Elissa Slotkin

For U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Michigan may as well be on a different planet than Democratic strongholds like New York and California.

But that may not be a bad thing in the current political climate.

During a June appearance at the Detroit Economic Club, Slotkin recalled a longtime Washington D.C. insider telling her lawmakers from politically competitive states are residents of “Planet 10” — meaning one of only 10 Senate Democrats representing purple or red states - which requires them to approach problems differently.

Those lawmakers, she explained, must govern for and persuade people who do not always share their political views, unlike the majority of Senate Democrats from “hardcore blue states.” She believes that experience makes Midwestern leaders uniquely positioned to help shape the party’s future.

“I think the Midwest is the critical place to help figure out and chart the future (of) the country,” Slotkin said.

The first-term senator has emerged as one of the Democratic party’s most prominent new voices. After winning a Senate seat while President Donald Trump carried Michigan, Slotkin has become a frequent presence on nationally-televised political programs and an early name in discussions about the 2028 presidential race. The former CIA analyst has paired sharp criticism of the Trump administration with calls for bipartisanship on common-ground issues.

When asked during an MLive interview if she plans to run for president, Slotkin chuckled and rolled her eyes.

But like she’s said before, she isn’t ruling it out.

“It doesn’t have to be me,” Slotkin said, noting that she regularly talks with many of the Democrats publicly discussed as potential contenders. She has even referenced keeping a spreadsheet of nearly 30 people who could factor into the conversation.

“If there’s someone I believe in, I will get on board,” she said. “But I am going to be vocal about where I think the party should go, and a big part of that is listening to voices in the middle of the country who have basically been ignored, sometimes by both parties.”

Midwest roots grow into ‘Planet 10’ career

Born in New York but raised on her family’s farm in Holly, Slotkin, 50, grew up watching her family deal with the practical realities of running a business. Hygrade Foods supplied Ballpark Franks to hungry folks at Tiger Stadium.

She also spent her early years in a part of Southeast Michigan that boasts a range of political views. Her Oakland County village is wedged between Flint to the north and Detroit in the southeast.

When she arrived in Washington, D.C. after securing her seat in the upper chamber, she found it a similarly divided place, albeit a less healthy one. At one forum, Slotkin described Congress as “more like high school than anyone would like to admit.”

So, she began attending the U.S. Senate’s weekly prayer breakfasts in hopes of breaking down the walls dividing the parties, despite joking that she “didn’t grow up going to prayer breakfasts, and I’m a Jew.”

There she found senators having conversations not about policy, but their children’s struggles with long COVID or their questions about faith.

“It’s impossible to see someone as an adversary when you’ve just had them bare their soul to you over a cup of coffee,” she told MLive.

That is the energy Slotkin believes the Midwest could bring to the Oval Office, at a time when she said too many people are focused on political agenda and too few honed on a mission.

While the Democratic party is “dominated” by states like New York and California, she said winning elections there isn’t the same as winning in the middle of the country and in swing states.

She described the Midwest as a “practical, reasonable part of the country,” out of which policy is born that can work in more traditional Democratic strongholds. The same isn’t necessarily true the other way around, Slotkin said.

“No one would ever call us flashy,” Slotkin said. “We just put our heads down and get things done. And that is what we need more of, certainly in my party, but I think in both.”

At her Detroit Economic Club appearance, Slotkin asked audience members to raise their hands if they had a friend, family member or colleague with opposing political views. Nearly every hand in the room went up.

A statewide example of the same approach is Selfridge Air National Guard Base, a Macomb County facility blessed with a new fighter mission that’s been touted by Michigan Democrats and Republicans alike.

After Trump announced the mission last year, state lawmakers allocated $152 million for new runways at Selfridge, which they said was a necessary investment to unlock millions more in federal funding.

“There is no way we (would) have gotten to this point without everyone at every level pitching in,” Slotkin said.

She’s also spoken about taking her township supervisor, a staunch Trump supporter, as her plus one to the president’s second inauguration.

“He cried when I called him,” she said.

Rise through Democrat ranks boosted by Trump criticism

In 2024, Slotkin was one of only four Democrats nationwide to take a U.S. Senate seat in a state that Trump also carried.

While that win and her moderate record has helped propel her up through the ranks of the Democratic party, it’s been helped along at least a bit by vocal criticism of Trump.

Since arriving in the Senate, she’s become one of the administration’s more formidable and visible critics, particularly on issues of national security and affordability.

Less than two months after being sworn in, Slotkin delivered the Democratic party’s response to Trump’s 2025 joint address to Congress.

Past senators who have given the rebuttal address include Secretary of State Marco Rubio in 2013. In 1966, President Gerald Ford – the House minority leader at the time – was the first to give an organized and televised response to a State of the Union address.

Slotkin also made headlines last year as one of six Democrats who urged American troops to refuse unlawful orders in a social media video.

Trump responded directly, describing the video as “seditious behavior, punishable by death.“ The statements prompted a Justice Department investigation, which Slotkin said she would not voluntarily comply with.

