By Jacob Rubashkin
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI — By the time the main event began, the packed high school gym was almost too hazy to see the fighters in the ring. But for the hundreds of men and handful of women at Brother Rice High School, the boxing at Boxing Night was a secondary attraction at best, after the chance to enjoy beer, the company of old friends, and more cigars than any public school has seen (or smelled) in several decades.
One attendee was there for all that, plus more: a chance at an improbable congressional victory. As boxers from the University of Michigan whaled on fighters from nearby colleges, 32-year-old Robert Lulgjuraj spent the early February Friday night gladhanding his way through the crowd. His goal, to drum up support for an underdog bid for the GOP nomination in Michigan’s 10th District.
Smoke-filled rooms: not just the stuff of campaign lore.
Lulgjuraj looked at home in a Brother Rice Warriors quarter zip as he mingled by trays of pasta salad and cold cuts. But the gym was far from home turf for the former Wayne and Macomb County assistant prosecutor, who faces another Brother Rice alumnus, Army paratrooper Mike Bouchard, in the August 4 primary.
Brother Rice sits just outside the 10th District but its student body draws from across the region, and the school has produced its fair share of Southeast Michigan luminaries. Lulgjuraj and Bouchard overlapped at the Catholic school, even playing on the football team together. The school also counts among its products Bouchard’s father, longtime Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, and the man leaving the 10th District to run for governor, Rep. John James.
At one point in the evening, former St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Andrew Sohn stopped by to ask Lulgjuraj how his campaign was going and wish him luck.
Lulgjuraj may need it. Despite entering the race months later, Bouchard begins with a clear advantage thanks to his name and political connections.
After 28 years as sheriff, eight years in the legislature, and statewide runs for Senate and governor, his father is among the best-known Republicans in the state. Sheriff Bouchard began organizing support for his son’s campaign months before he returned from his latest deployment, helping establish a super PAC and securing endorsements from former Gov. John Engler and former state Attorney General Bill Schuette.
A recent poll from the Bouchard campaign found him leading the primary field, 37 percent to 8 percent, with 51 percent undecided. A third candidate, attorney Justin Kirk, clocked in at 3 percent but isn’t expected to be as much of a factor in the race.
Lulgjuraj’s allies dismiss the result as an artifact of name recognition, and argue that the upstart’s candidacy will activate new voters in the primary, especially in the district’s close-knit Albanian community. The 10th has the fifth-largest Albanian community of any district in the country, and the largest outside of New York City. It’s also home to the largest number of another Catholic minority, the Chaldeans, who comprise 3 percent of the district.
“If you ran an independent poll, Bouchard might even be up just from name ID alone,” said state Rep. Joe Aragona, who represents Macomb County in the state House and has endorsed Lulgjuraj.
Aragona, who considered running for the 10th himself, also said he believed polling would underestimate Lulgjuraj because it wouldn’t account for lower propensity Albanian voters in the primary.
“With Rob on the ballot, none of them, whether they’re center, center left, right-left, or even far right in their political nature,” he said, “none of them are going to forget to vote.”
Neither have they forgotten to donate. Lulgjuraj has raised more than $1 million since entering the race in July, largely from Albanian communities, and ended December with $765,000 in cash-on-hand, the most of any candidate in the race.
Bouchard raised a respectable $550,000 in his first two months of the race, and an allied super PAC pulled in an additional $255,000 through the end of the year. But $200,000 that Bouchard raised is earmarked for the general election, leaving him with closer to $350,000 in money he can spend on the primary, compared to Lulgjuraj, who had more than $650,000 in primary cash to spend.
On a Thursday night in Warren, Bouchard stood up in front of a few dozen current and retired police officers at a Fraternal Order of Police lodge to introduce himself.
Soft-spoken and measured, and in a quarter-zip of his own, Bouchard spoke briefly about his support and respect for law enforcement, his time in the Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and experience in Iraq, and his belief in Trump’s foreign policy. He stressed that he was running to restore common sense to Washington, DC. “If a Democrat brings me a solution, I’ll work with them,” he told the crowd.
Despite the setting, Bouchard avoided mentioning his father in his brief stump speech. Afterward, he told Inside Elections that he was running his own race. “I’m running on my experience and what I’m going to do for this district,” said the former paratrooper.
