Hertel had the bad luck to be running in Michigan in 2024 in a Republican-leaning swing district in a year where one of his idiosyncrasies was on an issue that many rank-and-file Democratic activist were pretty pissed about in general. Also, Hertel was very aggressively pro-Israel even compared to Slotkin iirc and this is a district where it’s basically Ingham County vs. the world. Hertel was fine as a candidate It’s fine to be pro-Israel here as long as you leave room for some nuance (as Slotkin proved), but being so in your face about it the way Hertel was could probably hurt at the margins…and AIPAC still donated over $40,000 to Barrett’s campaign because of course they did
At the same time, it looks like Hertel under-performed Slotkin’s 2022 showing in the district’s counties and - being from a very prominent Michigan Democratic political family - was probably a bit too associated with the Lansing Democratic establishment not to have local Republicans extra motivated to beat him and as a result he actually underperformed Harris is some of the rural counties (most notably Clinton County). He was also never going to get the sort of crossover appeal at the margins in places like Livingston county that Slotkin always had and which arguably made the difference for her in 2020 (sometimes it really is just a question of how effective you are at damage mitigation in the areas where you’ll lose badly no matter what and Slotkin has always been great at squeezing every gettable Democratic vote out of hostile territory in this district and its predecessor).
I think Hertel could’ve possibly overcome one of these things this year or at least kept things much closer, but both together was just too much. In a neutral year, I think he’d have still won since Barrett is such a weak candidate (assuming Democrats recruit a solid candidate and we have elections in 2026, I think Barrett is probably toast in a way even an average Republican probably wouldn’t be as an incumbent). Barrett is one of those people who has some fringe views which he tends to express them in a way that makes him come off as an obnoxious weirdo and has a very hard time shutting up about his most unpopular positions*
*And not just on abortion (where he supports fetal and embryo personhood with no exceptions), it’s like the man has a compulsion to steer conversations toward the most unpopular aspects of his position any given issue. For example, he couldn’t just talk about opposing COVID shutdowns and firing people who don’t mask up, he had to go on a rant about how people who were hospitalized COVID were all “cowards and losers” while claiming you wouldn’t even notice if you had it…only to contract COVID himself
