Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) sat down with a group of Americans who voted for President Donald Trump in Indiana to hear their thoughts and pitch her vision of leadership as the Democratic Party struggles to identify a new leader after former President Joe Biden’s crushing defeat in the 2024 presidential election.
“I told you I’m a Democrat. We got shellacked in the last election, right? We just got crushed. And you don’t start winning again by just rinsing and repeating the same problematic things. So I’m interested in looking forward,” the 49-year-old senator told the group of four Trump supporters.
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The Michigan Democrat has been elevating her national platform in the lead-up to the 2028 presidential election, setting up conversations ranging from meeting with Trump supporters in Indiana and Iowa to meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Toronto. Many pundits have predicted Slotkin may give a White House run a go in 2028, and she has not ruled herself out, fueling the buzz by telling commentator Stephen A. Smith that the party needs “new leadership” and standing firm in that sentiment in her Indiana sit-down.
“People want leadership that charts a path forward and explains how you’re going to get from point A to point B, and doesn’t BS them, and doesn’t sound too good to be true, but has some hopefulness to it,” Slotkin said.
She spoke in the conversation about how she believes a real leader is “straight with you” and gives realistic policy expectations rather than overpromising. She pointed to healthcare and education issues, telling the group that she recognizes the execution of Obamacare “became worse and worse over time,” leaving costs high, and pitching herself as someone “willing to think big about how we reorganize on healthcare.”
“A leader will say, ‘Look, I would, I would love to make higher education free on day one.’ I can’t promise that. What I can promise is I have a path that in three years we’re going to start transitioning public universities,” Slotkin said.
The video of the interaction, posted on Majority Democrats’ X page, a group Slotkin is a part of, showed the Trump supporters praising her as “super relatable” and saying, “for a Democrat, I thought her ideas were pretty, pretty amazing.”
“I think that the fact that she has a positive outlook on the future helps me be a little bit more positive about it as well,” one of the lunch sit-down attendees said, fitting into Slotkin’s own vision of the future.
The video comes at a time when the Democratic Party has been grappling with how Democrats want to present themselves in the 2028 presidential election and which direction they want their leadership to take.
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With the New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani-backed socialist sweep through the Big Apple’s congressional midterm elections this week, establishment Democrats have been forced to reckon with how to adapt to the rise of socialism in their party and whether to lean into the party’s left-wing faction. Democrats such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) have bucked leadership’s preferred candidates to back leftist candidates like Michigan’s Abdul el Sayed.
“Every day there’s a debate within the party about the path forward,” Slotkin said on Straight Shooter with Stephen A. Smith on Wednesday. “That’s why I believe we need significant new leadership. The old models are no longer working, and that includes the Democratic Party.”