“One of my first loves was the political arena,” says Jeremy Moss, the openly gay president pro tempore of the Michigan Senate and Democratic nominee for Congress in Michigan’s 11th District.

“I remember in my household growing up, we had the news on and watched Peter Jennings every single night,” he says. “I was in a household that was very on top of current and newsworthy events in our state and in our country. I literally — and this is no joke — was the first grader that could name every president in the order they served.”

Moss recalls being six years old and captivated by the 1992 presidential debate at Michigan State University, which gave it a local connection for him. He watched Bush, Clinton, and Perot “making a pitch to America,” each hoping voters would choose his vision for the country.

To this day, Moss sees a connection between his childhood fascination with history and government and his decision to pursue a journalism degree at Michigan State University in his 20s. Yet he long saw the political arena as incompatible with being gay and, given his own internal conflicts over his sexuality, could not see a place for himself in politics.

In 2004, when Moss was 18 years old, President George W. Bush, who was running for reelection, made opposition to same-sex marriage and the need for a constitutional amendment to prohibit it a central part of his campaign. That same election, Moss saw his fellow Michiganders vote to ban same-sex marriage, passing one of the most restrictive measures in the country, which went so far as to bar civil unions. And a few days after the presidential election, Moss watched as New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey — who had been forced to out himself as gay earlier that summer due to being named in a sexual harassment lawsuit — resigned from office.

“Those were a few events that really posed incredible challenges to me and my sense of self, as I was going through these vulnerable years of figuring myself out,” Moss says. “And at that time, you could count the out LGBTQ elected officials in Michigan on one hand and still have fingers to spare. It just wasn’t something that was viable. To me, it just demonstrated that it is incompatible to be gay and interested in politics. I think it shoved me back in the closet for a while.”

Moss became more comfortable in his own skin and came out as gay in his early 20s, shortly after graduating from Michigan State with a bachelor’s in journalism. His shift from journalism to political communications had begun in 2005, when he took a one-semester internship with former State Rep. Paul Condino, honing his communication skills and familiarity with public policy.

After graduation, he worked for former Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence and served as district director for former State Rep. Rudy Hobbs before eventually entering the political arena in 2011.

“I graduated in 2008. It was right on the cusp of the Great Recession, and I had so many friends who found opportunities everywhere you can imagine around the country, from Seattle to South Carolina,” he says. “There was a huge exodus of Michiganders and Detroiters who moved to Chicago. It was watching those friends leave Michigan that made me want to be somebody who solves the issues here at home.

“I was somebody who was active and engaged, and was about as civically engaged as a recent college graduate could be in their home county. And I didn’t want to just abandon it all for a flashy opportunity out of state. I wanted to make Michigan the home for the next generation that my family had,” he continues. “And so, at 24 years old, I made a decision to run for city council.”

Moss was elected to the Southfield City Council in November 2011, finding that his age and relative newcomer status were assets. He served until December 2014, just a month after being elected to an open seat in the Michigan House of Representatives. In 2018, after two terms, he ran and was elected to the Michigan Senate, where he’s currently completing his last term in the state legislature as he seeks a seat in Congress. Because Michigan’s 11th Congressional District is heavily Democratic, Moss is favored in the general election, potentially setting himself up to be the first out LGBTQ member of Congress from Michigan.

While Moss has not exclusively focused on LGBTQ issues during his political career, he has at times been thrust into the spotlight as an out gay man, and one of the few voices who can rebut social conservatives’ demonization of LGBTQ people — especially during his first run for office in 2014, when a host of anti-LGBTQ candidates were running for the legislature on the Republican side of the aisle.

“I did not make LGBTQ rights the main driver of why I wanted to get into this arena, but it fell on me,” he says. “I was out in my community, to my family, to my friends for many years at that point. But the cause needed a face, needed a voice, and needed someone to tell our real, lived experiences as LGBTQ people, in the state legislature.”

At the same time, Moss touts his ability to work with Republicans in a bipartisan fashion during his years in the state legislature — even with some of the most zealous anti-LGBTQ politicians in the state. He cites his dedication to establishing working relationships and being upfront about his identity as reasons why, in 2023, after Democrats had grabbed control of the legislature and reelected Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the House and Senate were able to pass a bipartisan bill to add LGBTQ protections to the state’s nondiscrimination law.