Still, she paints her approach to bipartisanship as a balancing act.

“You can work really hard on bipartisan ideas and also vigorously defend your values when someone comes for your democracy,” she said.

Asked if there’s anything she believes Trump is doing right, she paused for a moment, before listing off his ideas on permitting reform, selling E-15 fuel year-round and work on pulling Asian carp from the Great Lakes.

Slotkin has also not shied away from criticism of the Democratic party, which she said needs new leadership. Some of the comments have drawn heat from the Congressional Black Caucus, which issued a statement to call out “posturing for higher office in 2028.”

Slotkin argued in a podcast interview with Stephen A. Smith that Democrats who aren’t able to adapt to the political moment should make room for new leaders.

That is precisely what Slotkin believes may be resonating about herself.

“I just think we need a new generation of leadership badly, on both the Democratic and Republican side,” she said. “The public is clear about that. And so they’re looking for anybody and anyone who has got some alpha energy and some boldness to them.”

She’s described Democrats as “in the wilderness and looking for a bit of a rebirth.”

“And it does not have to be me who leads, but I certainly want to be a part of that next generation who’s gonna transform from what we were to what we will be,” she said.

As pundits, politicians, and national political publications have begun to speculate about 2028 presidential prospects, there are several Midwest names on the shortlist.

For Republicans, that includes Ohio-born Vice President JD Vance and Rubo. For Democrats, it’s former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and, possibly, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Asked about what’s thrust Slotkin into the mix, she pointed to her national security background.

“The job of leaders is not to sit, put a finger in the wind and feel which way the winds are going,” she said. “The job of a leader is to project where we should go, to lay out a plan, and then marshal the resources to get there.”

Slotkin graduated first from Michigan’s Cranbrook Kingswood High School, then Cornell University for undergrad and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She studied national security policy and Middle Eastern affairs in grad school, and worked as a grant writer, community organizer and Swahili translator between degrees.

She was then promptly recruited to join the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an analyst, serving three tours in Iraq over a span of five years.

That was followed by defense and intelligence roles at the White House and the Pentagon, including personally briefing former Republican and Democratic Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Slotkin has attributed her ability to work under both a Democrat and a Republican president as the result of a world in which “you just didn’t talk about your politics at work.”

She’s thankful to have started her career with that training, now in an arena where “it’s quite the opposite.”

Slotkin won a first elected position in 2018, representing Michigan’s 7th and 8th Congressional Districts across three terms.

In 2023, she became the first Democrat to announce a formal U.S. Senate campaign, following the planned retirement of former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow. She narrowly defeated Republican Mike Rogers in the November 2024 election, winning by less than a percentage point.

Addressing growing grassroots energy, shrinking populations

Soon to be Michigan’s senior U.S. senator, Slotkin also spoke about some of the issues she believes are most pressing for the state’s future.

Among those is data centers, which she said are bringing people together across party lines in a new way as the “pitch battle” between artificial intelligence companies is marked by a sudden influx of projects.

“I haven’t seen that kind of grassroots energy on almost any other issue before now,” Slotkin said, recalling one recent Howell county commission meeting on data centers that brought out nearly 500 people.

Asked about the balance between investment and local control amid the pushback data center projects have received, Slotkin said she believes some companies seeking to do business are doing so in “completely wrong-headed ways.”

“They’re alienating the local population,” she said. “They’re doing everything in secrecy … and I keep telling these folks, I don’t know who’s doing your planning, your outreach to folks, but that just is not working here in the state of Michigan.”

She pointed to guardrails on water and electric use like what has been pitched by lawmakers and candidates from both parties, including via bills introduced by Democrats in the state House and Senate.

Ultimately, “there are communities across Michigan who are supporting data centers. There are communities across Michigan that are rejecting data centers,” Slotkin said. “And I think the fine print really matters, and the strength of the proposal really matters.”

Another issue Slotkin has been vocal on is the Iran War, which has dragged on despite more than one attempt at a ceasefire deal. Iran has strategic geography in the Straits of Hormuz, Slotkin said, which she described as about the width of the Straits of Mackinac.

When it comes to the war’s impact on the midterms, she said Trump ran and won on lowering domestic costs. The fundamental question, a year and a half later, is what costs have gone down and what have gone up.

“I can’t find a single cost that has gone down.”

Slotkin said midterms are a referendum on the party in charge, and she believes a continued war plays a role in shifting the outcome, but made sure to note that it “doesn’t mean everybody loves Democrats. Let me be clear.”

“We have our own work to do,” Slotkin said, speaking about how the party needs an economic war plan that addresses the biggest threat to the country – a shrinking American middle class.

In Michigan, that’s only being worsened by a stagnant population.

“If we do not grow, if we do not retain and attract more young families, 10 to 15 years from now we will not be able to afford our infrastructure,” she said. “You’re worried about the cost of utilities now? You can’t imagine what happens if these communities continue to shrink.”