Elissa Slotkin: "It doesn’t win elections to just speak to the base of the party"

[Vosem]

Fun fact from the 2020 cycle: at the 2020 House elections, Slotkin was the only Democrat to win a Romney '12/Trump '16/Trump '20 seat.

[Unbeatable Titan Susan Collins]

I acknowledge and appreciate her close wins, but not every state or district looks like hers and there are many different winning formulas

There are not many winning formulas. There is no Dem base formula to win a swing state. If the Dem base is enough to win, it is not a swing state. (or the other side just completely failed to show up which is beyond the Dem party's control)


GA might go Democratic on Demographic trends but that isn't going to give the Democrats the presidency as it looks like GA is alone in that regard for the swing states.

For the others Democrats need Trump voters to think otherwise is putting you head in the sand.

[KaiserDave]

I have little comment here other than...

1. The idea that Kamala only pandered to the base is idiotic and eliminates any interest from me in what she has to say.
2. Slotkin's 2024 over-performance is very unimpressive to the point of being almost meaningless.

[DrScholl]

The massive undervotes in Democratic strongholds shows that there wasn't enough outreach to the base. You can't just assume that the base will show up and ignore them to talk to everyone else. I managed a winning campaign where I emphasized talking to the base as well as other voters at the same time despite Democratic operatives only wanting to target Republicans and Independents.

[Averroës]

Anyone who runs ahead of the presidential ticket is doing something right. There's not a lot of meat to this piece, though.

To my ear, Harris sounded like an LLM trained on Oprah interviews, programmed never to criticize Joe Biden's policies or to violate the sensitivities of a laundry list of progressive interest groups. Also, a presidential campaign is never just about the candidate, especially in this media environment. More to the point:

[Sestak]

Girl, the Democrats been speaking to suburban Republican white women since the 90s.

Yankee suburban white women are the Democratic base now.

And yet they voted for Trump this last go-around. So what does that say?

[Blue3]

I'm confused here. Is Slotkin trying to insinuate that Harris only spoke to the base? Because that 100% was not true in any way, shape, or form. She went out of her way to speak to everyone. (many leftists got very upset that she WASN'T speaking enough to the base and are still incensed about it with their obsession with Liz Cheney's 3 campaign stops) Not only that but ... Harris got more votes in Michigan that Slotkin did.

As for her general point... I get what she's saying, but it's true and not true. Not only did Trump basically exclusively talk to the base and win, but you also can't win without your base either.

I thought her speech this week was very good. But this feels unnecessary.

https://twitter.com/YAppelbaum/status/1897452152332722397

I said it about her speech too… she’s using last year’s failed talking points, she’s one of the Liz Cheney will save the Democrats type.

She’s not the future. And she shouldn’t be treated like she is, unless she can move beyond 2024.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Anyone who runs ahead of the presidential ticket is doing something right.

You know who ran ahead of both Harris and Slotkin? Tlaib.

[Averroës]

Anyone who runs ahead of the presidential ticket is doing something right.

You know who ran ahead of both Harris and Slotkin? Tlaib.

I don't exclude anyone from my statement. That's not to say that what Tlaib did would work in a national or statewide election. But it's pretty clear that you don't need to be more moderate to outrun a generic Democrat in many parts of the country.

[Progressive Pessimist]

She should have just stopped at her rebuttal...

[Blue3]

She's milking her 15 minutes in the national spotlight. And possibly testing a run for President in 2028.

[ponderosa peen 🌲]

Trump is living proof that this isn't true.

No? Trump's 2024 campaign was remarkable because he didn't just speak to his base. He expanded his base to places that people spent the prior nine years assumed would never support him.

The problem with Trump that Slotkin probably doesn't want to emulate is Trump is lying when he's speaking to anyone outside his base. But otherwise, I took Slotkin's advice to be very much the opposite of what OP suggested - Trump won because he didn't just speak to the base of his party!

[For Trump, everything. For immigrants, the law]

Being a “moderate hero” and being nostalgic for Reagan also doesn’t win elections.

[Steve from Lambeth]

Not only that but ... Harris got more votes in Michigan that Slotkin did.

