Thanedar among incumbents who lost re-election bids this cycle
Detroit voters interviewed by Wall Street Journal deputy editor Joshua Jamerson ahead of the 2026 midterm elections named concrete expenses rather than expressing a general sense of malaise when asked what was holding them back, according to a Journal report published Monday.
In an episode of the paper’s “Rooted In” series, Jamerson wrote that he went home to Detroit to find out whether the Trump economy is making it easier or harder for working people to get ahead. “Overwhelmingly, the dozen or so Detroiters I spoke with said the cost of living was getting out of control,” he reported. “But what surprised me wasn’t the economic pessimism itself — it was how specific the frustration had become, and who people blamed.”
Detroiters named rising gas prices and utility bills, and pointed to a $64 oil change that was getting harder to afford, according to the article. One resident told the reporter a daughter had been laid off just before her benefits were set to kick in. Jamerson contrasted the specificity he found in Detroit with his broader reporting experience. “Over the years as a political reporter, I found voters sometimes express a general sense of malaise — and even apathy — when it comes to their view on the economy,” he wrote. “But when I went home, Detroiters told me exactly what was holding them back.”
Many of those interviewed pointed at “the system” rather than at either major party, Jamerson reported. That finding held even in Detroit, a city that has long voted heavily Democratic. Both parties are now in an antiestablishment mood, and a sense has emerged among working-class voters that the deck is stacked against them, according to the Journal. That sentiment, Jamerson wrote, has helped explain why this has been a tough year for incumbents. About a dozen Democrats and Republicans in Congress have lost their re-election bids this cycle, with Detroit Rep. Shri Thanedar among them.
Michigan’s November ballot will feature one of the country’s most important Senate races. Voters will choose between progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers. Jamerson framed the contest as a measure of how hungry Michigan voters are for change.
The “Rooted In” series sends Journal reporters to their hometowns to capture the voice of the nation ahead of midterm elections. Jamerson, a deputy editor based in London, oversees Europe business, finance, and economics coverage for the Journal. He most recently led the paper’s policy coverage out of Washington, D.C., as deputy politics editor, and earlier served as East Coast bureau chief of the Journal’s U.S. news team, leading coverage spanning Boston to Miami and across the Deep South.
As a Washington reporter, Jamerson covered national politics and Congress. His campaign-trail reporting won a Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. In 2021, he was a member of the Journal’s “The Tulsa Race Massacre | 100 Years Later” project, reporting from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Black Americans’ struggle to build a thriving business community; the series was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. He first joined the Journal in 2016 to cover breaking corporate news from New York.