“That amendment to the civil rights law passed with bipartisan support because I had individual conversations with every single Republican in the Senate that voted for it,” he says. “And as a result, nobody can look at that vote and say, ‘It was “woke” nonsense’ or that it was only a partisan vote. We made sure it was a bipartisan vote because I built those relationships.”

Still, Moss is a fierce critic of President Donald Trump and his policy priorities, which he says have imposed economic pain and hardship upon Americans and Michiganders in particular. 

“It’s interesting. Trump is popular when he’s in office, and then the first time he’s up for election or his agenda is on the ballot, there’s a huge backlash to it,” he says. “And then suddenly Republicans get skittish and shy away and start to criticize him. We’ve seen this happen in Michigan. Donald Trump wins Michigan in 2016, he wins the Oval Office, and then the very first election in Michigan was a rebuke to Trump. We elected a Democratic governor to succeed a Republican governor, a Democratic Secretary of State to succeed a Republican Secretary of State, a Democratic Attorney General to succeed a Republican Attorney General. There was a huge backlash at the ballot box.”

Now, with the United States once again involved in a military conflict in the Middle East, and tariffs that have increased the price of goods and services, Moss predicts a backlash against the Republican president and his party.

“In 2024, Donald Trump won a narrow 49-48 national victory, and he’s not governing like he won a 49-48 national victory,” he says. “I anticipate a huge backlash. And the Republicans that survive this backlash — both in Michigan and in vulnerable seats across the country — are going to have to face a reckoning for standing with Donald Trump.”

METRO WEEKLY: Let’s talk about your background and early years. What should people know about you?

JEREMY MOSS: I was born in Detroit, raised in Oakland County, grew up in Southfield, Michigan, here in Oakland County, with an older sister. We lived a pretty standard, routine suburban life here in the Detroit area. My parents and grandparents were born in Detroit, so we have a rich history here. All of my great-grandparents fled antisemitism in Eastern Europe to make a better life here and to escape the horrors that were to come. They fled during the pogroms of the turn of the last century.

Detroit was a haven for people who wanted to get to work with their hands. My great-grandfather was a carpenter. My paternal grandfather, Saul Moss, was a union typesetter. He did not have a high school diploma, but had a skilled trade and lifted his family into Michigan’s middle class as a result. My paternal grandfather, Teddy Allen, was a gas station owner. He owned one full-service gas station, where he did it all and it became a marquee spot on the corner that people could rely on if they had any issues with their car. It served as a kind of a gathering spot [for neighbors] as well. So my family roots are defined by Detroit’s middle class, and the promise that, if you worked hard, you would be able to have the resources you needed to live a middle-class lifestyle in Michigan.

MW: What would the people close to you say your personality is like?

MOSS: That might be a better question for them, but I’ll take a stab at it. When I latch onto an issue that I’m passionate about, I will do everything I can to advance that issue and make sure we’re working toward gathering all the support to make it happen. I am always seeking collaboration and trying to be the one who brokers consensus. I don’t like to let problems fester. I like to figure out the way to solve them rather than give up and abandon them.

I think I’m reliable. I think I’m funny, to a degree. The higher up in political office I get, the more people laugh at my jokes, so it must be a good sign. [Laughs.]

I’m somebody who, especially at this moment, feels that it would be worse to watch the fire burn, and that’s why I’m running into the fire. That’s my personality. It would feel worse to watch all these problems happen and say, “It’s somebody else’s issue to deal with,” than to be the one to figure out how to solve things. 

I think about this congressional race a lot, and I think about all the people who’ve told me, over the course of this campaign, “I think this is crazy that you’re doing this.” And it might be, but it would definitely feel worse not to [be running], to watch our systems fall apart and not have a hand in figuring out how to keep them together. So, I think that’s a core element of my personality.

MW: There’s an old Will Rogers line: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” So what are Democratic values, and what beliefs distinguish Democrats from Republicans?

