Sherrill campaigned in Michigan this weekend for Biden, Slotkin

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) went to the battleground state of Michigan this weekend as a surrogate for President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and to stump for one of her closest friends in Congress, Elissa Slotkin, who is seeking an open U.S. Senate seat.

Sherrill was the keynote speaker at the Livingston County Democrats 2024 Winans Dinner as Biden’s representative.

“With so many fundamental freedoms at stake in this election, I was thrilled to campaign in battleground Michigan for President Biden and my dear friend and colleague Elissa Slotkin,” Sherrill said.  “We’ve seen the attacks on New Jersey with Trump’s tax plan capping SALT and his efforts which overturned Roe v. Wade. Michigan is no different – six automotive plants, including one in Michigan, were shuttered during his presidency.”

Michigan’s sixteen electoral votes are critical for both candidates in the November presidential election.  A New York Times/Siena poll released last Monday has the race in Michigan statistically tied, with Biden leading Donald Trump by only one percentage point, 47%-46%.

The Senate primary is on August 6.  Slotkin is one of three Democrats seeking the nomination, and polls show the general election for the open Democratic Senate seat as too close to call.

Livingston County is primarily Republican; Trump carried it with 60.5% of the vote four years ago.  It’s part of the Detroit-Dearborn metro area and has roughly the same number of voters in Cumberland and Salem counties combined.

Sherrill and Slotkin were among a group of nine freshman Democrats – five of them were women — who entered the House after the 2018 election with military and national security experience.  Three of the nine are no longer in Congress, and another, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who shares a Washington, D.C. apartment with Sherrill, is giving up her seat to run for Governor of Virginia next year.

An Annapolis graduate and former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, Sherrill told the dinner attendees  that, “If we’re going to defend our democracy, reproductive freedom, and good-paying union jobs, it’s essential we do everything we can to send Joe Biden back to the White House, protect our Senate Democratic majority, and take back the House.”

The New Jersey Democrats and possible 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial candidate, also campaigned for former State Sen. Curtis Hertel, Jr.   He is seeking the House seat Slotkin is vacating to run for Senate.

Hertel comes from a prominent Michigan political family.  His father is a former Speaker of the State House of Representatives, and his brother succeeded him in the Senate two years ago when Michigan’s term-limits law prevented him from running again.   One of his uncles served six terms in Congress and another was a state senator and Macomb County Commissioner.

The Winans Dinner honors former Edwin Winans, a Livingston County Democrat who served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1880s and one term as Governor of Michigan in the 1890s.  His son, an Army General, was the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.