Congressional District 8 will elect a Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, as well as at least 15 District Committee members at the February 22nd, 2025 State Convention.

CD8 will also elect 15 Delegates and 15 Alternates to the MDP State Central Committee. These will be divided as evenly as possible between male and female candidates. Non-binary candidates are counted first and their numbers subtracted from the 15, then the remainder will be divided as evenly as possible between male and female to approximate gender balance. The non-binary people The candidates will be divided into four (4) slates. One slate called the “male” Delegate Slate will consist of the male candidates for Delegate plus the non-binary candidates who choose to run on the “male” slate. Similarly for the “male” Alternate Slate, and “female” Delegate and Alternate Slates.

CD8 State Central Committee Candidates (Delegates)

Mason Pressler
Christopher Runberg
Neil Thanedar

Michael Gysin

Email: mikejgysin@gmail.com

Short Bio: From the South End of Bay City, went to the local Catholic K-12, then to University of Michigan. Spent a couple of years working on the US Steel coke battery in Detroit, before getting an R&D job at Dow to bring me back around home. Was intended to be a temporary return at first, but helping a friend out at an event in Saginaw, met my now wife. Bought our house right before COVID, and are settled in for the long haul. With world the way it is now, especially considering my wife developed a disabling neurological condition, presumably due to a lack of treatment of early symptoms…things need fixing, and apparently not enough people care to, so here I go.

Campaign Elevator Pitch: Blue collar parents (grocery store and truck driver), Catholic upbringing, U of M scientist, if I have one strength, it’s making progressive points sounds reasonable to establishment/union/”pro-union, pro-Trump” types who I was raised around.

Detailed Campaign Statement: Supreme Court term limits, abolish electoral college, ‘Fight for Fifteen,’ the number of baby boomers who I had to explain why “‘defund the police’ was a good idea actually, it just had bad branding here’s what they mean…,” and managed to get them to tentatively agree? These are achievable goals that a lot of people COULD broadly rally behind if they understood them beyond hearing a Fox News sound byte painting it in the WORST possible light. The plan of just hoping the GOP shoots itself in the foot is how we got here. Leaving these opportunities, both to make change that matters AND remind the blue collar voters who REALLY has their back, is simply malpractice both for “making political gains” AND for tangibly improving peoples lives.

CD8 State Central Committee Candidates (Alternates)

Michael Gysin

Email: mikejgysin@gmail.com

Short Bio: From the South End of Bay City, went to the local Catholic K-12, then to University of Michigan. Spent a couple of years working on the US Steel coke battery in Detroit, before getting an R&D job at Dow to bring me back around home. Was intended to be a temporary return at first, but helping a friend out at an event in Saginaw, met my now wife. Bought our house right before COVID, and are settled in for the long haul. With world the way it is now, especially considering my wife developed a disabling neurological condition, presumably due to a lack of treatment of early symptoms…things need fixing, and apparently not enough people care to, so here I go.

Campaign Elevator Pitch: Blue collar parents (grocery store and truck driver), Catholic upbringing, U of M scientist, if I have one strength, it’s making progressive points sounds reasonable to establishment/union/”pro-union, pro-Trump” types who I was raised around.

Detailed Campaign Statement: Supreme Court term limits, abolish electoral college, ‘Fight for Fifteen,’ the number of baby boomers who I had to explain why “‘defund the police’ was a good idea actually, it just had bad branding here’s what they mean…,” and managed to get them to tentatively agree? These are achievable goals that a lot of people COULD broadly rally behind if they understood them beyond hearing a Fox News sound byte painting it in the WORST possible light. The plan of just hoping the GOP shoots itself in the foot is how we got here. Leaving these opportunities, both to make change that matters AND remind the blue collar voters who REALLY has their back, is simply malpractice both for “making political gains” AND for tangibly improving peoples lives.

Paul Kleinau

Paul Kleinau

Email: polkleinau@gmail.com

Short Bio: Paul is a young professional working in the insurance industry with degrees from the University of Michigan in Political Science and a Master’s in Education. He grew up in Bay City, left for college, and eventually returned once his career allowed him to, and is putting his education and work experience to helping improve his community through running for political positions the first time this year.

