Main page    Jul. 22


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New polls:  
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: (None)

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It's non-politics Q&A weekend. If you have non-political questions, please send them to questions@electoral-vote.com.

Democrats Get Their Man in Arizona

Arizonans headed to the polls yesterday; here are the notable results:

• Governor: This is the race we refer to in the headline. Trump endorsees won up and down the ticket, and that includes Rep. Andy Biggs (R), who took a staggering 72.6% of the vote in his primary, as compared to 15% for Rep. David Schweikert (R).
  
  Recent history—particularly the failed campaigns of wannabe governor/senator Kari Lake—has shown that there is a cadre of MAGA Arizonans large enough to nominate MAGA candidates. However, that cadre is not large enough to win elections, and the MAGA candidates tend to cause independent voters and normie Republicans (aka "McCain Republicans" in Arizona) to stay home on Election Day, or to vote third-party/Democratic. In 2022, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) defeated Lake by about half a percent. This time around, Hobbs has the benefit of incumbency, and she'll be running in a tough-for-Republicans year as opposed to a tough-for-Democrats year like 2022 was. Looks to us like she's in great shape for a second term. Preliminary polling gives her an average lead of around 6 points over Biggs, roughly 45% to 39%.
  
  
• Secretary of State: We do not normally take much notice of state-level offices below governor. In this case, however, it's worth making an exception. The Republican candidate in this race will be state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who defeated former Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda, 58.9% to 41.1%. Kolodin is an outspoken election denier who was active in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential results in the state. Even a lot of Republicans don't like this stuff. So, we expect the effects of the Kolodin nomination will be: (1) to set incumbent SoS Adrian Fontes (D) on the glide path to reelection; (2) to remind Arizonans that MAGA is crazypants and anti-democratic, and so to drag down the entire GOP ticket. If Kolodin does win, however, and does gain responsibility to oversee Arizona elections, then heaven help us all.
  
  
• AZ-01: Schweikert left behind this R+1 district to mount his ultimately quixotic campaign for governor. The Republican who will try to succeed him is former NFL kicker Jay Feely, who easily won his three-way primary with 49.6% of the vote. He's a mega-MAGA Trumper, and is going to lean into culture wars as he campaigns for the seat. For what it's worth, punters tend to be pretty sharp, but kickers tend to be meatheads.
  
  The Democratic primary hasn't been called yet, but former state Rep. Amish Shah leads by 7 points (40.5% to 33.5%) with 83.6% reporting, so it's probably going to be him. Truth be told, we can't figure out why the call hasn't been made yet, since journalist Marlene Galán-Woods would need to take 70% of the remaining vote to pull ahead, which seems unlikely. Shah is a physician who also has an NFL connection, as he used to work for the New York Jets (this assumes you count the Jets as an NFL team). He is progressive-leaning, probably a shade more than Galán-Woods, but is not fanatical about it. His issues page lists "STOPPING ANIMAL CRUELTY" among his key issues; that might be the first time we've seen that from a candidate.
  
  
• AZ-02: This is an R+7 district, which means it's theoretically in reach if there's an absolute blue tsunami. That said, it's not often that an incumbent loses in a district this partisan, and Rep. Eli Crane (R), who is one of the many, many Navy-SEALs-turned-Republican-politicians, is running for reelection. Crane was unopposed yesterday, and so was his likely victim Jonathan Nez. Nez is the former president of the Navajo Nation, is somewhat lefty, and was defeated by Crane by 9 points for this same seat back in 2024.
  
  
• AZ-04: This district is D+4, and Rep. Greg Stanton (D) won the right to run for reelection yesterday, 65% to 35%. This was yet another progressive-against-establishment race, and in this one, the establishment won handily. They like Democratic Socialists in New York City, and in parts of Colorado, but maybe not so much in Arizona. Physician Zuhdi Jasser is the Republican nominee; he was unopposed yesterday. Jasser is running as a McCain Republican, and is going to hope that MAGA voters do not notice that he's a birthright citizen. It will not be easy for him to defeat an incumbent in a pretty blue district in what figures to be a pretty blue year.
  
