U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin is no stranger to close elections.
“It’s going to be a nail biter, just like it was in 2018, and in 2020,” Slotkin predicted during an interview on Friday. “I’m sort of used to tight races, and we do what we always do, which is work exceptionally hard, try to be out and about as much as possible, knocking doors and engaging with people.”
Slotkin said independent, split-ticket voters are the reason why she’s won two terms.
“I really believe in my heart that the voters in mid-Michigan are independently minded, or else I wouldn’t be here,” Slotkin said. “The fact that I’m a Democrat who represents a district that went for Trump twice, including in 2020, means that I’m the representative only because people are exceptionally independently minded and voted for Donald Trump and Elissa Slotkin on the same ballot in 2020.
“So I trust the voters to weed through the attack ads, and to make their own independent decisions.”
The newly drawn 7th Congressional 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, as well as the state capital of Lansing.
On Livingston County
“Livingston County is a place that is, indeed, traditionally conservative and Republican, but it’s also a place that’s changing,” Slotkin said. “It’s got great schools and great opportunities and great communities. And it’s also attracting people who may not have grown up in Livingston County, but who want to call Brighton or Howell home, and that means there’s change, and I see it, just in the past four years.”
Even so, Slotkin said she never assumes she’ll win Livingston County.
“My goal is always to lose better in Livingston County, and we have,” she said. “We lost better in 2018 than the average Democrat. And then, in 2020, we lost better than that, including winning the city of Brighton by about 200 votes.”
Livingston County, Slokin said, seems to appreciate the qualities of hard work and commitment.
“I have tried to be visible and present, and (to work) collaboratively with the business community and local government to get concrete things done,” Slotkin said. “And I think that matters a lot in a place like Livingston County.
“Of all the counties that I represent, or that I’m running to represent, Livingston County is one of the most generous in terms of supporting nonprofit organizations and being community-minded. It’s also a county that takes better care of its veterans than almost any place I’ve ever seen, which I appreciate.”
The Liz Cheney endorsement
The closing events of this hard-fought Congressional race — one of the highest-profile and most expensive in the country — seem to illustrate the differences between Slotkin and her challenger, Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett of Charlotte.
On Tuesday, Slotkin held “An Evening for Patriotism and Bipartisanship” with U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney before a sold-out crowd at East Lansing High School.
That event got a ton of national media coverage, and for good reason: In so many ways, it was an historic event, and it was about so much more than just the 7th District Congressional race.
Cheney is one of the highest profile Republicans in the U.S., and she’s been cast out of the national GOP for serving as vice-chair of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and the role in it of twice-impeached former President Donald Trump — a man Cheney says is “clearly unfit for office.”
This latest chapter in Cheney’s public story is the stuff of political legend; it could easily be a Hollywood or Marvel movie in which Cheney, as the plucky protagonist, shows her mettle by risking every last drop of her political capital to defend American democracy against Trump. Cheney’s bravery has earned her both the scorn of Republicans who have fallen in line with Trump, and the grudging admiration of Democrats and others who oppose Trump and share none of her political views.
I think that’s why Cheney’s endorsement of Slotkin seemed to rattle Barrett, who scrambled to counter it. The day before the Cheney/Slotkin event, Barrett attempted to hijack the spotlight with a media Zoom call with Harriet Hageman, the candidate who in 2016 called Trump “racist” and “xenophobic,” and who, six years later, with Trump’s endorsement, trounced Cheney in Wyoming’s Republican primary.
Hageman said during Barrett’s Zoom call that “it just absolutely sickens” her that “that Liz Cheney would be associated with (Slotkin) in any way whatsoever.” The personal tone of the criticism in the Barrett Zoom put a finer focus on Cheney and Slotkin.
Barrett is “back to his roots”
“They’ve struggled to sort of present Mr. Barrett as moderate and open minded and thoughtful and bipartisan when that’s not what his voting record tells or describes,” Slotkin said. “So, Mr. Barrett and I did a live debate on Lansing TV, and he was asked directly about Rep. Cheney and (he) called her a ‘statesperson,’” Slotkin said. “Then, three weeks later, when she comes in to endorse me, he is running for the hills to find Rep. Cheney’s primary opponent, Harriet Hageman, who’s an election denier, and get her endorsement.”
