s your approach to expanding healthcare access at the state level?
Or lack of healthcare, unfortunately. I’ve been fortunate myself, but my identical twin brother went through a mental health crisis and had to be sent six hours away for treatment. I have a full-time job as a teacher and a family, I couldn’t just go down there and spend two or three weeks with him. We played phone tag the whole time he was down there, and that’s not okay. We need accessible care here in the U.P., and it’s not just mental health, it’s medical care too. We’re losing doctors, it’s hard to even find a cardiologist on staff right now, because they’re finding better opportunities elsewhere. We need to look at the restrictions on medical licensing across state lines. We share a long border with Wisconsin up here, and there’s no reason doctors shouldn’t be able to cross that line to provide care. We need to look at those licensing regulations so we can get more medical providers up here.
Q: Energy: Where do you stand on keeping natural gas plants running versus expanding renewable energy in the U.P.?
The reciprocating internal combustion engine, or “rice,” generators were huge when they came in, how quickly they can fire up and cool down, how efficient they are. In a perfect world we’d have more of them across the U.P. Natural gas is reliable. By comparison, solar and wind are intermittent, not reliable over the long term. I’m curious to see how winter affects the new solar farm about five miles from where I teach, I imagine it’ll be covered in snow and unable to take in much energy. The kicker is, we’re not even benefiting from it: DTE Energy bought the project, and the electricity it generates isn’t even being used in our area. We don’t have the power grid up here to support that kind of infrastructure development.
That also brings in data centers, because the argument is that they can produce their own energy, but we’re not seeing that, they need an existing grid to work off of, and we don’t have it up here. If someone tried to put a data center in the U.P. right now, it would be catastrophic; our electric bills would skyrocket. I was actually just talking to someone about Line 5 and the tunnel proposed at the Mackinac Straits. It doesn’t make sense to shut that down and reroute a pipeline all the way around through Minnesota and Wisconsin back up to us. We should build the tunnel and use the resource that’s already there.
Q: Data centers: What role should the state and local communities play in regulating data center development?
We just don’t know enough about them yet, and they’re moving so fast. The way the state is handling it right now, if a community votes that it doesn’t want one and the state can override that anyway, that’s insane, and it’s very frustrating that our state government thinks it has that authority over the people. We hear the argument that it’s a closed-loop cooling system, but it has to discharge somewhere, and how clean is that discharge going to be? I’ve also heard they’re extremely loud, disrupting the community. I’m personally against data centers, I don’t want to see them in the U.P., and I hope it never happens. But I understand that as a representative, if a community says it actually does want one, then the next step is educating ourselves the best we can and moving forward from there.
Q: Mining: What’s your stance on mining in the U.P., including current or proposed projects in your district?
I support mining 100%. The U.P. was built on mining, we’re a rural community with farmers, not a city environment. I understand the concerns about what the Copperwood mine will do to the Porcupine Mountains area, but I believe the mining industry has come far enough that it’s safe and reliable. Even with the most recent mine up in Big Bay, we’re not seeing the environmental issues people were worried about. The West End is economically depressed right now, especially since the prison closed and hurt the Marenisco area. A mine there is an opportunity to bring jobs, rebuild the economy, and bring money into the U.P. and the state. I’m all for it.
Q: Defense: What’s your view on the U.P.’s role in defense investment, including renewed attention to K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base?
K.I. Sawyer wouldn’t be in my district, but when I was a kid, it was still an Air Force base, and one of my dad’s best friends worked in the air control tower there, so we got to go up and see the planes. The airport there has served central U.P. well since the base closed in the early ’90s, but a lot of the area, homes and buildings, has just sat vacant and gone downhill since. Bringing the military back in to use that space, even on a smaller scale, would put those buildings to good use, help the community, and give the military a rural spot to train without as many spectators. I think it would be great to see the military come back up here and put that property to use again.
Q: Give me your elevator pitch: what do you want Democrats, Republicans, and independents to know about you and your campaign?
I’m all about strong families, strong communities, and local control. Government, state and federal, is growing too big and shouldn’t be telling us how to live our daily lives, but that’s what’s happening. I want to bring back local control, school boards are a perfect example. Every school board needs to be hands-on; I’m tired of seeing boards that don’t know what’s going on in their own buildings. County and city commissions need to be the same way, more hands-on and aware of what’s happening in their communities. What separates me is that I’m part of the community, I live here, I understand what we’re going through, I’m not a politician, and I’m not beholden to big donors. I’m just a hardworking Yooper who wants to do better for our communities, and I’m going to try my hardest to do it.
You can read more about Christopher Reynolds on his Facebook page: Facebook.com/UPValues/
Reynolds is facing 5 other republicans: Casey Hoffman, Larry Johnson, Kurt Perron, Daryl Schroeder, and Steven Viau. Whoever voters choose will face the uncontested Democrat Rachel M. Keys in November.
Information about every candidate on the ballot is available in our 2026 primary voting guide.
