William Lawrence is the Democratic nominee for Michigan's 7th Congressional District, having won a hard-fought three-way primary in August 2026 to take on Republican Rep. Tom Barrett. A longtime community organizer, Lawrence is running an unbought, grassroots campaign focused on lowering costs for Mid-Michigan families and taking on the corporate interests he says have too much influence in Washington.

Raised in East Lansing, where his parents taught constitutional law at Michigan State University, Lawrence graduated from East Lansing High School and earned a degree in sociology and anthropology from Swarthmore College. As a student, he helped lead a campaign for the college to divest from fossil fuels, and after graduating he co-founded the Sunrise Movement in 2015, building it into one of the country's most influential youth climate organizations before leaving in 2020 to return home to Michigan. He lives in Lansing with his wife, Dinah.

Back in Michigan, Lawrence founded the Mid-Michigan Tenant Resource Center and helped launch the Rent Is Too Damn High coalition, organizing to keep families in their homes and helping local residents avoid eviction and homelessness. His organizing work has also helped secure billions of dollars in federal clean-energy investment for Michigan communities. On the campaign trail, he held a 36-hour vigil outside Rep. Barrett's district office to protest a lapse in federal food assistance benefits, collecting thousands of meals for the Greater Lansing Food Bank, and he hosted a fundraiser that helped cancel $100,000 in local medical debt. He has earned endorsements from Senator Bernie Sanders, the Working Families Party, and National Nurses United.