Campaign Elevator Pitch: The Democratic Party must be Democratic for people to trust it. The central premises of being democratic have been set aside for ‘pragmatism’ for far too long – leaving a party that looks from the outside to potential voters like it has no consistent principles, whose ideals are easily swayed by money, and who runs politicians that are better at raising money than they are at consistently holding beliefs that fight for the average person, wherever they are. It’s time for that to change from the bottom up.

Detailed Campaign Statement: As we look to the past month in Washington, we see the final evolution, the final endstate of what letting money purchase political power will eventually lead to. The destruction, not of waste, but of entities that are in the way of making profit, that limit the ability of the wealthy to scam, to monopolize, and to accumulate all of the wealth in the country. The destruction of the idea that anything should be done for the public interest without making someone rich off it. Money being the dominant force in elections means the rich themselves win, who will actively attack the government sectors that limit their ability to make profit, or the majority of other winners being those who are chosen and funded by the rich, who are then malleable to whomever promised them campaign funds. The democratic party cannot let ideals come second to power. Power is meaningless if you only have it while doing whatever your donor tells you to do. While the democratic party needs to have fundamental policy principles that place workers and consumers interests significantly ahead of their employers, if you set aside the structure in which elections are done, and money as raised – as long as someone can pay enough money into a primary or general election to say ‘stop running on this issue’ or ‘flip your position to support this issue instead’ then any party platform we adopt is irrelevant, eventually money will turn the party against the people’s will. Too many democratic majorities have been hamstrung from accomplishing major progress because of internal opposition that opposes basic, floor-level fundamentals like raising the minimum wage or opposing the death penalty – neither of which made it into the party platform in the 2024 election, because that internal opposition is funded by an interest group that opposes an otherwise popular change. To that end, the democratic party should choose internal leadership, and eventually candidates, in non-moneyed and properly Democratic Fashion so that potential voters feel as though they, as the people casting their votes, are the ones choosing what their party does instead of the other way around. So that candidates who aren’t millionaires or backed by millionaires can reliably run and win public office. To that end, I have several core policies I believe need to be pushed FIRST, as no other issue can survive long term if enough money can undo it, and as someone running for a committee position within the party I will seek to advance rule changes and support candidates who are willing to adopt the below.

Rule 0: Fascism and Oligarchy are the number one threats that must be face in this country. We must fight back and democratize our government, our workplaces, and our culture. There shall be no long term alliances with them, only tactical ones where they leave themselves open to boost worker’s or consumer’s rights for some short term gain, we take the long term gain in trade. Moderation and compromise can exist on size and scale of taxing and spending. It cannot exist on rights and freedoms, on those the party must never compromise, and so fascists and oligarchs must be opposed as the grounding basis of the party, the roots from which all other policy grows. The Democratic Party must be Democratic.

1) An end to money purchasing political seats. At the party level, corporate, dark money, and large dollar donations must be ended for all primaries – where large donors, especially out of state ones, can have an outsized influence at choosing who we put up in general elections.

2) A push for legislation for the same at the state level. Michigan should not be a state that allows Dark Money, Corporate Dollars, or Large Single Donor donations to any single candidate, PAC, to anyone organizing events or running ads within the state. If this cannot be accomplished legislatively – it should be pushed for as a referendum to mirror that of Maine’s passed referendum on this issue from the 2024 election cycle.

3) An end to winner takes all, first past the post, gerrymandered congressional and delegate assignments. The way congressional sets are chosen, and even party delegates are chosen are simply not 1 person, 1 vote. Additionally, they are designed so that 51% of the vote can win 100% of the seats if allocated in particular fashions. The party itself must stick, and expand where possible, it’s delegate and party official election process so that slates that get 40% of the votes get 40% of the available positions, and avoid any process to avoid its own by-laws to limit the amount of elections, have a chair appoint people without elections, or force non-proportional votes for positions such as delegates, vice-chairs, and committees.

4) Additionally, this must be pushed for through legislation or referendums at the state level. Minority interests should not be removed of their ability to have seats and thus political power merely because of their size – or worse, because of how the lines of their districts are drawn or their distance from the capitol. Winner take all seats should be chosen by ranked choice voting or similar instant runoff alternatives, and large group positions should be seated proportionally and allow slates – a move closer to a parliamentary system. Ideally someday through referendum, this can be brought to the state elections.

