Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin urges fellow Democrats to 'go nuclear' in redistricting fight

NBC News

a day ago

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a rising Democratic star from Michigan, told NBC News that Democrats should 'go nuclear' to counter Republicans' push in Texas and other red states to redraw the congressional maps in their favor.
The first-term senator, who was tapped to deliver the Democratic rebuttal to President Donald Trump's joint address to Congress this year, said Democrats have to fight fire with fire.
'I'm going to urge and encourage blue states like a California or Chicago or Illinois to do the same thing. I don't want to do that. I want the country to have a completely nonpartisan drawing of the lines based on the census. But if they're going to do that and go nuclear, so am I,' she said in an exclusive interview after her first and only town hall of the congressional August recess on Monday night.
Slotkin argued that Democrats should go on the 'offensive' against Trump and congressional Republicans' agenda more broadly. If Republicans want her vote on a spending bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of September, for example, Slotkin said they will need to roll back health care cuts signed into law as part of Trump's megabill last month.
'If my vote is wanted, right, then we got to negotiate. And then the thing I'm going to negotiate for is returning some of that health care to the people I represent,' she told NBC News, noting that she voted against a Republican spending bill in March as well. The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, faced intense backlash from the base after he allowed a key procedural vote on that bill to move forward.
Slotkin said Democrats are ready for a new generation of leadership, noting that at 49 years old, she's 'like a spring chicken in the Senate.' She referred to older leaders, at one point, as 'warmed over leftovers' and said younger voters relate to members who get 'technology and the changing economy' and don't 'use a flip phone.'
Slotkin brought up the issue during the town hall as well. 'Let's be honest, even here tonight, right? It is a very hard thing to bring our young people into the conversation, because they're disillusioned, they feel left out, they feel like these people don't represent me,' she told the crowd, which was overwhelmingly composed of White seniors and older voters, although it was held at a Boys and Girls Club in predominantly-Black Benton Harbor.
The club, which is located in Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga's district, has lobbied her to protect its federal funding, Slotkin said.
One Democrat who appears to have a grasp on the demographic the rest of the party seems to be struggling with, Slotkin said, is Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor in New York City. Slotkin said she disagrees with Mamdani on many issues, but that his upset victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was 'like a blinking red light.'
'It's hard to miss the message of that election, which I think was very similar, frankly, to the election we had in November. Cost of living is still the biggest issue for people that I talk to,' she said. 'It's not maybe the internet's biggest issue, Twitter's biggest issue. It is the issue that 80% of my constituents will talk to me about in the street.'
Slotkin said it's not about progressive versus moderate. Like Mamdani, Trump defeated Kamala Harris in 2024 after making lowering costs central to his campaign. 'He was going to put more money into your pocket and his yard signs, his digital ads, his TV ads, they were all centered around that,' she said. 'For Democrats, it was hard to know exactly what our priorities were.'
'We had a lot of issues we cared deeply about, but sometimes, when you care about everything, no one knows what your priorities are,' she continued. 'So my strong belief is that our priority has to be the economy.'
The Democratic Party is divided on a central question right now, Slotkin said: 'Is Donald Trump an existential threat to democracy in his second term, or is Donald Trump's second term bad, but, like his first term, survivable if we just wait it out? And I just want you to know, from your senator, as someone who sits in that room on your behalf, I am in camp number one, he is an existential threat to democracy.'
Asked about Gaza, Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who is pro-Israel, said she would have voted in favor of blocking certain offensive weapons sales to Israel last week. She missed the votes, brought by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., which failed but attracted the support of more than half of Senate Democrats.
'It's a very dangerous thing if we have support for our relationships abroad be completely partisan,' Slotkin said, adding that she 'was glad' that Trump sent his Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff to Gaza. 'I think that's an important step to, like, see what's on the ground and just bring this thing, all hostages out, end the humanitarian blockade. Like, get it done.'