Bill Huizenga Gave Up a Senate Run to Protect His House Seat, Will Have Neither in January

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Rep. Bill Huizenga spent last summer making the careful choice. On Wednesday the careful choice was called for the other guy.

The Associated Press called Michigan’s 4th Congressional District for Democrat Sean McCann at 1:13 p.m. Eastern, according to WMUK. McCann, a state senator, unseated Huizenga. With 96.7 percent of the expected vote in, McCann led 50.1 percent to 48.3 percent, NBC News reported.

The story starts in July 2025. Michigan had an open Senate seat. Huizenga was weighing a run for it. Then he went to the White House.

“After careful consideration … as well as in consultation with President Trump, I have decided against a bid for U.S. Senate in Michigan,” Huizenga said afterward. Consultation is a word Washington uses for a meeting with one outcome.

The thinking was plain. Republican leaders were discouraging House members in competitive districts from running for higher office. The House majority was thin. An incumbent was the surest way to hold a seat.

President Trump then endorsed former Rep. Mike Rogers for the Senate nomination. He also had a message for Huizenga. “I hope he runs for Re-Election to Michigan’s 4th Congressional District,” Trump wrote. “He will have my Complete and Total Endorsement.”

Huizenga took the advice. In December 2025 he announced he would run for another House term, The Detroit News reported. The field was cleared. The seat was protected. Everyone went home pleased with the plan.

Rogers lost the Senate race to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed early Wednesday morning. Huizenga lost the House seat about eleven hours later. The plan has now been carried out in full, in both directions.

“In this town a safe seat is a seat somebody called safe in a meeting,” said Deep Throat Lozenge, this bureau’s most trusted source. “The voters were not in the meeting.”

Huizenga has represented West Michigan in the House since 2011. He will have held the seat for 16 years. He could not hold it through a midterm in which, by NBC News’ count, Democrats have flipped 32 seats so far.

McCann has held public office in the Kalamazoo area for 22 years, WWMT reported. He declared victory on X before the AP call. “I am honored and humbled that the people of Southwest Michigan have put their trust in me,” he wrote.

This bureau did not find a statement from Huizenga by press time. He serves until January. That leaves two months in which he still holds one seat, which is one more than the plan left him.

Republican leaders cleared a Senate field to protect a House seat they could count on. They lost the Senate race and then the House seat, in that order. In Washington this will be reviewed as a sound strategy that the results failed to follow.