NOVI, Mich. — Former state Sen. Nancy Cassis will not support her primary opponent if he wins the 11th district Republican nomination next week.

“Not after what I’ve seen,” she told Roll Call over a late breakfast at Big Boy restaurant last week. “I couldn’t in good conscience.”

Cassis is running a write-in campaign to defeat Kerry Bentivolio, an Iraq veteran and reindeer rancher who is the only Republican on the Aug. 7 primary ballot. They are running in the 11th district in the suburbs and exurbs west of Detroit.

Former Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R) prompted the divisive primary earlier this summer when he filed faulty ballot petitions and did not have enough signatures to make the ballot. A few weeks later, McCotter resigned from Congress.

Although Bentivolio was the only Republican on the ballot, local Republicans coalesced around Cassis as a write-in candidate because they viewed her as more viable.

Republicans often cite Bentivolio’s role in a satirical film, “The President Goes to Heaven,” as evidence of his faulty candidacy. According to the Detroit Free Press, characters in the film suggest a comatose president is responsible for orchestrating 9/11.

Cassis said it’s because of the film that she cannot support Bentivolio if he wins the nomination. But she refuses to support a Democrat if she’s not on the ticket.

“I’ll write in myself in the general. Why not?” she joked.