MOSS: I think it goes back to a line that I repeat often. It’s attributed to Paul Wellstone, the liberal lion from Minnesota who served in the U.S. Senate. “We all do better when we all do better.” I think everything has to come around that concept, that providing for, and supporting, and acknowledging the challenges of, the least of us does not take away from most of us. In fact, it makes all of us do better.

Every single thing that we do has to be centered on that core principle. And you can make the economic case that we all do better when we all do better. That when people are able to make it beyond just paycheck to paycheck; that when people are able to get the medical care that they need when they’re suffering through a challenge; that when our kids go to school, they’re not plagued with gun violence or the threat of a mass shooting; that when LGBTQ people are in the workplace, they’re not getting fired because of their identity; that when urban communities go to the ballot box, they’re not facing barriers and suppressive tactics that throw away their votes, we all do better. And I think that should be the core function of the Democratic Party and everything should center around that main principle.

MW: If you talk to a Republican, one of their non-negotiables is that Republicans, for the most part, don’t vote against tax cuts and typically oppose tax increases. Some Democrats have argued that no Democrat should vote against a bill that guarantees some form of universal health care coverage. What do you personally see as red lines or non-negotiables for Democrats?

MOSS: Maybe I’ll flip the question on its head. I don’t know if it’s necessarily that there are some non-negotiables. Obviously, everything we do has to make progress toward making people’s lives better, making their economic circumstances better, making their ability to thrive better, and making their ability to stay healthy better. I think that is the guiding principle. 

But I think the challenge, or the biggest flaw, of the Democratic Party is communicating what we do. We will spend way too much time infighting on what something doesn’t do, rather than talking about the thing that it did. And I think, to that end, we have to fight Trump and MAGA on their playing field.

Donald Trump will tell you that everybody wanted to rename the Gulf of Mexico and that’s why he did it. Or that renaming Lake Ontario was the most important thing at the time and everybody wanted him to do it. And I put that in the stupid category.

Then you have, in the harmful category, “Well, everybody knows we have to cut Medicaid. Everybody knows we have to remove SNAP benefits.” And then in the dangerous category, “Well, of course, we have to throw away how people vote. Everybody dictates that you can’t vote by mail-in ballot,” even though Trump votes by mail-in ballot.

But they all have a common thread: he communicates in a way where he poses it as if it’s popular and it was demanded by people, even though we know that’s not the case. If we can take that same communication style on the things that we know are popular, on the things that we know the public demands of us, and we communicate them with the same brazen confidence that Donald Trump communicates with on the stupid stuff that he does, I think we will be a stronger party for it.

People are looking for a party with a backbone. People are looking for a party with a punch. I’ve been saying all along in this campaign trail: we can no longer be the party that shows up to the knife fight carrying a pie chart.

For too long, the Democratic Party will pie-chart or graph you to death. People want to know what we’re doing and for us to express the confidence that it is going to help them. And then when it turns out to help them, we will be proven right. So it’s not that there are red lines or that there are certain things we can and can’t do, it’s that we don’t communicate strongly enough on the things that we are doing.

MW: This election cycle, we’ve heard on the street and in focus groups that people want “fighters” in the Democratic Party. How do you define “fighting,” and how would you advise Democrats to convey that they’re fighting on behalf of voters?

MOSS: I’ll give you an example of something that happened last year. We had a Democratic trifecta — Democratic House, Democratic Senate, Democratic governor — and we lost the House in 2024. And in 2025, the new Republican majority in the State House took over. And among the first things that they put forward was a resolution to call on the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges. Again, just like Donald Trump does, give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. I don’t think any single voter in Michigan voted in 2024 to overturn marriage equality with this Republican majority, but that’s how extreme and radicalized they’ve become.

So this extreme right Republican state representative puts out a notice that he’s hosting a press conference. And that notice, in and of itself, went viral. This was in the early part of Trump’s second term, when many people felt more hopeless and more helpless than ever. And now they were seeing the Republicans in the state legislature trying to overturn marriage equality. 