  
• AZ-05: Usually, R+10 is too far away from swing territory to be worth mentioning. We make an exception in this case, however, because the Republican nominee in this district—the one Biggs left behind to run for governor—will be former sheriff Mark Lamb, who took 58.4% of the vote. He has faced accusations of sexting with women who are not his wife, and of using his power as sheriff to try to keep the messages from seeing the light of day. His opponent will be Elizabeth Lee, who won her primary with 65.2% of the vote. She's running a moderately lefty campaign, including a gun violence prevention plank. That would be deadly in, say, Texas, but maybe it plays better in a district not too far away from the one once represented by gun-violence victim Gabby Giffords.
  
  We don't imagine Lee will win, unless a lot more dirt about Lamb comes out. However, we do imagine Lamb will get more than a few mentions this cycle, as an example of Republicans' willingness to look the other way when it comes to penis crimes.
  
  
• AZ-06: This EVEN district is going to be a focal point for both parties. Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R), who is about as moderate as a Republican member of Congress can get away with these days, but who still votes with Donald Trump most of the time, will try to hold on for a third term. He was unopposed yesterday, as was his opponent, JoAnna Mendoza, a single mom and former Marine Corps drill sergeant. Her slogan is "Battle Tested," which is pretty good. She's running the exact kind of moderate Democratic campaign, focused on kitchen-table issues, that you usually see in districts like this one.
  
  
• AZ-08: If we're going to mention an R+10 district, then we also have to mention this R+8 district. Rep. Abraham Hamadeh (R) was unopposed, and will be running for a second term. The Democrat who will face a very uphill battle as she tries to knock him off is Bernadette Greene-Placentia, a former truck driver who is running on a populist platform, but also one that is pro-seniors and pro-veterans. As you might have heard, Arizona has a lot of both of those.

And that's the ballgame. Next week, there are a couple of small-ish elections; the special election to fill the seat of the deceased Rep. David Scott (D-GA) and the runoff between Gov. Larry Rhoden (R) and Toby Doeden (R) for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in South Dakota. (Z)

Honest Graft

We have mentioned this before, but the infamous Gilded Age political boss George Washington Plunkitt is most remembered today for a speech he gave that came to be known by the title "Honest Graft." Here is the opening passage of the speech:

EVERYBODY is talkin' these days about Tammany men growin' rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin' the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There's all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I've made a big fortune out of the game, and I'm gettin' richer every day, but I've not gone in for dishonest graft--blackmailin' gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc.--and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in politics.

There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin': I seen my opportunities and I took "em."

Just let me explain by examples. My party's in power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say, that they're going to lay out a new park at a certain place.

I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. The board of this or that makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before.

Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that's honest graft.

In other words, if you're a politician and you engage in Mafia-style racketeering, that's "dishonest." But if you merely take advantage of insider information, to the benefit of yourself, your friends and your party, that's "honest" graft and is fine and dandy.

This is relevant, of course, because the White House is currently occupied by far and away the most grifty (or grafty) politician the nation has seen since the Gilded Age. In fact, Donald Trump might be the most grifty politician America has ever seen, regardless of time period. We had an item yesterday where we shared the evidence that Trump's Iran policy (and that of his minions Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff) is being driven primarily (or even entirely) by their desire to enrich themselves. We got a number of e-mails from readers that expressed their disbelief. But the e-mails weren't suggesting that we're wrong. They were suggesting that, until it happened, a president that puts his own bank account ahead of politics, the good of the country, the lives of soldiers, etc. was inconceivable.

