LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – Michigan’s 1st congressional district covers the entire Upper Peninsula and most of northern Michigan, making it one of the largest U.S. House districts east of the Mississippi River. Republican Jack Bergman, who has held the seat since 2017, is seeking another term. Wayne Stiles, an industrial designer from Traverse City, is one of three Democrats running for the party’s nomination. Michigan’s primary is August 4, with early in-person voting beginning this weekend.
Q: Tell me a little about yourself: where you’re from and what made you decide to run for office.
Sure. My name is Wayne Stiles, and I’m running for Congress in Michigan’s 1st congressional district. I was an industrial designer for my career, and I specialized in new product development. I worked hand in hand with skilled laborers and entrepreneurial business owners in a fast-paced environment. Then I looked at what’s happening in Washington and realized that the things I wanted to see happen just weren’t happening, and weren’t happening at the pace I wanted. So I filed with the FEC and decided I think I can represent Michigan’s 1st congressional district as well as anybody. I’m an action-item type of person, and I like to get things done. Washington has a lot of issues. I’ve spent a career creating elegant solutions to complex problems, and that’s what I’m here to do: actually solve problems for people, not just talk about it.
Q: This seat has been held by Jack Bergman for several terms. What’s your message to voters about why you’re the strongest candidate in this race?
Michigan’s 1st district, the number one thing on everybody’s mind is healthcare reform. The cost of healthcare is astronomical. It’s the highest in the developed world. We’re spending double what some of the more efficient countries are spending, and they’re getting better care than we are. My district is all of the Upper Peninsula and most of northern Michigan, one of the biggest districts east of the Mississippi River. It’s a vast, rural district with pockets of tourist areas around the lakeshore.
What’s happened is that in the U.P. and northern Michigan, our for-profit healthcare systems have bought up the individual healthcare facilities, consolidated them, sold the buildings and properties, and extracted the profits. Then they’ve told people in our district, “now you have to come to these epicenters to get care.” So we’ve left vast tracts of our district with no healthcare at all. People are driving two hours to get the care they need, especially specialized care. We’ve closed several labor-and-delivery units, so this winter we’re going to be having babies on the side of the road. It’s incredible what’s happening there.
So instead of just saying buzzwords like “we need universal healthcare”, yes, that’s the long-term goal, a single-payer system, what’s clearly happening is our healthcare system is not working for the majority of Americans. I propose, yes, a universal healthcare system for our state and across the nation. I’m also proposing we bring back the public option under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government’s attempt to offer its own insurance program so these for-profit companies have to compete with it. I’d take that to a “public option plus,” and here’s how the plus would help my district: the federal government would also go in and actually offer healthcare services in the pockets across our district that have no care at all. Give people access to their federal dollars so they can spend them in their local communities, and use those dollars to offer loan forgiveness to medical students who make a commitment to our rural communities. When they come in, they’ll move into some of these abandoned storefront offices, maybe turn the upstairs into apartments for living quarters. That brings in skilled laborers, and when they come in with their young families, we’ll need more schooling, so we need more teachers, take a few more federal dollars and offer student loan forgiveness for teachers who commit to the area. What ends up happening is you take dollars that were set aside for insurance and healthcare and parlay them into rebuilding our rural communities.
That’s step two. If you wanted to make effective change right now, without razing the whole system to the ground or pretending everything’s okay, Congress could pass legislation that if an insurance company sells healthcare in more than one adjacent state, it has to offer at least one program that covers all of those states. In my area I’d call it a Great Lakes health coalition, or something like that. If you look at the map, straight down from the Upper Peninsula is Wisconsin, that’s your closest healthcare, rather than driving across the whole state, 4.5 hours, and the Mackinac Bridge might be open or it might be closed due to ice, and then another 4.5 hours down to Ann Arbor if you need really specialized care.
So that’s a three-point healthcare plan to give Americans immediate results: a moderate transitional insurance program with a public option plus, and then universal or single-payer healthcare at the end. Healthcare is a big issue for us. As an industrial designer with an engineering and project-management background, I offer solutions, not just buzzwords.
Q: Housing: What federal role do you see in addressing housing access and affordability in northern Michigan and the U.P.?
(Not asked directly in this interview; see additional housing discussion below.)
Q: Energy: Where do you stand on keeping natural gas plants running versus expanding renewable energy in the U.P.?
Context given: some natural gas generators in the U.P. are scheduled to be turned off before utilities have fully paid them off, and lawmakers are hoping to keep them running, though they don’t have full support for building more renewables across the U.P.
