Representative Elissa Slotkin, the leading Democrat seeking her state’s open Senate seat, said private polling showed former President Donald J. Trump leading President Biden.
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Elissa Slotkin Says Biden Is Trailing Trump in Michigan
During a video call with donors, Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is running for an open Senate seat in the state, said private polling showed President Biden trailing Donald J. Trump.
So my — I’m now running for the U.S. Senate to replace our senior senator, Debbie Stabenow, who’s doing a radical thing and passing the torch at 70 years old and being deliberate about it. And I’m running almost certainly against former Congressman Mike Rogers, who actually represented my district for 14 years, and who now just got the Trump endorsement and is like, you know, completely bent over backwards in order to change from being a moderate, reasonable to being a pro-Trump guy. So, you know, I certainly have had three tough elections, feel like my sword is pretty sharp. But Michigan is just an extremely swingy state. And even though we’ve had incredible success, Michigan, I think, has really done some bad ass things in the past six years, especially around electing women. We’re a swing state, which means people like to swing. They’re never really happy with what, you know, kind of is in power. And so we’re always at risk of swinging back. And right now, President Biden is behind Trump in all of our polling and this Senate race is in a dead heat.
During a video call with donors, Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is running for an open Senate seat in the state, said private polling showed President Biden trailing Donald J. Trump.Credit
The leading Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat in Michigan said President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in her key battleground state, telling donors during a fund-raiser on Tuesday that private polling showed Mr. Trump ahead and the Senate race a tossup.
“Right now, President Biden is behind Trump in all of our polling and this Senate race is in a dead heat,” Representative Elissa Slotkin said during a video call with donors, according to a clip of the event obtained by The New York Times.
Ms. Slotkin also appeared to take a shot at Mr. Biden during the call by sarcastically noting that she was running for the seat only because Senator Debbie Stabenow, 74, was “doing a radical thing and passing the torch.”
A spokesman for Ms. Slotkin, the leading Democratic candidate heading into the state’s Senate primary next month, declined to comment.
Ms. Slotkin is expected to face Mike Rogers, a Republican former congressman who has emerged as his party’s leading contender. An average of public polls in Michigan from the data-driven news site FiveThirtyEight shows a tossup in the presidential race in Michigan, while several recent polls show Ms. Slotkin with a slight advantage in the Senate race.
A number of Democrats have called for Mr. Biden to step aside in the presidential race since his disastrous debate performance last month. Mr. Biden has insisted he will remain a candidate, despite the hand-wringing from Democrats in Michigan and beyond.
Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, has criticized the Biden campaign for its handling of the debate fallout and said Mr. Biden and team have to “listen to people — and, by the way, I think the campaign needs to listen to us.” In an interview on Friday on Fox News, Ms. Dingell said Mr. Biden had to show voters he has the stamina and focus to be president and “he has to do it now, on a sustained basis.”
Michael C. Bender is a Times political correspondent covering Donald J. Trump, the Make America Great Again movement and other federal and state elections. More about Michael C. Bender
See more on: President Joe Biden, 2024 Elections
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Source: nytimes.com