Recall that the claim that Kushner and Witkoff (and, by extension, Trump) are mostly interested in making a quick buck comes from an anonymous Iranian source. So, far from ironclad. However, one cannot help but recall that Dwight D. Eisenhower, who knew a thing or two about the subject, warned us 65 years ago about the potential evils of mixing warmaking, civilian leadership and capitalism. On top of that, one cannot help but notice that Donald Trump seems to have no particular interest in ending the Iran War. Just yesterday, he said again that the midterms will not have any impact on how he manages the war. And the fact is that while it might mildly annoy him to be investigated six ways to Sunday, and to be unable to get judges approved, he's otherwise not going to be punished by voters who are unhappy with the GOP. Trump's job is safe, even if the jobs of half a dozen Republican senators and a few dozen Republican representatives are not.

Perhaps most importantly, one cannot help but notice that Trump and his friends and family are grifting left, right and sideways, every chance they get. Do Trump and his cronies tell themselves pleasant things about how their scams are OK, and aren't the "bad" kind of grift? We don't know, but we suspect that if George Washington Plunkitt could see what is going on right now, he would smile and nod approvingly.

Over the weekend, news broke of what is, perhaps, the griftiest grift in American history. The company that owns Truth Social, a company that is basically just Donald Trump, announced that it was planning to introduce a new service called Truth PSI. For a fee, subscribers would get priority access to posts from "top Truth Social contributors." In other words, subscribers would get to see posts made to Truth Social some number of hours before everyone else got to see them.

Other social media platforms offer this sort of "premium" option. However, there are two rather large differences between Truth PSI and, say, X Premium. The first is that the only real "top contributor" on Truth Social is Donald Trump. As he uses the platform to make announcements of official policy, federal law means the new service is somewhere between "legally dubious" and "flat-out illegal" (and, quite probably, the latter).

The second problem is the price. X Premium costs between $3 and $40 a month, depending on what level you pay for. But Truth PSI is not priced at a level that would allow MAGA fanatics to feel like "insiders." And it is not priced at a level that would be appropriate for big media outlets like The New York Times or CNN. No, the price for Truth PSI is $100,000. That's per month. Well, unless you sign a 3-year contract, in which case you can lock in the low, low price of $60,000 a month (or $2.16 million over the life of the contract).

There are only two ways in which that "investment" makes any sense whatsoever. The first is the "honest grift" scenario, wherein a person or entity pays for the premium access, and then uses that information to engage in insider trading, or to otherwise benefit by knowing what's about to happen with the stock market (for example, nearly any Trump announcement about the Iran War will have predictable effects on oil futures, and you can monetize that insight, just as surely as if you know for sure what's going to happen with frozen concentrated orange juice).

The other possible way that the $60K/month - $100K/month makes sense (and this is not incompatible with the first motive) is the "money laundering" scenario, where the fee is just a "clean" way to pay a bribe to Trump.

Trump already has a well-established history with versions of both of these types of grift. To take one example of the former, among many, he bought between $1 million and $5 million of Axon stock back in February. Two weeks later, ICE signed a contract for $220 million worth of tasers and the stock price shot up. Trump could very easily buy some stock in a company he knows is about to get some business from the government, then share some inside information with Truth PSI subscribers. The subscribers would make money, and Trump would make even more money because he would be the one who got in first.

Similarly, Trump has already used access to himself to "legally" market his e-businesses. The most notable example of this, among several, involves his shady cryptocurrencies. Recall, back in May, that Trump held a dinner for the 25 biggest owners of $TRUMP meme coins. The majority of the attendees, including #1 $TRUMP "investor" Justin Sun, were either foreign nationals or were people with close ties to an unfriendly government. Similarly, the United Arab Emirates bought $500 million in stock in the company that oversees Trump's crypto ventures. It is improbable they did that because they simply could not find a more promising investment opportunity.

There is probably not a single reader of this site that, if given the honor and privilege of serving as President of the United States, would put their own financial bottom line ahead of ending a senseless war, or suffering a huge defeat in the midterms, or protecting their reputation as an honest leader. That requires a degree of corruptness and immorality that is truly special.