Barrett followed up Hageman’s endorsement with that of enigmatic former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, “a long-time Putin apologist and pro-Russian member of Congress,” Slotkin said. (Even Fox News host Sean Hannity had some troubles with Gabbard’s stand on Putin.)
And then Barrett appeared Friday afternoon with former Vice President Mike Pence in a mid-Michigan apple orchard/wedding venue that refuses to allow same-sex couples to tie the knot.
“Mr. Pence has been very, very clear that he believes in a nationwide ban on abortion, a federal ban on abortion, and a ban on gay marriage,” Slotkin said. “These are things that Mr. Barrett has felt, I think, for a long time in his political career. But then the moment he got into a really tough race, he was given a lot of talking points by his consultants to try to appear more moderate, appear more balanced, appear more open-minded, but he’s ending his campaign where I think he wanted to start it, which is a much more right of center position, similar to the people he’s campaigning with today.”
The people Barrett campaigned with on Friday — in addition to Pence — include Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and attorney general candidate Matt DePerno.
“He’s attempted to distance himself, but I think he has come back to basics at the end of his campaign,” Slotkin said.
The Nakagiri rebuff
I asked Slotkin about one of the worst political moves I’ve seen in my three decades covering Livingston County, when Wes Nakagiri, as chair of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners, last year denied Slotkin a spot on the agenda to address the board for no reason other than to make a cheap political point. I wrote about it here, and Nakagiri eventually gave Slotkin the chance to address the board at a subsequent meeting.
While I said at the time it may have been a “political blunder of apocalyptic proportion,” for Slotkin it was a “perfect symbol” of how she’s tried to work in the community.
“I worked very hard … to see some of the (COVID relief money) go to the most local level,” Slotkin said. “That included tens of millions of dollars going directly to the Livingston County Commission. And, so, of course, as the person who voted on those federal dollars, I had an interest in where they were going to be spent.”
What Slotkin had heard, over and over and over, was that there was a dire need for reliable broadband in areas of the community.
“I really wanted to work with the Livingston County officials to get a broadband study done, and to get broadband internet into this county. So, I asked to meet with them.”
And she did, eventually.
“After some hiccups, as you note,” Slotkin said, “they did offer me the opportunity (to speak).”
What a difference a year makes: In June of this year, Slotkin was on hand for the ribbon cutting on a partnership to provide high-speed internet access to almost 300 households in rural Cohoctah Township, made possible by funding through the American Rescue Plan. A county-wide broadband study has been completed, and a plan for investing those ARPA funds into the community is being developed.
“The hiccups and the drama along the way, I don’t spend a lot of time on,” Slotkin said. “I don’t like it, but I don’t let it bog me down because results are important, not just feelings and drama and process.”
School board races
We moved on to talk about Livingston County’s school board elections and what appears to be a new Republican strategy of getting involved in nonpartisan races and training candidates to not respond to any questionnaires or participate in public events to make their case to voters.
“Being an elected official, at any level, is the most public thing you can possibly do, right? It’s inherently public,” Slotkin said. “You are attempting to secure public office. So I think it should be a no-brainer that if you’re running for public office, you make your views public, you explain how you would vote on things, what your approach is, what your philosophy is. And I think that’s certainly how our Founding Fathers designed our system to be. That’s why we have town hall debates. And why we have things that give people the opportunity to educate themselves and then make informed decisions.
“I think the Republican Party in Michigan has tried to rewrite the script on how you become an elected official, that somehow you don’t have to make your views public; you don’t have to be available to questions; and then you’re just going to get elected and do what you want to do and not answer to the public.
“I don’t think anyone — Democrat or Republican or Independent — should be elected to office if they decline to explain to voters what their views are.”
And now, after her own hard-fought campaign for a third term in Congress, Slotkin said it’s time to “trust the voters.”
“You run through the tape so that no matter what happens, you know that you did everything you could, and then you have to trust the voters.”