5) The party should not leave seats unchallenged, uncompeted for. While some seats may be difficult to flip, running a candidate in every seat allows someone in every district to be pushing for, speaking to, and advocating for democratic party values. They should be activating democratic party voters, and reaching out to demotivated or rarely voting members in communities the democratic party rarely visits who contribute to state level elections and build the participatory feeling of democracy. Additionally, the party should look to collaborate with 3rd parties and independents with similar values in districts where they do not have their own candidate – as we saw in elections such as the most recent UK and French elections, tactical alliances between Liberal, Leftist, and other allied parties can effectively and tactically boost turnout and fight off fascist candidates, and the democratic party should be open to doing the same in elections where it cannot locate or fund its own candidate (or the independent is popular and willing to caucus with democrats). The goal is always oppose republicans in every seat with someone who chooses workers and consumers over businesses.

6) The party should not attempt to win without certain groups, but should attempt to win with as many as possible. In the prior election, various constituencies in the democratic party were denied speaking roles at the DNC, were met with hostility for requesting a change in the party platform, and whose votes taken for granted by the campaign only to be left furious when the same groups they ignored in 2024 shed support compared to 2022 and 2020. The prior party leadership assumed the unhappy portions of the base would all follow game theory and vote lesser evil and they could focus on moderate republicans – but 6 million people were lost from President Biden’s narrow but winning coalition from 2020. If the party wants votes, then it needs to offer something to voters – it cannot get into the mindset of expecting votes from people, especially when it actively dismisses them. The party must not strive to merely run candidates who are a lesser evil, who receive votes because the other side is worse. They must not merely run candidates who are running against something else, but they must instead passionately run for something of their own. The party must create its own framing of important issues, rather than accept the framing provided by their opponents. And fundamental democratic values of choosing people over money, of diplomacy over violence, of solidarity with all rather than with only chosen in-groups, of wealth trickling up from a happy people instead of starving while waiting for some to trickle down – these must always take priority when choosing candidates and platforms.

7) Lastly, and somewhat related to the prior issue – the party must be acutely aware of the rise of fascism and oligarchy in america, and its own role in perpetuating the framing that makes it seem appealing to voters who need help because the current system is failing them. Every time the party chooses the landlords over their many tenants, chooses the car seller over the many car buyers, chooses the rich PAC donor over the community organizers volunteering for free, we lose people to 3rd parties, to not voting, or to this point, to Republicans themselves! The party must be acutely aware of how its own platform on issues such as foreign policy, immigration, and crime can inadvertently boost the appeal of fascism – whenever it adopts a little fascism, for just a few people, as long as they are the right type of people to attack, the voters become more accepting of the idea. The 2024 democrats adopted far too many fascist-lite policies into their platform in an attempt to appear strong on foreign policy and immigration and crime – and thus with no meaningful opposition, the overton window on those issues was shifted abruptly rightwards and republican talking points became the assumed norm – which obviously benefited republicans far more than anyone resisting them – with the results we are seeing in washingon today. If you allow fascism for some, you allow it for all. If it starts with palestinians and antiwar voters being charged felonies. Then it moves to trans people being denied sports and bathroom access. Then moves to other minorities being accosted by ICE for being non-american based on appearance or accent or language, the remainder of LGBT people having research about them deleted and literature about them removed from schools under the guise of stopping sex crimes, to the disabled for being too expensive to care for and regulations supporting them too onerous for profit margins to handle. Each group you discard makes it easier to discard the next. It even then begins to include the poor, the rural, the drug addicted of the primary ‘in-group’, nobody becomes safe. Thus, this rhetoric cannot exist anywhere within the democratic party if it wants to motivate a broad coalition moving forward, and it cannot meaningfully oppose fascism if it does not crush its own internal impulses to join in, just a little, just for one group – lest it prime itself to spread to all.

I am merely running for a committee seat. But I hope to be a voice for the above changes, of the democratic party have its own vision free of monied influence, within the party with an eye towards organizing a better party for the future

CD8 Officer Candidates

Theo Gantos

Short Bio: Mr. Gantos is a Fair Housing Justice advocate with MHAction, Manufactured Housing Action. He is a Progressive Democrat and accepts no corporate or PAC funds. 

CD8 Committee Candidates

Austin Pike

Theo Gantos

Short Bio: Mr. Gantos is a Fair Housing Justice advocate with MHAction, Manufactured Housing Action. He is a Progressive Democrat and accepts no corporate or PAC funds. 

