Republicans are giddy that they’ve got a real candidate — Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett of Charlotte — to run against U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin in Michigan’s newly drawn 7th District. (The district includes all of Livingston, Ingham, Clinton and Shiawassee counties, as well as a majority of Eaton County and small portions of Oakland and Genesee counties. The new district also includes the state capital of Lansing.)
No serious candidate will primary either one, so it’s a sure bet it will be Barrett challenging Slotkin in November.
Many of those giddy Republicans are predicting that Barrett — an Iraq veteran with ultra-conservative bona fides who served two terms as a state representative before being elected to the state Senate — will beat Slotkin in what is sure to be a tight race.
I say not so fast.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report ranks Michigan’s 7th as one of just 13 true toss-up Congressional districts in the country, and the race will be watched closely. It’s going to be tight, make no mistake, and lots and lots of money will be spent, but when the last ballot is counted, I’ve got my money on Slotkin heading back to D.C., and there are a couple big reasons why.
Barrett is an attractive candidate. He served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2014 to 2018, when he was elected to the Michigan Senate. Prior to becoming an elected official, Barrett served as a liaison between the Michigan Department of Treasury and the Governor’s office.
During the campaign, Barrett will likely spend a lot of time hammering home his honorable military service, as well as his opposition to vaccine mandates.
What Barrett probably won’t talk about is how he voted against the bipartisan bills creating and funding an incentive program to lure big manufacturing projects to Michigan, one of which is in the district he’s running to represent in D.C.
(For the record, state Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, also voted against the legislation, but the project isn’t in her district and she’s not running for Congress.)
The incentive bills Barrett voted against in December have already resulted in the single biggest investment in the history of General Motors. It’s an investment of more than $7 BILLION going into four Michigan manufacturing sites that will create 4,000 new jobs and retain 1,000 others, as well as significantly increase GM’s battery cell and electric truck manufacturing capacity.
You can read GM’s announcement by clicking here.
The first project of that $7 BILLION deal will be GM’s third multi-billion dollar battery cell manufacturing plant in the U.S., set to be located in Delta Township, part of the most populous area of the 7th District. That project is worth over $2.6 BILLION and it will create 1,700 new jobs when fully operational.
This is the biggest thing to hit the 7th District in years, and Barrett opposed the legislation and funding that made it possible.
Democrats are doing everything they can to remind voters in the 7th District about those votes. Just last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent some bucks on a two-week run of two billboards in the district, slamming Barrett: “Tom Barrett: Against 5,000 Michigan auto jobs!”
While I can understand the various philosophical stances about the role government should play in luring businesses to Michigan, the harsh reality is that other states are putting together deals to make themselves attractive for big projects like these, projects that bring lots and lots of jobs.
Michigan lawmakers didn’t create the incentive programs because they want to encourage “corporate welfare”; they did it in order to make the state relevant so it can compete. The scramble to create the legislation late last year came after two things happened:
• GM decided to invest over $2 BILLION into a battery plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., after receiving incentives there that total approximately $46,000 per job created. You can read about that by clicking here.
• Ford Motor Co. decided to invest $11.4 BILLION and 11,000 jobs (not including those in construction) to build electric vehicles and batteries NOT IN MICHIGAN, but in Kentucky and Tennessee. This deal was chock full of incentives including forgivable loans, workforce training dollars, and plans to develop a new Tennessee College of Applied Technology location beside Ford’s future manufacturing campus in the state. The Tennessee Valley Authority was also part of the negotiations, offering discounted electricity and plans to build infrastructure worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” to support Ford’s future campus.
You can read more reporting about the plans by clicking here.
Why would these states offer these incentives?
Because they want the jobs.
I am making a wild guess here that Michiganders want those jobs, too.
At the announcement event in Lansing on Jan. 25, GM CEO Mary Barra said the investment would make Michigan “the epicenter of the electric vehicle industry.”
Slotkin was on hand to cheer the news on.
Barrett was not.
You can hear what will surely be a huge part of Slotkin’s campaign in this video, recorded just after GM’s announcement.