But the sheriff loomed large over the evening, as attendees came up to the younger Bouchard to tell him how much they admired his father and to gossip about when the 27-year incumbent might finally retire. One woman stopped on her way out to remark on how much the candidate resembled his namesake — and to offer to put up a Bouchard yard sign even though she wasn’t sure she lived in the district. After some geographical back and forth with the candidate, the newly minted supporter realized that not only did she live in the district, but so did her daughter and several extended family members. She left with signs for all of them.
As the event cleared out, the lodge’s vice president Pete Warack said he liked what he had heard from Bouchard, but wanted to see more of the candidate. “He said the right things, but saying the right things and doing them are different,” Warack told Inside Elections. He expressed hope that Bouchard would return to the lodge over the summer when temperatures would be warmer and more members would be present.
Swapping his policeman’s cap for a pundit’s hat, Warack made an additional point: the name ID advantage Bouchard brought to the race, he said, could be insurmountable in the primary. Outside, two attendees enjoying cigars agreed. One of them, who declined to share his name due to his sensitive position, said he was all in for Bouchard. He hadn’t heard of anyone else running.
Lulgjuraj has framed his bid around his blue collar upbringing and deep Macomb County roots, to the extent one ally told Inside Elections they anticipated a “nationalist” campaign — the nation being Macomb. Lulgjuraj, the son of a waitress and maintenance man who fled Communism, sees a compelling contrast between his story and that of Bouchard, who grew up in a well-off town outside the district in Oakland County.
“Just because your father’s a politician, that doesn’t mean that you’re ready to legislate, that you’re ready to be a congressperson,” Lulgjuraj told Inside Elections, “and I thank the family for their service, but I am the best qualified academically, resume-wise, and my strong MAGA conservative values to represent this district well, and I’m from here.”
Bouchard bristled at the notion that he wasn’t suited to represent the 10th, which only includes a small piece of Oakland County.
“I’ve lived in this district for years,” he told Inside Elections. “I go to church in the center of this district, I worked in the south of this district, my gym’s in the north of this district, and I spend most of my summers on the east part of this district. I know this district extremely well, and I spend all my time here.”
State Rep. Ron Robinson, who represents a swing district in Macomb County, told Inside Elections he didn’t think Bouchard would be hamstrung by his upbringing. “Though he has come from Oakland County, he’s been around,” said Robinson, “he’s well versed in the needs and what’s going on here in Macomb County.”
Still, Robinson opted to back Lulgjuraj in the primary. “I like his passion, and he’s connecting with a lot of people,” he said, “and he pretty much is the American dream.”
Winning the primary won’t be the end of the story for either Bouchard or Lulgjuraj. Michigan’s 10th is a top Democratic target, and the party is sorting through its own primary between Pontiac Mayor Tim Greimel, former prosecutor Christina Hines, and former Commerce Department attorney Eric Chung.
After two cycles in which Democrats were saddled with former Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga as their nominee, the party is excited to compete for the open seat with a new candidate. Though Marlinga was universally known in the district, he struggled to fundraise, had personal baggage, and was largely ignored by outside groups in his two losses against James.
Even as both potential GOP nominees stare down a competitive general election, neither feels pressure to put any distance between themselves and Trump, who finished ahead of Kamala Harris 52-46 percent in 2024 but whose popularity has sagged since taking office a year ago.
“I am going to be lockstep in line with the president’s agenda and this administration’s agenda,” Lulgjuraj told Inside Elections, “and that’s exactly what the voters in this district want.”
“I think he’s doing an incredible job,” concurred Bouchard, who couldn’t name any areas where he disagreed with Trump. “He’s putting our country first, and I think we need more people who are willing to help him put this country first.”
Both candidates singled out crime and the cost of living as priorities, and are focusing their appeal on the “salt of the earth” voters of the district. Each claims a connection to the auto industry as well: Lulgjuraj’s grandfather worked the line at Chrysler, Bouchard’s at General Motors.
And both men relay deep appreciation for their Catholic faith and the education they received at Brother Rice.
“I’ve developed a pretty strong faith and belief in God from a young age, and that’s carried with me in everything that I’ve done,” Bouchard told Inside Elections. “I remember some pretty tough moments in Iraq, and it was pretty comforting to have the faith I have,” he said.
“I’m a faithful candidate,” Lulgjuraj told Inside Elections, “and I really do believe that the reason why this country has been as successful as it was, it’s rooted in virtue, rooted in character, rooted in Christian values.”
As he considered running for Congress last year, Lulgjuraj said, he turned to a higher power. “The first person I called was my priest,” he told Inside Elections.
Did he receive his blessing?
“Even better — he gave me $1,000. How’s that for a character reference?”