EDITOR’S NOTE: SentinelLeach was a guest of state Rep. Brad Slagh for the February 2019 State of the State address.

OTTAWA COUNTY — Three former Ottawa County commissioners and one current commissioner have announced their support for Michigan House of Representatives candidate Marcia Mansaray.

What makes the move unprecedented, however, is that all four are lifelong Republicans backing a Democrat in what Mansaray called “prioritizing the person over political party.”

Mansaray, who announced her candidacy for the House’s 85th District in March, is running against Republican incumbent Brad Slagh, who is seeking a fourth term.

On Sunday, Sept. 8, Mansaray’s campaign announced that she was recently endorsed by current Republican Commissioner Roger Bergman and former Republican commissioners Al Dannenberg, Greg De Jong and Matt Fenske.

How we got here

The Republicans, who were among six former Republican commissioners who the Ottawa County GOP censured in summer 2022, said far-right fundamentalist group Ottawa Impact has overtaken the local party.

OI was formed by Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea in 2021 after they took issue with pre-K-6 school mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moss launched the political action committee under the premise of “defending parental rights” and to “thwart tyranny” within the state and federal government.

Read More: 'This is not my party': Deputy Health Director Marcia Mansaray will challenge Slagh

Moss was unsuccessful in suing the county’s health department after the private Christian school he founded refused to comply with COVID mitigation measures issued by the state.

Mansaray is best known as the former deputy health officer for the Ottawa County Department of Public Health who was sued by OI’s supporters, including Moss’ private school Libertas, during the pandemic in federal and state lawsuits. The county ultimately prevailed and the lawsuit was dismissed.

Moss and Rhodea then recruited candidates — all political newcomers — to challenge 10 Republicans who were then on the 11-member board.

As the race unfolded in 2022, the then-incumbents said they were blindsided when the county party voted to censure six of them for allegedly “publicly embracing Democrat interference in the Republican primary” and for erroneously claiming the commissioners were “endorsed by two political groups with apparent ties to George Soros,” a billionaire who is one of the largest donors to progressive groups, causes and candidates in the world.

Also that summer, the Michigan Right to Life organization announced it was no longer endorsing the then-Republican incumbents and switched its endorsements to the newcomer OI candidates; at the time, the organization did not comment on pulling its support from the traditional Republicans.

Read More: Amid in-fighting, censures: What is the future for Ottawa County conservatism?

The censure and Right to Life endorsement ultimately aided candidates aligned with Ottawa Impact to defeat all but one of the Republican incumbents in the August 2022 primary.

“One objective of OI was to oust Republican then-members of the county’s Board of Commissioners, many of whom had served for years, honorably and in the best interests of county residents,” Mansaray said in a press release sent Sunday. “However, OI promoted that these members were responsible for COVID-19 decisions, despite two separate legal opinions agreeing that the board lacked authority to intervene in the pandemic orders.”

After OI assumed a controlling majority on the board of commissioners in January 2023, the county health department was directly in the crosshairs as Moss and Rhodea attempted to demote then fire new Administrative Health Officer Adeline Hambley.

Mansaray also was embroiled in the yearlong lawsuit, often having to defend her department’s actions from sharp criticisms of OI commissioners during several public meetings.

The Ottawa GOP again attempted to discredit local Republicans this year when it “denounced and condemned” candidates who distanced themselves from Ottawa Impact.

Read More: Ottawa County GOP 'condemns' 10 of its own candidates

The affected candidates, whom the formal party refused to endorse, did not heed the request to drop out of their respective races, and several of them defeated OI-backed candidates for county commissioner seats as well as the prosecutor, sheriff and treasurer races.

What the Republicans had to say

De Jong said he believes Mansaray will be a better representative for the 85th because Mansaray has the county’s best interests at heart.

“I want to be clear that I’m a Republican. I’m supporting the candidate, the person, not the party,” De Jong said. “I like Marcia. I like her enthusiasm. I had a chance for years to work with her. I believe she’s trustworthy. She’s all about relationships, and I think relationships get a lot of things done, and that’s just the opposite of Brad.”