Our point here is that Trump and a few of his minions have a mindset, one focused on money above all else, that most of us simply cannot properly grasp. But that does not mean the mindset does not exist, because clearly it does. And once you combine that mindset with the awesome powers of the presidency and the belief that the president is beyond the reach of the law, the sky's the limit—as Trump himself is demonstrating at this very moment. In theory, the founders foresaw something like this and provided a mechanism for dealing with it: impeachment and conviction. What the founders, who were men of honor, could not conceive of is a Congress so cowardly that it could see this corruption in broad daylight and be afraid to do anything about it. (Z)

The Secret Court

One of the challenges in bringing criminal cases against foreign nationals that involve classified information has always been how to present the evidence needed for a conviction without revealing the information. So, Congress wrote laws like the Classified Information Procedures Act, which set up uniform procedures for federal courts to manage the admission of classified information in federal criminal proceedings. Also the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created the FISA court, which reviews applications for foreign surveillance warrants that often involves classified documents.

Along those lines, in 1996, Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC), a specialized national security court designed to provide meaningful judicial review in deportation cases without revealing classified evidence that may be relevant to the case. But no administration has ever used the ATRC, until now.

The reason that the Trump administration has suddenly activated this court for the first time is not clear. The application was filed under seal and all we have is a preliminary order from the judge assigned to the case, U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, one of five who were designated by Chief Justice John Roberts to handle these cases.

Steve Vladeck has done extensive research on the ATRC and has written a helpful primer on the issues with a court that is largely run in secret. But the good news, such as it is, is that the proceedings in the ATRC are run by Article III judges, not immigration judges controlled by Stephen Miller Trump's executive branch. So, there are more procedural protections for individuals than in immigration court. And, as Vladeck points out, the court can't be used for mass deportations, so there's no inherent advantage here over other tribunals.

And in fact, in the first order on the only application so far to this court, Judge Ericksen doesn't seem to be buying what the administration is selling. We don't know who the defendant is or what the allegations are, but the judge, in her order, stated that she "had questions about the nexus that the government alleges between the actions of the respondent and the specific sections and subsections it invokes with respect to those actions." In other words, the facts don't match up to the laws the government claims have been broken. Hmmm, where have we seen this movie before? The court concludes with this gem: "The answers persuaded the Court that the Government could benefit from an opportunity for more thoughtful consideration." That's judge-speak for "stop wasting my time with this nonsense, you clod, and don't come back until you have an actual case." She gave the government until July 22 to muster up the necessary evidence.

So, why use this court now? It could be that the White House thought that the ATRC would be more compliant and less rigid in its application of the law than regular district courts. Perhaps that is because Roberts has stacked the court with only judges appointed by George W. Bush and Donald Trump. But, as we've seen before, most judges (admittedly, with a few glaring exceptions) are independent, regardless of who appointed them, and take their jobs seriously to apply the law without prejudice. So it is here. Ericksen, a Bush appointee, may yet give Trump what he wants, but so far, it seems the government lawyers are doing the same shoddy and shady work that has earned them similar rebukes in the regular federal courts.

If the application is granted, the court must hold a public removal hearing where the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is an alien terrorist. Any classified information must be summarized in an unclassified document with enough specificity for the accused to mount a meaningful defense. Finally, if removal is ordered, the non-citizen has the right to appeal. So, these procedures are much more involved, complicated and time-consuming than other deportation proceedings. But there is also the lure, no doubt by Trump officials, of being able to present evidence in secret without having to share it with the defense. There are legitimate constitutional due process concerns with this court and the statute that created it, which is probably why no one has used it until now.

