DETROIT – When this year began, nobody in either party was devoting much thought to next year’s U.S. Senate race in Michigan. Democrat Debbie Stabenow, it was assumed, would run for a fifth term. Republicans would bluster and nominate someone …
and then Stabenow would win, probably easily. For decades, Republicans underestimated her from the time she was a county commissioner, and mocked her warm small-town personality and background as a social worker and folksinger.
Then she beat them every time, usually badly.
But last week she stunned everyone by announcing she wouldn’t run for another term, that it was time to “pass the torch” to a new generation of younger leaders, even though, at 74, she would scarcely be middle-aged in today’s Washington, a place in which the President is 80 and both Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell are older.
That suddenly sent an electric shock of anticipation through both parties. Republicans may have been even more excited. There are few records of political futility as long as the GOP’s tale of woe in Michigan races for the U.S. Senate. They haven’t won a race this century, and have only won once since 1972 — 15 losses in 16 tries.
But will they be able to capitalize on this rare open seat? Right now, the odds seem doubtful. Michigan’s GOP seems firmly in the grip of strong Donald Trump supporters. Last year, they forced the nomination of a set of statewide candidates who were unelectable.
MAGA Republicans also defeated Peter Meijer, a moderate congressman in the Grand Rapids area in last year’s GOP primary, which had the effect of handing the seat to the Democrats.
Whether they will do that again next year remains to be seen. Democrats also seem to have a stronger set of potential candidates for the Senate seat than Republicans do. But a year can be a lifetime in politics, and nobody knows what the national mood will be in November, 2024. (Remember that the ‘red wave’ expected less than a year ago turned into a tiny trickle, and a blue avalanche in Michigan. Remember also that absolutely no one in 2014 imagined that Donald Trump would be elected President two years later.)
That having been said, who are the most likely candidates to be Michigan’s next senator?
Among Democrats, two significant frontrunners immediately emerged: U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, 46, a third term representative who now represents a district from the Lansing area, and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, 45, who just won a second (and final) four-year term by a landslide.
Both are highly distinguished and very ambitious. Slotkin joined the CIA as a graduate student soon after September 11, then went to the State Department and while still in her 30s, was Assistant Secretary of State for International Security Affairs. She unseated a Republican congressman in 2018, and then won two tough reelection battles in seats that lean Republican.
How ambitious is Jocelyn Benson? She ran in — and finished –the Boston Marathon when she was eight months pregnant. At 35, became the youngest woman to ever be dean of a major law school (Wayne State University). Before becoming secretary of state, she wrote a well-received book about state secretaries of state.
There are other possibilities as well, including one major dark horse: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Indiana mayor whose official home is now Traverse City. For now, he says he is focused only on his job, but that could change. That also holds true for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who also breezed to a final term victory in November, and says she is excited that she now has a Democratic majority in the legislature.
Two longer shots: Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, who would be the state’s first Black U.S. Senator, and another third term congresswoman, Haley Stevens, who represents a slice of Detroit’s suburbs, and who is unlikely to run if Slotkin does.
Republicans have one potential candidate who could likely unite all the factions and get independents and even some Democrats as well: Macomb Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller, a former congresswoman and two-term Michigan secretary of state who once actually carried every county in the state.
But after considering it for a day, Miller, who would be 70 before the election, said it was time for a new generation.
Peter Meijer, the now ex-congressman and 37-year-old heir to the grocery chain fortune, might be the strongest GOP candidate in a statewide general election — but would be attacked in any Republican primary for his vote to impeach the former president after the January 6 riot and attempted insurrection at the Capitol.
Any Republican candidates for statewide office in Michigan are likely to face the same dilemma; those electable statewide may find it impossible to win a GOP primary. But those who do win those primaries tend not to be electable statewide, as last year’s midterms showed. That may change in two years …or it may not.
One possible Republican candidate who might be able to overcome that is 41-year-old Tom Leonard, a former speaker of the state house of representatives who narrowly lost a statewide race for attorney general in 2018. But he has limited name recognition – and it isn’t clear whether he can raise vast sums of money.
For vast sums will be needed; this could easily be a $100 million race. Open senate seats are rare opportunities, and Michigan’s last two senior senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, served a combined 60 years. If you haven’t had an email pleading for donations to one or more candidates, don’t worry.
You will.
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(A version of this column appeared in the Toledo Blade)
