Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has announced her intent to make a run in the heavily contentious 2024 Senate race after 72-year-old Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) officially announced that she would not be making a bid for re-election this coming year.
Formerly serving as a CIA analyst who has been in Congress since 2019, Slotkin managed to secure a win in a close election in Michigan’s redrawn 7th district in the 2022 midterms. The Michigan Democrat was just one of many names highlighted as possible Senate nominees after Stabenow, who has served as a member of the Senate since 2001, announced in early January that she would officially be going into retirement at the end of the year.
“Look, we all know America is going through something right now,” stated Slotkin in her video announcement that was made public on Monday. “We seem to be living crisis to crisis, but there are certain things that should be really simple like living a middle-class life in the state that invented the middle class.”
Slotkin then sounded the horn for additional manufacturing to be done in America and protecting children what actually is “truly harming them.”
“This is why I’m running for the United States Senate. We need a new generation of leaders that thinks differently, works harder, and never forgets that we are public servants.”
Today, I’m announcing my run to be Michigan’s next U.S. Senator.
We need a new generation of leaders that thinks differently, works harder, and never forgets that we are *public servants* pic.twitter.com/L8cLgEUwnA
— Elissa Slotkin (@ElissaSlotkin) February 27, 2023
The open Senate seat from the purple state will be highly crucial for Democrats to keep hold of as the party much make sure to keep a stranglehold on 23 of the 34 seats which are currently up for re-election in 2024, as reported by CNN. A large number of high-profile Democrats and Republicans have already been spoken about as possible candidates. As a Republican on the State Board of Education, Nikki Snyder was the very first to officially announce her bid for the seat in Senate earlier this month. Slotkin is the first Democrat to officially announce a run.
Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg were sitting at the top of the list for Democrats that were expected to make a bid for Stabenow’s open spot. Bother Buttigieg and Whitemer publically turned down the rumors.
When it comes to the Republican side of the aisle, 2022 gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon kicked off a bevy of speculation in the wake of her posting a Twitter thread about the “opportunity” the announcement from Stabenow gives the GOP in 2024. Michigan Republicans have not been able to secure a Senate seat since all the way back in 2001 after Stabenow took down GOP Sen. Spencer Abraham’s bid for re-election.
