Ask any Republican what their party stands for, and you’ll get a quick answer: “Jobs, the border, inflation.” Democrats can contest each item ― and they’d be right ― but that doesn’t matter to loyal GOP voters. These are the priorities President Donald Trump and his cohort repeat ad infinitum.
They’re tidy and tangible, and they fit on a bumper sticker.
Democrats don’t have that, and it’s a problem they’ve got to solve before the 2026 election, if the party wants to hold onto Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat.
U.S. Sen. Gary Peters announced in January that he won’t run for re-election next year. You could call this Michigan’s second open U.S. Senate seat in two years, but last year’s Democratic primary was effectively over when retiring U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow tapped then-U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin as her successor. Slotkin is a hardworking legislator, a prodigious fundraiser and an effective campaigner, and despite a nominal primary challenger in actor Hill Harper, her candidacy was a lock. In a red wave year, Slotkin beat Republican Mike Rogers in the general election, holding the seat for Democrats by a 19,000-vote margin.
A truly open U.S. Senate seat is the kind of political opportunity that doesn’t come along every day, and this is a high-stakes race for Dems, who lost the Senate in 2024 and face an unfavorable map in 2026. Michigan Republicans haven’t sent a U.S. Senator to Washington since 1994, and Democrats can’t afford to let them start now.
For the last few months, I’ve asked Michigan Dems what their party’s bumper sticker would say. Last week, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow gave me an answer before I even asked the question: “Success, safety, sanity,” she told me, outlining the pillars of her just-launched U.S. Senate campaign.
McMorrow’s Wednesday announcement makes her the only declared candidate for next year’s Senate race, but she won’t hold the field alone for long.
Also rumored to be considering the race are Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel; U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Royal Oak; newly elected U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Bay City; state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit, who served as Speaker of the House until Democrats lost that chamber last year; and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who last week left his job as director of Wayne County’s health department to explore a run.
(No Republicans have yet declared. Reports suggest Rogers, a former U.S. Representative; U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Holland Township; and former Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, who lost to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2022 as possible candidates ― but don’t worry, we’ll talk about them soon enough.)
This race is likely to become what we call “crowded,” exponentially ― and financially ― raising the bar for success in the party primary, particularly because the Democratic coalition right now is what we call “shaky.”
State Senator Mallory McMorrow shakes hands as she walks into the House of Representatives with Governor Gretchen Whitmer (not in the photo) during the State of the State address at the State Capitol in Lansing, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020.
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It’s all about Trump
“One of the things people are not talking about is the ideological battles within the Democratic Party,” said pollster Richard Czuba of the Glengariff Group.
Any Democrat running for elected office, particularly in Michigan, has a narrow path to walk. The party’s base ― the most likely primary voters ― want staunch resistance to President Donald Trump; more moderate general election voters ― and the independents whose votes decide most Michigan elections ― gravitate toward pragmatic concerns. In the general election, Czuba said, the economy will remain voters’ top issue.
But in the primary, the base matters, he said, and that means one question will dominate: “Who stands up to Donald Trump?
“There is just incredible anger in the Democratic coalition, and it’s also spreading increasingly into independents. The stock market dropping 2,500 points in two days feeds into that,” he said.
But, Czuba cautioned, “Because we’re so far out, we don’t know what next year will look like. And as we look at it right now, we have no idea who’s in the race.”
Because that matters, too. Elections offer voters finite options, and who decides to run changes a race’s dynamics.
“Look at someone like Haley Stevens. I think she is very reflective of mainstream Democratic voters, which is why she appeals so well in Oakland County ― she is where a lot of Democrats are,” Czuba said. “The question is, where does Mallory McMorrow run? Does she run to the left? If she does, who is is running to her left?”
From left: Sen. Mallory McMorrow, U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, Abdul El-Sayed and Joe Tate.
‘A new American Dream’
One of her strengths, McMorrow believes, is not just knowing how to fight, but when to fight.
She was elected to the state Senate in 2018, flipping a Republican seat, and won a second term in 2022 with a 50-point margin. She catapulted into the national spotlight that year after state Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, claimed in a fundraising email that McMorrow and other Democrats were “outraged they can’t teach can’t groom and sexualize kindergartners or that 8-year-olds are responsible for slavery.”
McMorrow responded with a five-minute speech on the floor of the state Senate that garnered national attention, denouncing Theis’ allegations and offering a robust defense of LGBTQ+ Americans, often the target of such allegations by right-wing politicians, and a thoughtful navigation of racial justice in America: “I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom who knows that the very notion that learning about slavery or redlining or systemic racism somehow means that children are being taught to feel bad or hate themselves because they are white is absolute nonsense. No child alive today is responsible for slavery. No one in this room is responsible for slavery. But each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history.”
Dubbed a rising Democratic star, McMorrow has had frequent guest spots on cable news shows and a speaker slot at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. A prodigious fundraiser, she brought in $2.7 million in the last cycle for local legislative elections, playing a role in the Dems’ 2022 flip of the Michigan Legislature. Her book, “Hate Won’t Win: Find Your Power and Leave This Place Better Than You Found It,” published last month.
Still, McMorrow isn’t as well-known as some other likely candidates. Early in-state polling has not, to date, included her name.
“There’s absolutely an upside to being relatively new to the political field, but she’s not really an outsider,” said Czuba, referring to McMorrow’s description of herself in her launch video. “She’s been an elected official who’s been in the Senate, she spoke at the DNC ― she’s a Democratic insider.”
A New Jersey native, McMorrow, 38, graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in automotive design, a fraught career path as the Great Recession loomed. Her husband, tech industry communications executive Ray Wert, is a native Michigander, but McMorrow jokes that after years of visits, she talked him into moving back from California. The couple have a young daughter, and like most parents, McMorrow wants her child to find opportunities close to home.
“Everything is so broken right now, and Michiganders deserve a lot better,” she said. “I’m going to be laying out a vision for a new American Dream that’s positive, that people can see themselves in. And that means three things to me.”
That’s ― you guessed it ― success, safety and sanity.
‘The solution is to build something’
Success, McMorrow said, means being able to buy a home, and not just any home, but one in the neighborhood you want to live in, where you can send your child to a great school. It means being able to afford having kids in the first place, while also saving for retirement and maybe even going Up North in the summer.
Safety, she says, means ending gun violence ― majority whip in the Michigan Senate in 2023, McMorrow led on successful gun reforms ― protecting civil rights, and investing in our communities.
Sanity is pretty self-explanatory: “It is so chaotic right now. People want things to work. I had a constituent tell me, ‘I just want this to be boring again! I don’t want to have to watch the news. I don’t want to have to scroll social media and worry about what you guys are doing or saying or attacking each other.'”
When she graduated from college, McMorrow said, “I didn’t have a job, and I slept a few nights in the back of my car and I had no health insurance, and it took a long time to dig out of that hole. So I’m going to be making a very clear statement that the status quo has not worked for most people, but the solution is not to burn it all down. The solution is to build something.”
In a contentious election, a strong message helps. We’ll know in 2026 if Michigan buys McMorrow’s.
Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mallory McMorrow: Democrats can win Michigan U.S. Senate seat |Opinion