When actor Hill Harper launched his Democratic Senate campaign on Monday, he did so with a video message to his son.
“Dear Pierce,” the video begins. “I’m recording this video for you because I’m about to make a big announcement.”
Harper went on to say that on his grandfather’s farm, he learned that “if you plant something in good soil, you get something better in return.”
“That’s why I’m raising you in Michigan,” he said.
But for someone raising their son in Michigan, Harper seems to spend a lot of time out of state. And whether his son really will be raised in Michigan is already becoming a point of contention; Just a few weeks ago Pierce Harper was attending a school 2,000 miles away – in Seattle, Washington.
It’s just one indication among others that Harper is more of an outsider in Michigan than he cares to portray. And it could be an ongoing theme for the actor as he ventures into Michigan politics.
As several candidates found out in the last cycle, the transition from a celebrity to a Senate candidate isn’t always that easy.
Harper is an actor known for his roles as doctors on CSI: NY and The Good Doctor. He boasts the resume of a budding politician. Born in Iowa, he received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and then from Harvard Law School in the same years as former President Barack Obama. He is a single father of an adopted child. He has written books and built his fortune.
And according to multiple interviews conducted by Harper this week, he claims he moved to Michigan seven years ago. In 2017, he actually bought a historic Detroit home known as the “Charles T. Fisher Mansion.” That same year, he bought a coffee shop franchise in town and became involved in community causes in the area.
But despite his real estate ownership and business connections in Michigan, Harper also has deep roots on the West Coast, where he regularly filmed his television series. And exactly where his actual primary residence has been over the last seven years is hard to tell.
While Harper claimed to live in Michigan, he also appears to have had residences in California and Seattle. He bought a condo in Malibu in 2018 that he later rented out, but the Seattle Times also reported that Harper moved to her city during the first season of “The Good Doctor,” which aired between 2017 and 2018. Harper reportedly commuted in 2020 between Seattle and Vancouver, where the show was filmed.
As part of this, Harper told the Seattle Times in 2020 that he would be sending his son to a foreign language immersion school in Seattle. In September 2022, Harper again told Yahoo that he would be sending his son to a foreign language immersion school.
According to a source trusted, Harper will be enrolling his son in a Michigan school next year.
But the list of questionable details surrounding Harper’s time in Michigan goes on.
Sites that book Harper as a speaker for events — which range in cost from $20,000 to $100,000 depending on virtual and in-person options — repeatedly list him as traveling from locations outside of Michigan. Two booking profiles verified by The Daily Beast list him as traveling from California. Two other instances list him as traveling from Seattle.
In a speaker’s bio, which states that he is traveling from Seattle, Harper has reviews as recently as June 2023, suggesting the profile was used recently. In another speaker’s bio, stating that he is traveling from California, there are details in his bio about events from 2021, which also indicate that the profile has been updated in the past two years.
(Three of the profiles also contain this line: “Persons were named in 2004 and 2014 [Harper] “one of her Sexiest Men Alive…he expects to be named again in 2024.”
The Daily Beast spoke to a former Harper’s Detroit Coffee Shop employee who worked there for about three years. The employee could only recall one personal visit from Harper.
Another former café employee who spoke to The Daily Beast said Harper had started visiting the place more regularly over the past year. But in the years before that, the source only saw Harper about three times visiting and found it difficult to reach him.
The source said Harper had shown a clear interest in Detroit, but ultimately “he didn’t live in Michigan.”
Up until 2015, Harper’s political donations included California as his primary residence, according to the Federal Elections Commission database.
Harper stopped making political donations between June 2015 and May 2023, according to the FEC. At this point, Harper made a donation to the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee and listed Michigan as his primary residence.
Rebecca Pearcey, a campaign spokeswoman, claimed in a statement to The Daily Beast that Harper has lived in Michigan for seven years.
“Hill Harper began spending time in Michigan for work, but quickly realized Michigan had the greatest people in the world and decided to move there full-time,” Pearcey said. “Since moving to Michigan in 2016, he votes as a Michigander, pays state taxes and runs a small business in Detroit.”
The strategy of getting a foothold in Michigan – if there was one – as a transition to political advancement would make sense for a candidate like Harper. The television star positions itself as a progressive option in the primary area.
Michigan is in the dark, and Republicans aren’t expected to make the Senate seat their primary goal, so the Democratic primary could be the biggest hurdle between it and the US Senate.
However, the biggest hurdle in the primary poses Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a more moderate Democrat who has effectively cleared the field of other potential congressional candidates. Democrats in Washington breathed a sigh of relief earlier this year when Slotkin entered the running. Supporters quickly lined up behind the congresswoman.
While Harper’s residency issues could be a point of attack in the primary, Slotkin may not be the ideal candidate to point out those issues. Slotkin spent her early life in Michigan, but spent some time out of state during her college years at Cornell and Columbia Universities (two other Ivy League institutions, same as Harper), and then stayed out of state to get there to work for the Central Intelligence Agency, where she served as an analyst for the agency on three missions to Iraq. Slotkin also worked for the Bush and Obama administrations before returning to Michigan in 2017 before running for Congress a year later.
With money and notoriety, Harper could rival Slotkin if he gets the momentum right. Democrats also in the running include State Education Board member Pamela Pugh and former Rep. Leslie Love, among others.
The seat is vacated by outgoing Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), who has not yet spoken out in favor of the race. The Democratic Senate primary is on August 6th.
Of course, there are other potential complications to Harper’s career beyond his residency. There are doubts if he will continue his work as an actor for the next year and a half while he is reportedly running for Senate. A Hollywood writers’ strike is currently putting production on most TV shows on hold – but that could change quickly.
When asked directly if he would continue filming The Good Doctor in Vancouver during its run, Harper replied to The Detroit News, “Can’t say because we’re on strike.” The industry is currently on strike. Nothing is happening in the industry, so who knows?”
Until then, it remains for Harper to make his case to voters and prove that he is a Michigan native. At the local level there still seems to be some confusion on this point.
In an April local news segment in which Harper was considering running for Senate, a news desk anchor asked a dispatched reporter, “I know that Hill Harper has done charity work and opened businesses in and around town, but is he alive in the required area?” area?”
The reporter wasn’t sure.
“You know, that’s a very good question,” the reporter said. “I’m assuming it’s him. To become a US Senator, you must be a resident of that state. So I’m sure they ticked the T and I boxes. But that’s a very good question.”
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