Energy is a huge issue for us, and not just northern Michigan or the U.P., but all across the country. There really is no single solution for our energy needs, especially now with AI data centers and what they’re proposing they’ll need in energy, water, and land usage. We need a multi-pronged approach to meet our energy needs. We have an abundance of wind and solar, both free renewable resources, and we need to invest in that. It’s clearly proven now that those paths are cheaper and more cost-effective to get up and running than coal or gas power plants, which the current administration is forcing the state of Michigan to keep operational. I don’t have an answer to every single issue, but I’m willing to look into anything anybody raises. We need to look at all available avenues for our energy needs. We have the Great Lakes, we could be doing offshore wind generation, but then you get pushback because people don’t want that affecting their sunset view. So we have to make some concessions, because when our finite oil reserves start to dwindle, or become too expensive to extract, those windmills and solar panels are going to look beautiful in your backyard when you have electricity and the next county over doesn’t, because they didn’t want that kind of renewable energy in their county.
Q: Data centers: What role, if any, should the federal government play in regulating data center development?
Data centers are a huge hot-button issue right now in the state of Michigan, and rightly so, because we’ve watched corporations come in and basically muscle local communities into getting what they want. I’m not anti-business for the state of Michigan, I’m pro-business, but I’m against extracting the wealth and natural resources out of Michigan for some foreign country or outside corporation. If we’re going to take risks in our state, we should be getting all the reward.
With AI data centers specifically, this is just the next step in what Michigan has been dealing with for decades. Outside interests look at our abundance of natural resources, 20% of the world’s fresh water supply, our forestry, our water table for bottled water, mining, it goes on and on. The underlying problem connecting all of it is that outside entities look at Michigan and want to come in, extract the profits, take every tax break and incentive they can get, and then abandon the state once they’re done. It happens all over the place.
With AI data centers, we have to recognize some communities may actually want them, you may get union jobs for a while, and if they build a second facility, the jobs continue. But that’s not necessarily a lasting positive impact on a community. I want to make sure rural communities can defend themselves when they’re facing basically a corporate takeover to build a data center. I want to use federal dollars to help these communities defend themselves, and if I were setting regulations, I’d want these data centers to have zero contamination, closed-loop water systems, and to bring their own energy and pay for the infrastructure they need in these rural communities. The major thing I think would help Michigan is to demand a decommissioning bond, because right now it’s a race to build as many data centers as possible, and eventually these corporations are going to overshoot, leaving communities with inactive data centers. A decommissioning bond means they have to put the land back to its original natural state once they leave. That would immediately curtail the sense that Michigan is a free-for-all for extracting profits.
Q: Mining: What’s your stance on mining in the U.P., including the proposed project near the Porcupine Mountains?
Like I said, I’m not anti-business. It takes money to live. People want good-paying jobs, want to be able to send their kids to good schools, and want social safety nets. Mining is a huge part of the history of the Upper Peninsula, along with forestry. I want to make sure we’re taking care of our natural resources so that when we’re gone, the next generations look back and say we did a great job managing them. If we want to mine, there are things we can do to make it less impactful, pollution is the number one concern. With the particular project you’re describing, they’re talking about opening a watershed area for runoff with a direct path to Lake Superior. My reaction is: come up with a different plan. It may be more expensive, but it would help us long-term. I want protections in place so we’re not destroying our natural resources but using them to the benefit of the state.
If a foreign or outside investor comes in to run these mines, what’s the benefit for Michigan? I want to make sure tax incentives are structured so profits stay in Michigan and are spent here, that there are good, high-paying jobs for our communities, and that we’re reinvesting those dollars back into our rural communities and allowing them to thrive, not an extractive model where everything leaves the state.
Q: Defense: Would you support renewed investment in K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, and how would you work with U.P. Republicans on a project like this?
Context given: with the Selfridge Air National Guard Base getting funding and attention near Detroit, some U.P. Republicans are pushing for renewed attention to K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, hoping to bring new missions or a better training facility there.
That’s not a question I get very often, but I can sum it up from my design career. I worked side by side with skilled laborers and venture capitalists together, and we want good-paying jobs that people can be proud of. With an air base, I’m not anti-defense, I’m pro-defense. I just want to make sure we’re doing it properly, protecting American citizens and putting Americans first. Our national defense is very important. I don’t believe we’re out there to police the world, but we are there to defend ourselves. Supporting our veterans and our current military personnel is more important to me than how many Air Force bases we put across the state, making sure the people in these organizations are treated fairly, that we have great VA programs supporting veterans after their service. I was driving across the Upper Peninsula yesterday and passed a graveyard where almost every single headstone had an American flag attached to it. Service to our country is huge in Michigan, especially in the U.P. and northern Michigan, so pretending we don’t need that kind of business model in the state would be a mistake. There are good ways to do it and support the community, we have the Soo Locks up there, and national defense contracting is very lucrative for our state as long as we’re doing it correctly.
