GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Longtime meteorologist Terri DeBoer wrapped up her television career in February, but you will still be hearing her name in 2026 after she announced she is running for Congress.
On Thursday, DeBoer revealed she had filed paperwork to run as a Republican for the 3rd Congressional District. She'll seek to unseat incumbent U.S. Representative Hillary Scholten.
DeBoer spent the past 30 plus years delivering the forecast to West Michigan at several stations, including most recently at FOX 17.
In an interview with FOX News to announce her candidacy, DeBoer called herself a political outsider, saying she'd focus on border security and restoring "fiscal sanity" to Washington.
"I believe that West Michigan is not blue, West Michigan is not red" West Michigan is all about solving the problems that we face, no matter who has those ideas, no matter what side of the aisle they happen to sit on," said DeBoer.
She said her political interests began in high school when then-President Ronald Regan spoke to her senior class. She said she thought to herself that if she ever had the opportunity to "serve my country," she would "step forward and do it."
DeBoer formally filed paperwork as a candidate on March 4.
DeBoer will need to win the August primary to be the Republican nominee for the Congressional seat. She is one of three candiates who have filed to run for the GOP ticket, per the Federal Election Commission. The others are J. Allen Fiorletta, a law attorney in Grand Rapids, and Michael Markey Jr., a West Michigan businessman who also ran for the seat in 2024 and ran for Governor in 2022. He was one of five Republican candidates whose application to run was invalidated over questionable petition signatures.
Scholten, the first Democrat elected to the U.S. House by West Michigan since the 1970s, is currently in her second term. There is one other person who filed to run as a Democrat, Zachary Ketchum from Muskegon.
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