Paul Kleinau

Paul Kleinau

Email: polkleinau@gmail.com

Short Bio: Paul is a young professional working in the insurance industry with degrees from the University of Michigan in Political Science and a Master’s in Education. He grew up in Bay City, left for college, and eventually returned once his career allowed him to, and is putting his education and work experience to helping improve his community through running for political positions the first time this year.

Campaign Elevator Pitch: The Democratic Party must be Democratic for people to trust it. The central premises of being democratic have been set aside for ‘pragmatism’ for far too long – leaving a party that looks from the outside to potential voters like it has no consistent principles, whose ideals are easily swayed by money, and who runs politicians that are better at raising money than they are at consistently holding beliefs that fight for the average person, wherever they are. It’s time for that to change from the bottom up.

Detailed Campaign Statement: As we look to the past month in Washington, we see the final evolution, the final endstate of what letting money purchase political power will eventually lead to. The destruction, not of waste, but of entities that are in the way of making profit, that limit the ability of the wealthy to scam, to monopolize, and to accumulate all of the wealth in the country. The destruction of the idea that anything should be done for the public interest without making someone rich off it. Money being the dominant force in elections means the rich themselves win, who will actively attack the government sectors that limit their ability to make profit, or the majority of other winners being those who are chosen and funded by the rich, who are then malleable to whomever promised them campaign funds. The democratic party cannot let ideals come second to power. Power is meaningless if you only have it while doing whatever your donor tells you to do. While the democratic party needs to have fundamental policy principles that place workers and consumers interests significantly ahead of their employers, if you set aside the structure in which elections are done, and money as raised – as long as someone can pay enough money into a primary or general election to say ‘stop running on this issue’ or ‘flip your position to support this issue instead’ then any party platform we adopt is irrelevant, eventually money will turn the party against the people’s will. Too many democratic majorities have been hamstrung from accomplishing major progress because of internal opposition that opposes basic, floor-level fundamentals like raising the minimum wage or opposing the death penalty – neither of which made it into the party platform in the 2024 election, because that internal opposition is funded by an interest group that opposes an otherwise popular change. To that end, the democratic party should choose internal leadership, and eventually candidates, in non-moneyed and properly Democratic Fashion so that potential voters feel as though they, as the people casting their votes, are the ones choosing what their party does instead of the other way around. So that candidates who aren’t millionaires or backed by millionaires can reliably run and win public office. To that end, I have several core policies I believe need to be pushed FIRST, as no other issue can survive long term if enough money can undo it, and as someone running for a committee position within the party I will seek to advance rule changes and support candidates who are willing to adopt the below.

Rule 0: Fascism and Oligarchy are the number one threats that must be face in this country. We must fight back and democratize our government, our workplaces, and our culture. There shall be no long term alliances with them, only tactical ones where they leave themselves open to boost worker’s or consumer’s rights for some short term gain, we take the long term gain in trade. Moderation and compromise can exist on size and scale of taxing and spending. It cannot exist on rights and freedoms, on those the party must never compromise, and so fascists and oligarchs must be opposed as the grounding basis of the party, the roots from which all other policy grows. The Democratic Party must be Democratic.

1) An end to money purchasing political seats. At the party level, corporate, dark money, and large dollar donations must be ended for all primaries – where large donors, especially out of state ones, can have an outsized influence at choosing who we put up in general elections.

2) A push for legislation for the same at the state level. Michigan should not be a state that allows Dark Money, Corporate Dollars, or Large Single Donor donations to any single candidate, PAC, to anyone organizing events or running ads within the state. If this cannot be accomplished legislatively – it should be pushed for as a referendum to mirror that of Maine’s passed referendum on this issue from the 2024 election cycle.

3) An end to winner takes all, first past the post, gerrymandered congressional and delegate assignments. The way congressional sets are chosen, and even party delegates are chosen are simply not 1 person, 1 vote. Additionally, they are designed so that 51% of the vote can win 100% of the seats if allocated in particular fashions. The party itself must stick, and expand where possible, it’s delegate and party official election process so that slates that get 40% of the votes get 40% of the available positions, and avoid any process to avoid its own by-laws to limit the amount of elections, have a chair appoint people without elections, or force non-proportional votes for positions such as delegates, vice-chairs, and committees.