There is, of course, the possibility, however remote, that the defendant does pose some kind of threat to national security and should be removed. If that were the case, however, one would think that they could get it right the first time and not incur the court's scorn. But with this group, competence is a (rare) luxury. Depending on how the court rules on the application, we should know more details soon. (L)

Democratic Presidential Candidate of the Week: #22, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)

This was really supposed to run last week. Oh, well. Here are the profiles we've already done:

Runner-up: Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Runner-up: Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ)
Runner-up: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)
Runner-up: Al Franken
Runner-up: Mitch Landrieu
Runner-up: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
Runner-up: Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ)
Runner-up: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)
Runner-up: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Runner-up: Jon Stewart
Runner-up: Jon Tester
Runner-up: Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)
#25: Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
#24: Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI)
#23: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA)

And now, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), please join us on stage, because it's your turn in the spotlight.

• Full Name: Elissa Blair Slotkin
  
  
• Age on January 20, 2029: 52
  
  
• Background: Slotkin was born in New York City, but likes to point out that she spent much of her childhood on a farm in rural Holly, MI. This is true, but it surely gives a false impression to most people. The farm was part of the family's Hygrade Meat empire, a sizable business concern best known for creating the Ballpark Franks brand. In other words, Slotkin may have lived the rural life, but she was a child of privilege, and one who went to one of the most exclusive boarding schools in the United States, namely Cranbrook Kingswood School. That institution has an endowment of greater than half a billion dollars, which is more than most universities.
  
  Growing up, Slotkin was initially a Reagan Republican, taking a cue from her very conservative father. But then her parents divorced and her mother Judith came out as a lesbian. The Reagan administration famously had a head-in-the-sand policy when it came to the AIDS crisis, and the teenaged Elissa was well aware of that thanks to her mother's ties to the LGBTQ community. She says that is what turned her into a Democrat (although note that she's a famously moderate Democrat, perhaps suggesting that a few Reaganite undercurrents are in there somewhere).
  
  As an undergraduate, Slotkin matriculated at Cornell, taking a B.A. in sociology. She followed that with an M.A. at Columbia, in international affairs. She began her studies at Columbia on Monday, September 3, 2001, which means that the 9/11 attacks took place a little over a week into her graduate career, and just a few miles from the Columbia campus. This is what pushed Slotkin to make national service the focus of her career.
  
  
• Political Experience: Even before finishing at Columbia, Slotkin was hired by the CIA, where she served as an analyst. The exact nature of her work is classified, but she describes herself as an expert in Shia militias. Slotkin was deployed to Iraq three times in a 5-year period, working (as a civilian) alongside the U.S. troops who were fighting the war that was then taking place in that nation.
  
  In the latter portion of the George W. Bush presidency, Slotkin moved over to the National Security Council, where she served as an expert on Iraq. (And you thought the Bush administration didn't have any of those.) During the Barack Obama administration, Slotkin served in both the State and Defense departments, with her final (and highest-ranking) post being Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. She held that job from 2015-17, and her primary responsibility was helping Israel maintain its military advantage over its rivals in the Middle East.
  
  Slotkin was not retained by the first Trump administration, as tends to be the case with folks in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. She moved back to the family farm, and briefly ran a consulting firm, but was really just positioning herself to enter the arena as an elected official. Just 6 months after Obama left office, Slotkin announced a run for the seat representing MI-08 in the House. She campaigned for over a year, crushed all opponents in the Democratic primary, and then scored a fairly comfortable win in the general, 50.6% to 46.8%, sending Rep. Mike Bishop (R-MI) into retirement. She was reelected to that seat in 2020, and then had to jump to MI-07 in 2022 after redistricting. This is an EVEN district, which may help explain why Slotkin is so outspokenly moderate. That third race also ended in victory, though it was the most expensive House race of that cycle, with Slotkin alone raising and spending nearly $10 million to keep her job.
  
  While Slotkin was serving that third term in the House, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) announced that she was done after four terms in the upper chamber. Slotkin quickly jumped at the opportunity for a promotion, and had another year where most of her time was spent on the campaign trail. The 2024 elections went mostly in a Republican direction, thanks to Donald Trump's coattails. He won Michigan by 1.4 points (49.7% to 48.3%). But Slotkin overperformed the Democratic ticket just enough to earn that promotion, winning far and away the closest election of her career, 48.64% to 48.3% over former Republican representative Mike Rogers (who, incidentally, is running again this year, albeit for the other Michigan U.S. Senate seat).
  