I knew that people needed to know that this resolution was not going to overturn marriage equality, but also needed someone to stand up to this nonsense. I didn’t write a strongly worded letter to the editor. I didn’t put up a graphic with fancy fonts on Facebook that was clickable and shareable. I walked into my office that morning, and said to my chief of staff, “I’m going to the press conference.” It was in the Republican press conference room. I said, “I’m going to sit there. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I got to witness this for my own eyes and be an immediate rebuttal to this nonsense.”

So I sat in the front row of a very empty press conference. Cameras were there, but very few people were. And I sat in the front row, and there’s this viral picture of me crossing my arms, with my chair pulled up right to the cusp of that podium and staring this guy down the whole time. Because if you’re going to say something about me, you’re going to have to say it to my face. And he scurried off after kind of a three-minute rambling statement that was absolutely batshit insane.

And he left the room, and the reporters that were there said, “What, you’re not taking any questions?” So I see an empty podium in front of me with a series of microphones and a bunch of cameras, and I took to the podium and I said, “You know what? I’ll take questions.” And I rebutted every single one of his points and talked about how buffoonish it was that we were even talking about this to begin with. The Republican staffers in the room said, “Senator Moss, we would like you to leave the room, please.” I said, “This is a press conference. I’m the only one here answering questions.”

So that got some liftoff on the internet. And by the time I walked back to my office, it had already gone viral. And I’m telling you, we got emails to my office from all around the country, from Seattle to Pittsburgh, saying, “This is the way forward.” If I had held a countering press conference at a different time in a different room, if I had written a long Facebook post, it wouldn’t have gotten the same punch as showing up to the room and rebutting the harm that was happening as it was happening. And my heart and my feet led me into that room. I think that is what the Democratic Party needs: more fighters who are willing to show up exactly where the harm upon us is occurring.

MW: What are you specifically running on, and what issues are you emphasizing as part of your campaign for Congress?

MOSS: Regardless of your political persuasion, where you live, and your economic circumstances, everybody is dealing with untenable rising costs, whether it’s health care, whether it’s gas, whether it’s groceries. This is what people talk about at the kitchen table. I’m experiencing it, too. I pay the same prices at the pump as everybody else in my neighborhood.

I think that the antidote to these problems is Congress reasserting its congressional authority and strengthening the core functions of our federal government, so that we have a check on this rogue administration. Congress should reassert its authority on tariffs to alleviate the costs that we’re experiencing when we’re shopping at the grocery store or any other small business. Congress should reassert its war powers. We are entering into another month of a war that Donald Trump has no plan for how to get out of, and the cost of that war is being felt by drivers who are filling up their tanks in Oakland County, Michigan.

We are dealing with a trade war with Canada — and no state is more impacted here than the state of Michigan, where Canada is a valuable trade partner. We had a Canadian delegation come to the state capitol and meet with some legislative leaders, myself included, to talk about navigating through these challenges. We are friends with our Canadian partners, and Donald Trump is threatening to disrupt that, so no economy is hurt more than the state of Michigan. We have to strengthen our advanced manufacturing sector here, and it runs right through Oakland County.

Something that I’ve devoted a lot of my energy to is securing voting rights. Voting rights protect all other rights. If we want to lower costs, if we want to rebuild communities, if we want access to health care, if we want to invest in our infrastructure, that all depends upon representation that is elected fairly who will advocate for those things. We know this, and Donald Trump knows this, and that’s why he’s specifically targeting Michigan to make it harder for Michiganders to express their will at the ballot box.

He tried to do it in 2020 by overturning an election. He’s trying to do it now by threatening to federalize our election here in Michigan. He’s trying to do away with mail-in ballots, which Michigan voters enshrined in our state constitution. Donald Trump is trying to write rules that would eliminate that right that we voted on. 

So one purpose that has driven me into this campaign is protecting our right to vote. I chair the Elections Committee in the Michigan Senate. We have defeated Trump’s lies. We have reduced barriers to the ballot box. We have increased options to voting, including a law — which I wrote –- that implemented a constitutional amendment that provides for nine days of in-person early voting. And we have seen Donald Trump try to push forward suppressive tactics like the SAVE Act to make it harder for new people to register to vote, even though they’re qualified and legally have the right to do so.