4) Additionally, this must be pushed for through legislation or referendums at the state level. Minority interests should not be removed of their ability to have seats and thus political power merely because of their size – or worse, because of how the lines of their districts are drawn or their distance from the capitol. Winner take all seats should be chosen by ranked choice voting or similar instant runoff alternatives, and large group positions should be seated proportionally and allow slates – a move closer to a parliamentary system. Ideally someday through referendum, this can be brought to the state elections.

5) The party should not leave seats unchallenged, uncompeted for. While some seats may be difficult to flip, running a candidate in every seat allows someone in every district to be pushing for, speaking to, and advocating for democratic party values. They should be activating democratic party voters, and reaching out to demotivated or rarely voting members in communities the democratic party rarely visits who contribute to state level elections and build the participatory feeling of democracy. Additionally, the party should look to collaborate with 3rd parties and independents with similar values in districts where they do not have their own candidate – as we saw in elections such as the most recent UK and French elections, tactical alliances between Liberal, Leftist, and other allied parties can effectively and tactically boost turnout and fight off fascist candidates, and the democratic party should be open to doing the same in elections where it cannot locate or fund its own candidate (or the independent is popular and willing to caucus with democrats). The goal is always oppose republicans in every seat with someone who chooses workers and consumers over businesses.

6) The party should not attempt to win without certain groups, but should attempt to win with as many as possible. In the prior election, various constituencies in the democratic party were denied speaking roles at the DNC, were met with hostility for requesting a change in the party platform, and whose votes taken for granted by the campaign only to be left furious when the same groups they ignored in 2024 shed support compared to 2022 and 2020. The prior party leadership assumed the unhappy portions of the base would all follow game theory and vote lesser evil and they could focus on moderate republicans – but 6 million people were lost from President Biden’s narrow but winning coalition from 2020. If the party wants votes, then it needs to offer something to voters – it cannot get into the mindset of expecting votes from people, especially when it actively dismisses them. The party must not strive to merely run candidates who are a lesser evil, who receive votes because the other side is worse. They must not merely run candidates who are running against something else, but they must instead passionately run for something of their own. The party must create its own framing of important issues, rather than accept the framing provided by their opponents. And fundamental democratic values of choosing people over money, of diplomacy over violence, of solidarity with all rather than with only chosen in-groups, of wealth trickling up from a happy people instead of starving while waiting for some to trickle down – these must always take priority when choosing candidates and platforms.

7) Lastly, and somewhat related to the prior issue – the party must be acutely aware of the rise of fascism and oligarchy in america, and its own role in perpetuating the framing that makes it seem appealing to voters who need help because the current system is failing them. Every time the party chooses the landlords over their many tenants, chooses the car seller over the many car buyers, chooses the rich PAC donor over the community organizers volunteering for free, we lose people to 3rd parties, to not voting, or to this point, to Republicans themselves! The party must be acutely aware of how its own platform on issues such as foreign policy, immigration, and crime can inadvertently boost the appeal of fascism – whenever it adopts a little fascism, for just a few people, as long as they are the right type of people to attack, the voters become more accepting of the idea. The 2024 democrats adopted far too many fascist-lite policies into their platform in an attempt to appear strong on foreign policy and immigration and crime – and thus with no meaningful opposition, the overton window on those issues was shifted abruptly rightwards and republican talking points became the assumed norm – which obviously benefited republicans far more than anyone resisting them – with the results we are seeing in washingon today. If you allow fascism for some, you allow it for all. If it starts with palestinians and antiwar voters being charged felonies. Then it moves to trans people being denied sports and bathroom access. Then moves to other minorities being accosted by ICE for being non-american based on appearance or accent or language, the remainder of LGBT people having research about them deleted and literature about them removed from schools under the guise of stopping sex crimes, to the disabled for being too expensive to care for and regulations supporting them too onerous for profit margins to handle. Each group you discard makes it easier to discard the next. It even then begins to include the poor, the rural, the drug addicted of the primary ‘in-group’, nobody becomes safe. Thus, this rhetoric cannot exist anywhere within the democratic party if it wants to motivate a broad coalition moving forward, and it cannot meaningfully oppose fascism if it does not crush its own internal impulses to join in, just a little, just for one group – lest it prime itself to spread to all.

I am merely running for a committee seat. But I hope to be a voice for the above changes, of the democratic party have its own vision free of monied influence, within the party with an eye towards organizing a better party for the future