🚩 Warning signs for Democrats in MI-07

Warning signs for Democrats in MI-07

A new column in the Washington Postshows how Democrats' and Curtis Hertel's abortion lies about Tom Barrett are failing to resonate with voters in the key House battleground race in MI-07.

This comes after the Wall Street Journal editorial board called out the DCCC for lying about Republicans' position on abortion, saying "Democrats aren't even attempting to be honest about abortion this year… This from the party that claims to be the protector of women's health. The next time you see an abortion ad from a Democrat, assume it's not telling the truth."

Read more from the Washington Post here or see excerpts below.

Warning signs for Democrats in a Michigan bellwether
The Washington Post
James Hohmann
October 8, 2024

BRIGHTON, Mich. - What if abortion is not the galvanizing issue on Election Day that Democrats are expecting? What I heard in Michigan last weekend made me wonder. Here in the 7th District, a congressional bellwether carried by Donald Trump in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, many voters just don't prioritize the right to choose nearly as much as they did two years ago.

The 7th, which stretches from suburban Detroit to the capital of Lansing in central Michigan, hasn't been easy for either party. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) won reelection here in 2022 by five points after clobbering her opponent, Tom Barrett, with commercials highlighting his stance as "100% pro-life - no exceptions." A former Army helicopter pilot, Barrett never stopped running after the midterms. With Slotkin seeking the open U.S. Senate seat, Barrett now faces Curtis Hertel, a former colleague in the state Senate and aide to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). It's one of the most expensive races in the country - and one of the closest.

[…]

But after Hertel delivered a pep talk to 16 volunteers at a party field office here last Saturday afternoon, state Rep. Jennifer Conlin (D) told the group that she had just returned from knocking on doors and expressed amazement at how much less abortion comes up than when she won two years ago in the aftermath of Dobbs.

That's largely because many Michiganders feel a woman's right to choose was guaranteed after voters overwhelmingly passed a state ballot referendum in 2022 to enshrine a right to the procedure in the state constitution. Certainly, these days, local Republicans call the issue settled, and that's making it harder for Democrats to appeal to the multitudes of center-right women who crossed over to vote for Slotkin, Whitmer and the abortion initiative in 2022.

While Harris is winning college-educated women by large margins, there's growing anxiety among top Democratic operatives that enthusiasm about voting for her has gotten shakier across the three blue-wall states that present her clearest path to the presidency: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Slotkin recently told donors that her polling has Harris "underwater" in this state where 16 electoral votes are up for grabs. Trump has also been making incremental inroads with traditional Democratic constituencies, including Arab Americans and Black men, which could make the difference in a race as tight as this.

[…]

In this environment, Barrett, 43, knows better than to say much. In an interview after marching in a parade with his daughter, he promised not to support any national ban that would overturn his state's constitutional protections. If elected, he says, he would fight to protect the Hyde Amendment, so taxpayers don't fund abortions, and champion incentives for women, including tax credits, to give up babies for adoption instead of aborting them. That's been GOP boilerplate for 40 years.

Barrett says his biggest question going into the final month is whether pollsters are accounting for less-likely-to-vote Trump voters in Michigan whom they missed ahead of the 2016 and 2020 elections. If they are, he stands to come out ahead. Certainly, Barrett benefits from being better known than he was two years ago.

Republicans harbor no illusions about winning a college town like East Lansing, but they're trying to minimize their losses after Slotkin carried 67 percent of the county that includes Michigan State in 2022. The House campaign launched Spartans4Barrett for campus outreach, and Trump is also doing more aggressive collegiate outreach than four or eight years ago.

[…]

Afterward, several sorority sisters lined up to take selfies in front of the Trump bus. Abortion didn't come up.

Read more here.