We’ve seen the U.S. Supreme Court erode the functions of the Federal Voting Rights Act. And as a result, the Michigan Senate became the first state legislative chamber in the country, under my leadership, as chair of the Elections Committee, to pass a state Voting Rights Act, to fill in all the gaps where these rights were stripped away from people federally.

So there’s a lot on the docket. There’s a lot that we need to do, and we’re not going to be able to do it unless first we have citizens in this country that are able to vote for it, and until we have a chamber [of Congress] that is willing to stand up to this administration and get it done.

MW: What is your position on the Iran war?

MOSS: Congress has to reassert its war powers. This has gone on entirely way too long, without congressional oversight and congressional authority. I came of age during that period of time where we had a war of choice in the Middle East in Iraq. We had a president who went in without allies. We had him declare “mission accomplished” way too early. We had an absolutely unacceptable amount of both service member casualties and civilian casualties.

I remember protesting that war even as a junior and a senior in high school. We are seeing that history doesn’t often repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes. And in this condition, we’re even worse off. Donald Trump did not make a case [for going to war], and did not have any clear outlined objectives. And we are again entering this long war, which I hope does not turn into another forever war, where we send a new generation of service members into Iran for a war that has no objective at this point. So I think Congress absolutely has to reassert its powers under the War Powers Act and bring this whole entire operation to a close.

MW: One of the hot-button issues in the campaign — and a contentious one within the Democratic Party and among its voters — is the U.S. relationship with Israel, particularly the Netanyahu government. There’s also debate over whether Israel’s continued military actions in Gaza are a disproportionate response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks. What is your view of the situation?

MOSS: I think there’s a lot of things going on in Israel that are similar to what we’re experiencing here back home: a far right administration that operates outside the bounds of the law, and a population that is fed up and is working through democratic means to defeat it. You can look at what’s going on in Israel and these persistent protests against Netanyahu’s far-right coalition and draw a lot of parallels to the No Kings movement here in the United States. 

I will tell you, I have been to Israel, and I was in Israel before October 7th at one of the largest protests of Benjamin Netanyahu because he was trying to limit judicial oversight over the prime minister’s office. I joined in those protests. I mean, I had been protesting his far-right coalition and his role as prime minister even before this came to a fever-pitch internationally. So I don’t support far-right extremism wherever it is.

And so, when looking at this crisis in the Middle East, there are pieces of consensus that we all do and we all should agree on, and that has to be the focus of the next step forward. Earlier this year, all the remaining hostages were released. That had to be a key component of moving forward on de-escalating the chaos in Gaza. There has to be a rush of humanitarian aid where it is needed the most. I am anguished by the images and videos of Palestinian children who have suffered as a result of this conflict. Anybody who has a heart and a conscience can look at those images and understand that we have to protect children from the harm that’s being experienced around them.

The violence has to stop. A ceasefire has to hold. It seems like we’re in the worst conditions for it right now, but Israel and Egypt have managed to hold together a peace treaty for 45 years, and Israel and Jordan have managed to hold together a peace treaty for 30 years, and we have to bring the right path forward so that a Palestinian state and Israel can live side-by-side, agree on the borders, and have peace-seeking governments that can have diplomatic relationships with one another.

MW: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries got a lot of flack for coming out with a list of four priorities for a Democratic-run Congress, which many people said didn’t go far enough or wasn’t bold enough, specifically on the issue of affordability. What are some bold solutions that you are proposing to address the affordability crisis that Congress can or should take?

MOSS: Past is prologue. I know I’m not running for reelection to the state Senate, I’m running for Congress, but we have achieved a lot in Michigan that I think is applicable and actually should be a model for what Congress should do. It’s something that I helped write the story on, and that I’d love to continue at the federal level.

Number one, when Democrats took power, we gave the biggest tax break in Michigan history to working families and seniors. We quintupled our match of the federal earned income tax credit, so that families, working families, are able to have the tax relief that they need to make by. I think the earned income tax credit, as even Ronald Reagan would say, was the best jobs program that he ever created. And I think that’s something that we need to do. If you are working, if you are doing everything right to survive in this economy, and you’re still struggling to meet the cost of living, you should be able to have relief on your taxes.

