MI-08: Impeachment fades for Slotkin as Democrats try to pivot away
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A man held up a hostile poster a few rows behind Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin as she spoke. On other side of the room, allies hoisted a Slotkin-friendly banner. But what was perhaps most striking at Slotkin’s first town hall since President Donald Trump’s impeachment was a newfound sense of civility.
Inside East Lansing High School’s auditorium Friday there were no boos. No rowdy interruptions. No pauses in the program to let the tension pass, even in this swing House district at the center of a 2020 presidential battleground state.
It was a sharp contrast from the five raucous public gatherings during the House impeachment proceedings last fall. The tenor suggested that Republican attacks on Democrats for backing impeachment may fall flat in some places. And it offered a snapshot of how effectively Democrats are making that turn from the doomed process to their agenda and the November elections.
Slotkin, 43, does not adopt a harsh anti-Trump posture. She focuses instead on lowering prescription drug costs and making drinking water safe. She is testifying in Washington this week on infrastructure, and she’ll soon introduce a border security bill. When asked, she’ll discuss the contentious Democratic presidential primary, whether Trump himself is a national security threat and, of course, impeachment.
At Slotkin’s town hall on Friday, she did not mention what Trump calls “the i-word.” The issue only came up in the last audience question read by an aide: Does the congresswoman regret her vote to impeach?
“There are some things that are more important than winning your next election,” Slotkin, a former CIA officer who worked under Republican and Democratic presidents, said from the stage. “So, I don’t regret it.”
Her standing with voters will ultimately be tested in November. Though she is considered a vulnerable freshman incumbent who ousted a Republican congressman, she maintains robust fundraising and the strong backing of her party in a district Trump won by 7 percentage points.
Slotkin reported raising $1.3 million in the fourth quarter, and ended the year with nearly $2.9 million on hand — the most of any vulnerable Democrat, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But that was a trend among this group of 42 Democrats in difficult races supported by the party’s Frontline program.
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