Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) threw her hat in what promises to be a contentious 2024 Senate race after 72-year-old Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) said she would not seek re-election next year.
Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who has been in Congress since 2019, won a close election in Michigan’s redrawn 7th district in the 2022 midterms. The Michigan Democrat was one of many names floated for potential Senate nominees after Stabenow, who has served in the Senate since 2001, announced in early January that she would retire at the end of her term.
“Look, we all know America is going through something right now,” Slotkin said in her announcement video posted 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 called for more manufacturing in America and protecting children from what 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 in the purple state will be crucial for Democrats to retain as the party must defend 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs in 2024, CNN reported. Multiple high-profile Democrats and Republicans have already been floated as potential candidates. Nikki Snyder, a Republican on the State Board of Education, was the first to announce a bid for the Senate seat earlier this month. Slotkin is the first Democrat to officially announce a run.
Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg topped the list of Democrats rumored to run for Stabenow’s seat. Both Whitmer and Buttigieg shot down those rumors, however.
On the Republican side, 2022 gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon sparked speculation when she posted a tweet thread on the “opportunity” Stabenow’s announcement gives the GOP in 2024. Michigan Republicans have not held a Senate seat since 2001 after Stabenow defeated GOP Sen. Spencer Abraham’s re-election bid.
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Rep. John James (R-MI) is another high-profile name rumored to run for the seat. James, a U.S. Army veteran, ran against Stabenow in 2018, coming up short by 6.5 percentage points. He ran again for a Senate seat two years later against Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, losing that election by less than two percentage points. The veteran finally won a general election in 2022 when he was elected as the U.S. representative for Michigan’s 10th House district.