Another thing that is so critically important is childcare. We have a program called the Great Start Readiness Program that ensures that it’s almost universal childcare and pre-K education for four-year-olds in the state of Michigan. Number one, it’s important for the child to have early access to the foundations of education. We know that early childhood education is what sets the course for somebody to have academic success even long into their future. And then number two, it is an economic relief for the parents to be able to make sure that their kid is at a safe place that is funded, that is actually providing wraparound services for their kids during the day, and they don’t have to choose between the hours that they work and the childcare that they pay. 

Another issue that I’ve been incredibly focused on in the state of Michigan is going after price gouging. We are in an economic crisis, and there are bad actors taking advantage of it. I have worked to strengthen Michigan’s price-gouging law to go after corporate greed and unscrupulous businesses that want to make a profit off of people at the worst times in their lives. And I think there’s a lot of work to do. It was even in Kamala Harris’s economic plan when she ran for president in 2024. There’s so much work we can do at the federal level to tack on penalties and put further restrictions on people and corporations and businesses that would exploit economic challenges just to make a buck off of vulnerable people. So that’s the start of what I’ve already been able to work on and achieve in the state legislature, which I think is incredibly applicable to this new role in Congress.

MW: On a related note, do you think that the funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be restored?

MOSS: Oh, yeah. The goal right now is to flip the U.S. House of Representatives and stop the bleeding and put a check on President Trump. And then, after we hopefully have these majorities in the House and Senate, we can start to craft legislation so that when we’re able to put forward a new administration in 2029, we don’t waste time on the details, on the research, or arguing what H.R.1 should be, because we’ve prepped for that during this current term. I think the primary goal of the next two years is to stop the bleeding and be prepared for a big, bold agenda that can be ready to go once we have a president who will sign it into law.

MW: We’ve heard warnings from tech leaders that artificial intelligence could lead to a mass extinction event within a decade. Concerns about AI, particularly data centers, are becoming populist issues on both the left and the right. At the same time, others warn that we can’t ignore the technology, particularly amid concerns that China could surpass the U.S. in AI development. What is your vision for regulating it?

MOSS: We have to have appropriate safeguards to it — and Americans can lead the way on that. Obviously, China is going to do anything outside the bounds of human rights and concern for our humanity’s future to economically get ahead of America. But America has a responsibility to have a concern for the future of our prosperity here, and for global humanity as a whole. And I think we can achieve both. We can be innovative, we can get ahead of China –- our national security counts on it — but we can also institute the appropriate safeguards that set the tone and standards to adhere to for the rest of the world to follow. It has gotten so bad that AI insiders are ringing the alarm bell on this. So Congress must take action on the safeguards for AI, and it is really challenging: there seems to be some consensus on this in the industry — Democrats are on board, and there’s a bipartisan proposal on the table, but congressional Republicans have taken a fall recess. Action is urgent and imminent on this.

MW: People float these moratoriums on building data centers or making sure there’s appropriate water, or that they aren’t overloading the electric grid. What are some of the safeguards that need to be put in place?

MOSS: Again, hearkening back to my experience in the legislature, we’ve passed some of the strongest regulations on data centers in the country, ensuring that ratepayers and utility bill payers don’t bear the costs for these operations, having some strong protections to our air and our water and our environmental quality. I think those have to be the two north stars of anything that moves forward to make sure that we’re not paying the cost on our bills and we’re not paying the cost on our environment.

I think any proposal has to adhere to local control. I’ve been calling it the Walmart rule. Walmart came into town with a proposal when I was on city council. The city didn’t want it, the residents didn’t want it. And any community that Walmart goes into and the city doesn’t want it, there shouldn’t be a Walmart. Any community that there’s a data center that’s proposed and there’s a huge backlash, there shouldn’t be a data center there. We have to adhere to local control. We have to ensure that any proposal that is negotiated is something that faces broad approval, that has to be backed by union work and community benefits, and make sure that every tech company, data company, that comes in pays their fair share. So those are some of the things that we’ve instituted and are continuing to propose here in Michigan, and I think that’s the starting place for all this.

Jeremy Moss is the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s 11th Congressional District. For more information about his campaign, visit votejeremymoss.com.