Rep. Gary Peters defeated fellow congressional incumbent Rep. Hansen Clarke in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Michigan’s redrawn 14th Congressional District, with 47 percent of the vote to Mr. Clarke’s 35 percent.
Mr. Peters, 53, first elected to the House in 2008, was thrown into a district with Mr. Clarke, a congressional freshman, after the 2010 Census cost the state one seat in Congress.
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The new district, which runs north-south through the Detroit suburbs, is more than 60 percent black and traditionally votes overwhelmingly Democratic — which puts Mr. Peters, who is white, in line to become only the second non-black to represent a majority-black district in the House.
Mr. Clarke, 55, a member of the black and Asian caucuses in Congress, may have been hurt by the presence of lesser candidates in the crowded field, including Southfield Mayor Barbara Lawrence and former state Rep. Mary Waters, who had earlier in the race declared herself the “only black Detroiter” in the race. She ended up with 3 percent, while Ms. Lawrence pulled in 13 percent.