One factor in his decision was Slagh’s alleged support for Ottawa Impact, taking Moss as a guest to a State of the State address in Lansing in January 2023 — just weeks after OI pushed through several controversial decisions that resulted in multiple lawsuits against the board.

Slagh responded to a request for comment Monday afternoon via text, saying he was not immediately available. He did not respond to follow-up requests for comment.

De Jong said he had a good relationship with Slagh over several years as the former served on the board of commissioners and the latter served as the county treasurer before seeking statewide office.

“For years, we had a deep relationship with Brad, but during COVID and during the starting of Ottawa Impact, he just left us. He just left us, and we had little to no communication from him,” De Jong said. “When he decided to partner up with Impact and go behind them and take a stand behind them, we felt betrayed by him.”

Then De Jong pointed to Slagh’s vote for the censure of the six incumbent commissioners during the 2022 campaign.

Censured Commissioners Endorse Mansaray Pr 91.03MB ∙ PDF fileDownloadRead the press release sent to local media on Sunday, Sept. 9.Download

“When that happened, I diligently reached out to many people in the executive committee of the Ottawa County GOP to show me something tangible where us six commissioners reached out to the Democrats … a document, a text or an email,” De Jong said. “Nothing ever surfaced.”

He said he tried to speak to Slagh about his vote to support the censure, but he didn’t receive a response.

In addition, Mansaray reached out to Bergman and the former commissioners asking for their support.

“Brad has never reached out to us,” De Jong said. “So shame on him for not reaching out to fellow Republicans who were loyal to him for the longest period of time.”

Dannenberg said he was disappointed in Slagh “putting party over county.”

“He never looked at what’s better for the county,” Dannenberg said Monday. “He’s Ottawa Impact. He’s looking at them more than he’s looking at what’s best for us. … He doesn't have the backbone to do what should be done. I would rather get voted out for doing the right thing.”

Bergman, who didn’t seek re-election this year and is planning to retire from politics, said the past two years have been extremely challenging for everyone in the county. He said he’s tired of the hyper-partisan politicking.

“It’s not about the D or the R behind their name, or I,” Bergman said Monday. “It's about the person and the integrity of that person, and I think that's what we need to stress more and more as we look forward to bringing people back who are moderate and not extreme on either side.”

Fenske did not return a request for comment.

Mansaray, who retired in May after Hambley’s lawsuit was settled in February, said she intends to carry her experience — and the fortitude she gained from it — to the Michigan Legislature as a much-needed voice for strengthening state laws on government transparency and responsible spending

She wants to clarify the public health code to avoid the scenario in Ottawa over the past two years being duplicated in other counties.

“I am honored and proud to be endorsed by people I worked closely with at the county,” Mansaray said of the Republicans’ endorsements. “These men have been exceptional mentors during a historic, contentious and difficult time. They exhibited what it means to be a servant leader, putting their community first even when it cost them personally. They showed me what it means to count the cost and then do the right thing.”

Can the local Republican party unite?

De Jong said he wouldn’t rule out returning to the local GOP, but that it would take an acknowledgment from the party’s far-right faction that their tactics alienated a large swath of the group.

“The only way we”re going to heal is peace,” he said. “If these Impact board members would look in the camera at a meeting and say, ‘Guys, we made some mistakes here. We’ve told some things that weren't true here. We’ve hurt people along this journey, and we’re sorry, and we want to heal the county, and we want to move forward — I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that they’re going to do that, but you've got to start someplace.”

“I don't hate anybody,” he said. “I hate what they've done to the county.”

For now, he will remain hopeful of a party that can move on from its current deep divisiveness.

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“It seems like there’s two segments out there. It’s us against them, and that’s not good for the Republican Party. It’s not good for Ottawa County,” De Jong said. “I do believe in forgiveness. I do believe in healing. I think we need that. We need to come back together with people saying we may have not all agree on everything, but let’s put that behind us. If we can, let’s forgive and move forward.”

“It’s really sad,” he said, “because they just don’t understand that they’re hurting people. You bite the dog so many times … eventually the dog bites back.”

— Contact Sarah Leach at SentinelLeach@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @SentinelLeach. Subscribe to her content at sentinelleach.substack.com.