MEET DONAVAN
Donavan McKinney is a lifelong Detroiter, proud husband to the love of his life Shaunté, and devoted father of two young children. He grew up poor in northeast Detroit, and was raised by his mother and grandmother who taught him the importance of community, leadership, and service. He is a proud product of Detroit Public Schools, and proud to be the first in the family that raised him to become a college graduate (Go Blue!).
Driven to fight for hardworking families like his own, Donavan led coalition work with SEIU Healthcare Michigan, organizing for workers to earn a living wage and be able to provide for their family. Today, he serves the people as State Representative. His first-hand experience living the problems many in his community face has led Donavan to fight for solutions in Lansing as big as those crises — and he’s committed to continuing to push for bold, progressive policy in DC.
Growing up in the shadow of Detroit’s smokestacks and factories, Donavan developed an asthmatic cough he still has today — a cough his mother, grandmother, and brother have too, and a cough he’s committed to preventing in his own two young children. In January 2020, two years before his election to the State House, Rep. McKinney made history with his appointment to Michigan’s first Environment Justice Council by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, where he has advocated for water accessibility and affordability. He was instrumental in Gov. Whitmer’s $2 Million Water Restart Grant Program and her statewide Water Reconnection Executive Order during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the State House, Rep. McKinney has fought hard for his district. MI House District 11 is the poorest district in the state, with a median income of less than $20K. His priorities while in office are ensuring families have access to clean air and water, ensuring every child in Michigan can receive a quality public education, improving the criminal justice system, pushing for a robust, quality public transit system, and expanding the rights of unions and workers. He has worked to lower costs and increase affordability for the people, including fighting for free pre-K for all children in Michigan, and to decrease Michiganders’ utility bills by holding DTE accountable. He also led efforts to transform the criminal legal system, such as in legislation he co-introduced to prohibit police officers tampering with body-camera evidence, to limit the use of no-knock warrants, and to revoke an officer’s license if they use excessive force.
In office, he delivered more than $10 million in community violence intervention programs to Detroit and other areas, leading to the creation of Michigan’s first-in-the-nation statewide CVI program, as well as helping secure millions of dollars for community rec centers and public schools, and helping fund over $600 million to replace lead pipes in Detroit and its suburbs, because no parent should have to worry about their children’s drinking water poisoning them. He is committed to getting big money out of politics, and elevating the voices of voters over the influence of super PACs and corporations, helping lead the introduction of a slate of bills in the State House that would ban monopoly utility corporations and government contractors from making political donations.
Now, Donavan is running for Congress to put people first and deliver tangible results for our communities, just as he’s done in the legislature and the union. He’ll focus on kitchen-table issues and stand up to the Trump-Musk administration’s ruinous policies that hurt Michiganders. We can count on him to be our voice for a change.
