John Cherry (Michigan representative)
2023 - Present
2027
2
John Cherry (Democratic Party) is a member of the Michigan State Senate, representing District 27. He assumed office on January 1, 2023. His current term ends on January 1, 2027.
Cherry (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Michigan State Senate to represent District 27. He won in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Cherry completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
John Cherry lives in Flint, Michigan.[1] Cherry earned a bachelor’s degree in natural resources and environment and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan in 2007 and 2009, respectively.[1][2] His career experience includes owning Flint Coffee Company.[2] Flint served as the vice chair of the Flint Charter Commission.[1][2]
Committee assignments
2023-2024
Cherry was assigned to the following committees:
- Senate Appropriations Committee
- Economic and Small Business Development Committee
- Health Policy Committee
- Health Policy and Human Services
- Labor Committee, Chair
- Natural Resources Committee, Majority Vice Chair
2021-2022
Cherry was assigned to the following committees:
- Energy Committee
- House Government Operations Committee, Minority vice-chair
- Commerce and Tourism Committee
2019-2020
Cherry was assigned to the following committees:
Sponsored legislation
The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.
Elections
2022
See also: Michigan State Senate elections, 2022
General election
General election for Michigan State Senate District 27
John Cherry defeated Aaron R. Gardner in the general election for Michigan State Senate District 27 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | John Cherry (D) | 64.1 | 64,189 | |
| Aaron R. Gardner (R) | 35.9 | 35,972 | ||
| Total votes: 100,161 | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Michigan State Senate District 27
John Cherry defeated Monica Galloway, Bill Swanson, and David Davenport in the Democratic primary for Michigan State Senate District 27 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | John Cherry | 64.4 | 17,503 | |
| Monica Galloway | 24.9 | 6,756 | ||
| Bill Swanson | 5.7 | 1,552 | ||
| David Davenport | 5.0 | 1,366 | ||
| Total votes: 27,177 | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Michigan State Senate District 27
Aaron R. Gardner defeated Christina Fitchett-Hickson in the Republican primary for Michigan State Senate District 27 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Aaron R. Gardner | 58.2 | 8,514 | |
| Christina Fitchett-Hickson | 41.8 | 6,115 | ||
| Total votes: 14,629 | ||||
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Campaign finance
Endorsements
To view Cherry's endorsements in the 2022 election, please click here.
State House
John Cherry did not file to run for re-election.
2020
See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 49
Incumbent John Cherry defeated Bryan Lutz in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 49 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | John Cherry (D) | 68.9 | 28,122 | |
| Bryan Lutz (R) | 31.1 | 12,711 | ||
| Total votes: 40,833 | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49
Incumbent John Cherry advanced from the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49 on August 4, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | John Cherry | 100.0 | 13,321 | |
| Total votes: 13,321 | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49
Bryan Lutz advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49 on August 4, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Bryan Lutz | 100.0 | 3,018 | |
| Total votes: 3,018 | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
Campaign finance
2018
See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2018
General election
General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 49
John Cherry defeated Patrick Duvendeck in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 49 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | John Cherry (D) | 72.4 | 22,769 | |
| Patrick Duvendeck (R) | 27.6 | 8,695 | ||
| Total votes: 31,464 (100.00% precincts reporting) | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49
The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49 on August 7, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | John Cherry | 46.8 | 5,266 | |
| Dayne Walling | 31.0 | 3,484 | ||
| Jacky King | 9.0 | 1,016 | ||
| LaShaya Darisaw | 8.7 | 979 | ||
| Don Wright | 2.7 | 300 | ||
| Justin Dickerson | 1.8 | 198 | ||
| Total votes: 11,243 | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49
Patrick Duvendeck advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 49 on August 7, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Patrick Duvendeck | 100.0 | 3,487 | |
| Total votes: 3,487 | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Campaign themes
2022
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released September 22, 2022 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
John Cherry completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Cherry's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am married to Teresa Villacorta and have two children, a five-year-old daughter Diana, and a infant son, Benjamin.
I grew up in Clio, Michigan and moved into Flint after graduating from the University of Michigan. I spent nearly a decade working for the Michigan DNR before being elected to the Michigan House of Representatives representing the 49th House District, which comprises the cities of Flushing, Mount Morris and Swartz Creek, and part of the city of Flint, and Flint and Mount Morris townships. My wife and I started a small business, Flint Coffee Company, which is a small coffee roaster that primarily roasts coffee grown by my in-laws on their coffee farm in Peru.
I am a former member of both the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Service Employees International Union. I am an avid outdoorsman, and hold a deep passion for Michigan's outdoors and wild places. In the legislature I have actively fought for worker rights, clean water, protections for families, and conservation.
I am a consistent advocate for solving problems brought to me by my constituents, whether that has been problems faced by manufactured housing residents in Swartz Creek, roads issue from constituents in Mt. Morris, or public safety and water issues confronting constituents in Flint. My focus is setting Genesee County on a path to prosperity.
- We need to bring jobs back to Genesee County. I work every day in Lansing to bring good-paying union jobs back home to Genesee County. I've been a leader in preparing Michigan for the auto industry's move to electric vehicle production, putting in place policies that have secured new auto investments in Michigan and fighting for the redevelopment of Buick City.
- I'm focused on protecting families. I'm leading the fight against lead in our water and homes. I have introduced legislation to require lead screenings for children, secured millions in water infrastructure funding, and championed a bipartisan bill package to protect mobile home residents from predatory owners. I also secured $2.5 million for 70 new inpatient med-psych beds to serve the greater Flint area.
- It's important to invest in our communities. I've fought to get critical education funding to Genesee County, including initial funding for a new Beecher High School, historic increased per-pupil funding, and special education funding. I secured $500,000 for the Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village. John has supported millions in increased funding for local road and bridge repair, including I-69 reconstruction and repairs to Hill, Fenton, Elms, Webster, and Luce roads.
My passion lies in a few areas: conservation, good jobs, prosperous families, and whatever issues are facing the communities that I represent. My job as a public servant are to work on and develop solutions to the biggest problems facing Genesee County.
Public service is not about satisfying your own ego. It's about finding ways to help solve problems facing the people and communities you represent. Every day I drive to Lansing, I fight to solve issues confronting people in our community. I know I can't solve every problem that we face, but I work to help make meaningful change every day.
When I come home to our community and my family every night, I do so with the knowledge that I did what I could to make Genesee County and Michigan a better place to live for my children and all of our kids and grandkids.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
2020
John Cherry did not complete Ballotpedia's 2020 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Scorecards
A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.
Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.
Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Michigan scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.
2023
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2023, click [show]. |
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In 2023, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 11 to November 14.
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2022
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2022, click [show]. |
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In 2022, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 12 to December 28.
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2021
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2021, click [show]. |
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In 2021, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 13 to December 31.
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2020
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2020, click [show]. |
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In 2020, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 8 to December 31.
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2019
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2019, click [show]. |
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In 2019, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 9 through December 31.
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See also
2022 Elections
External links
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Candidate Michigan State Senate District 27 |
Officeholder Michigan State Senate District 27 |
Personal |
Footnotes
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jim Ananich (D) |
Michigan State Senate District 27 2023-Present |
Succeeded by - |
| Preceded by Phil Phelps (D) |
Michigan House of Representatives District 49 2019-2023 |
Succeeded by Ann Bollin (R) |