4,000 @GM manufacturing jobs. A $7 billion investment. All on their way to Mid-Michigan.
A massive effort from federal and state government, from the public and private sector, AND from Democrats and Republicans that shows how much we can accomplish when we work together. pic.twitter.com/7p8witkkCC
— Elissa Slotkin (@ElissaSlotkin) January 25, 2022
Barrett will also be fighting an uphill battle because I am among those not entirely sure this year’s midterms will produce an expected Republican tidal wave. My friend Buddy Moorehouse pointed out two weeks ago that lots of things — inflation, COVID, kids being masked and kept out of school, foreign affairs, President Biden’s awful approval ratings — were working in the favor of Republicans.
But what a difference two weeks, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a State of the Union address make.
Biden’s approval numbers post-State of the Union bounced up 8 points — from 39% to 47%, or about where he was pre-Afghanistan withdrawal — according to a Marist poll released late last week. And that 8-point bounce after a State of the Union address is unusually high, according to the pollsters.
It appears that other numbers for the president are on the upswing, too.
According to the same Marist poll, majorities of Americans approve of how Biden is handling both COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Biden’s numbers on his handling of the pandemic have risen 8% to 55% (up from 47% in February), and the numbers on his handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is up 18 points to 52% as compared to 34% pre-invasion.
(For comparison, Trump left office with a 32.9% approval rating, and his approval rating never, ever cracked 46%. You can check out his numbers by clicking here.)
The Marist poll also shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans surveyed — 83% — support the recent economic sanctions against Russia.
Those numbers are particularly notable because a large part of Barrett’s campaign thus far focuses on the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as on blaming President Joe Biden for his own choice to end his 21-year military career because he didn’t want to take the COVID vaccine. (It’s also interesting to note in his announcement video that Barrett never brings himself to call him “President” Biden; it’s just Joe Biden.)
“I’ve spent my entire career fighting for freedom, both in the army and as a legislator. Yet Joe Biden wants to discard me because I opposed his coercive, forced vaccination mandate,” Barrett said in the video announcing his run. “It makes no difference to Joe Biden that I already recovered from COVID long before a vaccine even existed. I believe individuals should be able to freely give their consent without fear of retaliation or coercion before receiving the COVID vaccine.”
It bears saying, though, that the U.S. military requires over a dozen vaccines to protect members from infectious diseases including: influenza, measles, mumps, smallpox, and diphtheria. Since he was in the military for 21 years, it’s safe to assume Barrett’s been vaccinated against all those. So, why the stance against the COVID vaccine?
“I am running to put an end to this invasion of our constitutional rights,” Barrett continues in the video. “To stand up for those afraid of losing their career or struggling to put food on the table in Biden’s economy.”
I am surely not the only one who finds a healthy dose of irony in Barrett saying he’s running to help those “struggling to put food on the table,” in his campaign announcement video, yet he couldn’t bring himself to support an incentive that will bring thousands of jobs to Michigan — including into the district in which he is running.
His video outlines what I am guessing will be the standard 2022 Republican campaign: PROTECT freedom; STAND UP for families; END indoctrination (“specifically the ‘woke’ indoctrination of our troops”); and SUPPORT parents.
Compare his announcement video with Slotkin’s piece after the GM announcement, and you’ll see the 2022 campaign for Michigan’s 7th District Congressional seat.
Slotkin is going to be tough to beat: during her two terms in Congress — the first after picking off a Republican incumbent — she’s demonstrated that she’s unafraid to veer from the pack; she’s been a present, tireless advocate for her district; and she is, hands-down, one of the best campaigners I’ve ever seen, right up there in Mike Rogers and Debbie Stabenow territory. If Republicans want to beat her, they’re going to need someone who’s more than she: someone bolder and braver, with bigger ideas and a longer reach across the aisle, and more drive and ability to get things done for the district.
While Barrett is by far a much, much better candidate than the one Republicans recruited to run against Slotkin in 2020, I don’t think he’ll be the one to beat her this time around, either.
Big, big advantage: Slotkin.