Elissa Slotkin in particular is quite arguably the luckiest candidate in recent Congressional memory, more so than RonJon

I think that the most striking takeaway from this article is that we don't and won't know where exactly Slotkin gave her rebuttal speech, because the venue that hosted her didn't want their name published - even in a sympathetic, paywalled outlet such as The Atlantic - out of fear that MAGA grassroots supporters could attack them over it. (Please keep in mind that Slotkin is a centrist, hawkish Democrat, not an anti-MAGA rabblerouser.) This is not what a healthy or stable political environment looks like.

[CheapDollarEra?]

Girl, the Democrats been speaking to suburban Republican white women since the 90s.

Yes, but who else?

[coloradocowboi]

Being a “moderate hero” and being nostalgic for Reagan also doesn’t win elections.

In fact, it's coincided with a precipitous drop in our side's turnout, excepting only a crisis-level pandemic election in 2020.

But Elissa Slotkin is just as guilty as the rest of them of living in the DC bubble, taking corporate cash in exchange for "moderating" on popular economic positions that win regularly at the ballot-box when Democrats can't. Explain to me why we need more "moderation" when just about every minimum wage increase on the ballot in my lifetime has passed (ironically except for in "progressive" California).

If people truly wanted to move the conversation away from BS culture war stuff like transgender student athletes, they would talk about our party's far more popular and robust economic agenda. But they don't because 99% of them are as corrupt as Republicans, and we as the base of the party need to ask ourselves for how long we will put up with this in the name of "realism?"

Leftists did not kill the insider trading ban in Congress, Nancy Pelosi did. Leftists did not conspire to put a demented Joe Biden into office, Jim Clyburn did. Leftists did not cause millions of Americans to lapse into poverty by passing BS welfare reform, Bill Clinton did. Leftists did not continue two unpopular $2 trillion wars, Barack Obama did. Leftists did not pass the BS 94 crime bill, Joe Biden did. Every unpopular policy/policy consequences was put in power by neoliberal centrists, who have dominated Democratic politics since the 90s, yet whenever a centrist candidate lose elections we start blaming blue-haired transgender people. It's crazy how irresponsible and shameless the Dem establishment is after losing so much despite having such built-in advantages.

I've had it. I started voting 3rd party in 2020, and actually regret not doing so again this year. If they don't want to speak to my values that's fine. See if they can win without me, or presumably most young, working-class voters who do not want Republican lite.

[Progressive Pessimist]

She's milking her 15 minutes in the national spotlight. And possibly testing a run for President in 2028.

We have Whitmer running almost certainly, we don't need her.

[wbrocks67]

I don't even dislike Slotkin - I think she's unfairly maligned a lot of time actually but this time I just don't get what her point is when she brings up Harris because Harris didn't do this. Her point itself outside of bringing up Harris is fine, but Harris didn't only appeal to the base, so I'm not sure why she brought her into the equation like that. Kind of just feels like a sh*tty hit job moment that seems unnecessary, especially again when Harris actually got MORE votes than Slotkin did in Michigan last year.

[GAinDC]

I don't even dislike Slotkin - I think she's unfairly maligned a lot of time actually but this time I just don't get what her point is when she brings up Harris because Harris didn't do this. Her point itself outside of bringing up Harris is fine, but Harris didn't only appeal to the base, so I'm not sure why she brought her into the equation like that. Kind of just feels like a sh*tty hit job moment that seems unnecessary, especially again when Harris actually got MORE votes than Slotkin did in Michigan last year.

There’s a lot of anger at the Democratic Party right now for “letting this happen” so a lot of elected Dems are jockeying for a chance to attack the party to show that “they get it.”

At the end of the day, Dems will win again simply because Trump and the Republicans will f**k up.

[oldtimer]

I don't even dislike Slotkin - I think she's unfairly maligned a lot of time actually but this time I just don't get what her point is when she brings up Harris because Harris didn't do this. Her point itself outside of bringing up Harris is fine, but Harris didn't only appeal to the base, so I'm not sure why she brought her into the equation like that. Kind of just feels like a sh*tty hit job moment that seems unnecessary, especially again when Harris actually got MORE votes than Slotkin did in Michigan last year.

It's like Republicans gave Democrats a hot potato and said :"Here, she's your problem now"

[OSR stands with Israel]

Being a “moderate hero” and being nostalgic for Reagan also doesn’t win elections.