Q: Give me your elevator pitch: what do you want Democrats, Republicans, and independents to know about you and your campaign?
[Note: the reporter first asked what will drive Wayne’s campaign to unseat Bergman, then asked for the elevator pitch directly. Both answers are included.]
As an industrial designer and project manager, I think I have a unique skill set, and one thing that’s become painfully obvious to me is that once people get to know about my campaign, they want to naturally put it in a box: are you moderate, progressive, liberal, conservative? I tell them: wrong question. I’m a designer, I don’t put myself in boxes, I build them. That’s what’s making me a different kind of Democrat this election cycle. I’m not running for Congress to move the bar; I’m running to flip this congressional seat blue and get a guardrail back up on our democracy. It’s going to take about 186,000 votes to unseat Jack Bergman in November, nearly every Democrat who shows up to vote, a supermajority of independents, and still 25% of disillusioned Republicans who know the federal government should be solving problems, not creating new ones every day. That’s the coalition we have to build; that’s how working people in our state win. Though my heart sings for many progressive values, and I know you’re either trying to wear the mantle of the Democratic establishment and get endorsements, or lean as far as you can into progressive values to win the nomination on August 4th, the reality is if you’re not offering an invitation to that coalition of Democrats, independents, and Republicans, we’re going to lose in November and make Jack Bergman a six-time incumbent. My message to anyone watching this interview is that I’m inviting you to step outside your political box and vote for the person, not the party, and I’ll make sure your voice is heard in Congress.
Here’s what I want people to know: I’m a doer. I solve problems, and I’m not afraid to change course if something isn’t working. I demand that things happen quickly, that we get policies in place people can immediately start to see the effect of. I’m not running for Congress because I need a job, I’m here to serve the people of Michigan’s 1st congressional district, and I will represent every single person in this district. My invitation is for anyone who’s ever been told they can’t have a fair shot at the American dream. Those are the people I’m here to support, and that’s what I plan to do as your congressman.
Q: Is there anything we haven’t covered that you want to make sure is included?
No, I think we hit all the major ones. Housing is obviously a huge issue in Michigan’s 1st district. The average family income here is $63,000. That means a bank will give you a loan for around a $175,000 house, but the reality is a modest, 1,000-to-1,200-square-foot new-construction home runs $275,000 to $350,000. That’s a $100,000 gap between what people in our district can actually afford and what’s being offered. Right now, contractors are building luxury lakefront properties or multi-unit apartment complexes, because the permitting is easier, the money is there, and the tax incentives favor that. If we want to make housing more affordable, we have to offer incentives that make modest, new starter-home construction attractive for builders to also make money on, and that takes federal dollars.
Some things we can do: invest in infrastructure in rural communities that haven’t had upgrades in decades, new water, new sewer, electrical upgrades, gas and electric, and revitalize these small rural towns. The houses are already there and need work, and that infrastructure investment lets entrepreneurs and builders come in and say, “this is a nice area now, if we redo this house it’s going to be a great starter home for a family.” That’s remodeling instead of building new from scratch. We also have historic districts in the same boat, federal dollars to help restore historic buildings would give people different housing options. There’s a lot we can do.
When I don’t have an answer for something, I go out and do something. I don’t have all the answers for homelessness, so I volunteer at our local homeless shelter, Safe Harbor. I don’t have all the answers for housing, so I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. What happens is you get yourself into a community of like-minded people who are out there getting their hands dirty, actually affecting change, and conversations start, and you build new ideas about the future you want to see, and you’re directly involved in the change you want to see happen.
My message to people is: get out there and vote. I believe there were 140,000 registered voters in our district who didn’t vote in the last primary. Get out there and make your voice heard. I want your vote, and I want you to know it’s important to vote, and that I will represent Michigan’s 1st congressional district to the best of my ability. My campaign is not about left versus right, it’s about the working class versus the billionaire class.
You can read more about Wayne Stiles on his website: wayne-stiles.com
Stiles is facing Democratic opponents Kyle Blomquist and Callie Barr in this primary. Republicans on the ballot are incumbent Congressman Jack Bergman, Justin Michal, and Matthew DenOtter.
WZMQ is working on collecting interviews with all primary candidates; the full voter guide is in progress.