In fact, it's coincided with a precipitous drop in our side's turnout, excepting only a crisis-level pandemic election in 2020.

This is absolutely bs lol . 2024 was the second highest turnout election over the past 50 years and the only reason it wasn’t number 1 is because in 2020 ballots were mailed to people’s houses at an unprecedented rate due to COVID . Take that factor away and 2024 is likely the highest turnout election in that period .

[coloradocowboi]

Being a “moderate hero” and being nostalgic for Reagan also doesn’t win elections.

In fact, it's coincided with a precipitous drop in our side's turnout, excepting only a crisis-level pandemic election in 2020.

This is absolutely bs lol . 2024 was the second highest turnout election over the past 50 years and the only reason it wasn’t number 1 is because in 2020 ballots were mailed to people’s houses at an unprecedented rate due to COVID . Take that factor away and 2024 is likely the highest turnout election in that period .

Proving my point. The lowest turnout elections were the heyday or centrists running the Democratic Party, e.g. 92, 96, 00. So maybe you’d agree then that the more clearly progressive the democratic agenda is, the more of our voters that turn out?

[OSR stands with Israel]

Being a “moderate hero” and being nostalgic for Reagan also doesn’t win elections.

In fact, it's coincided with a precipitous drop in our side's turnout, excepting only a crisis-level pandemic election in 2020.

This is absolutely bs lol . 2024 was the second highest turnout election over the past 50 years and the only reason it wasn’t number 1 is because in 2020 ballots were mailed to people’s houses at an unprecedented rate due to COVID . Take that factor away and 2024 is likely the highest turnout election in that period .

Proving my point. The lowest turnout elections were the heyday or centrists running the Democratic Party, e.g. 92, 96, 00. So maybe you’d agree then that the more clearly progressive the democratic agenda is, the more of our voters that turn out?

And yet Bill Clinton broke the seemingly unbreakable GOP lock on the WH , and won more electoral votes than any democrat has since 1964(which remains to this day). The fact is GOP turnout was also very low in those days as well so that argument doesn’t really work as the reason turnout was low from 1988-2000 was because voters felt the stakes were low because they were generally satisfied with the direction of the country. Note the highest turnout  election of the 4 was 1992, which was the one election of the 4 where a majority of the country thought the country was going on the wrong track and the only one of the 4 where the approval of the economy was less than 60%(in fact it was a clear majority disapprove) .

Now you could make the argument that republican turnout was low from 88-00 because they also nominated centrists but I can guarantee you that Dem turnout would also be higher if republicans nominated someone like Newt Gingrich in those elections . The reason is many center left voters would feel the stakes of the election would be higher and thus vote , so the whole turnout game is a double edged sword.

Usually turnout goes up on both sides or goes down on both sides .

[ponderosa peen 🌲]

Proving my point. The lowest turnout elections were the heyday or centrists running the Democratic Party, e.g. 92, 96, 00. So maybe you’d agree then that the more clearly progressive the democratic agenda is, the more of our voters that turn out?

Very narrow #analysis. Turnout has been higher from 2008 to the present because each one of those elections involved a celebrity candidate at the head of a (partially media-created) political movement. And 2004 bringing in >15M more voters than 2000 was not because John Kerry was a progressive champion lol.

[coloradocowboi]

Proving my point. The lowest turnout elections were the heyday or centrists running the Democratic Party, e.g. 92, 96, 00. So maybe you’d agree then that the more clearly progressive the democratic agenda is, the more of our voters that turn out?

Very narrow #analysis. Turnout has been higher from 2008 to the present because each one of those elections involved a celebrity candidate at the head of a (partially media-created) political movement. And 2004 bringing in >15M more voters than 2000 was not because John Kerry was a progressive champion lol.

He was opposed to the Iraq War. But you have conjecture, not data on your side. 2020 is still the highest turnout election, and came after a rigorous primary in which everyone ran to the left. You actually can make similar points about 2004 and 2008.

But what you cannot argue against is the fact that Bill Clinton’s centrism motivated the least electoral participation in generations.

The idea that America wants more bureaucratic third way centrism is pretty nuts imo. It’s never been an electoral winner. Even Kamala’s high water mark in the polling was when she was more against the neoliberal consensus in the summer.