  Slotkin is therefore about a year and a half into a term that will expire in January of 2031, so she doesn't have to worry about getting reelected anytime soon. Appropriately, given her background, she serves on the Senate's Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Committee on Armed Services; Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
  
  
• Signature Issue(s): Iran. It looks to us that there are two possibilities for where the Iran situation will be during the 2028 cycle. Either the war will still be dragging on, or it will be over but the situation in that part of the world will be a mess. Slotkin would surely campaign as the person who can either end the war, or who can help clean up the mess.
  
  
• What Would Her Pitch Be?: "Waging peace." (Note: This was one of Ulysses S. Grant's catchphrases when he ran for president in 1868.)
  
  
• Instructive Quote: "Where people are trying to split Americans from each other I want there desperately to be bipartisanship."
  
  
• Completely Trivial Fact: By virtue of her work for the CIA, in addition to English (of course), Slotkin is fluent in Arabic and Swahili. There can't be too many people out there who have that particular trio.
  
  
• Recent News: Slotkin is one of Trump's least favorite senators, in part because she's a woman, and in part because she appeared in that "Don't follow illegal orders" video. So, she and the President are often at loggerheads with each other. Just this week, he slammed her on his grift-a-rific social media platform, and she slammed him right back with a video and posting on eX-Twitter.
  
  
• Strengths for the Democratic Primaries: (1) She's from Michigan, a swing state that Democrats must have; (2) She's a national security expert, and that could be one of the most salient issues of 2028; and (3) She can get independent and centrist voters.
  
  
• Weaknesses for the Democratic Primaries: (1) While the Democratic primary voters of 2028 might be willing to line up behind a Jew (say, Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-PA), it is less probable they will be willing to line up behind a Jew whose job used to be keeping Israel armed to the teeth; (2) On non-economic issues, she is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate and third-most conservative member overall, which is not likely to be OK with the base; and (3) She's not very exciting or dynamic.
  
  
• Polls: According to YouGov, 3 out of 5 people who have heard of Slotkin like her, while 2 out of 5 dislike her. That's pretty good, but the problem is that only one voter in three knows who she is.
  
  
• Rank, Initial Poll: Not ranked.
  
  
• Rank, Readers' Preferred Candidates: #22.
  
  
• How Does the Readership Feel?: We asked readers for their thoughts on Slotkin running for president, and only got a few. Then we asked again, and got a bunch more. Here are some of those responses:
  
  
  • M.M. in San Diego, CA: I was sold on Slotkin's messaging ability when I saw her campaign ad for the Senate. As a former CIA analyst, it's no surprise that she's got a flair for communicating. She's no paper tiger either, evidenced when she took part in the "You don't have to obey illegal orders" video, when the Navy began sinking small, so-called drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. I suspect she is savvy enough to realize that she will eventually wield far more power as the chair of a Senate committee or two than as an also-ran in 2028.
    
    
  • S.J.W. in Grand Rapids, MI: I met Elissa Slotkin at one of her early fundraisers in Michigan in 2018. My husband and I had been reeling from the election of Donald Trump in 2016, decided we needed to get more active and get behind some good candidates. In January 2018, we heard about a candidate running in our district (MI-08, since redistricted as MI-07) against a popular GOP incumbent in a very traditional Republican district. We went to this small event and as Elissa Slotkin began speaking, barely past six sentences, my husband and I looked at each other and said "Wow!" She is an excellent speaker, communicator, plain-speaking with clarity. Since that time, we have attended many of her town halls, speaking engagements, fundraisers, debates, etc. She is highly intelligent, yet also has the common touch. She is warm and accessible as well as a data nerd and policy wonk.
    
    Slotkin has an impressive résumé, including responsible positions in both the Bush White House and the Obama White House, and she was (Acting) Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Pentagon. She is an acknowledged expert in Iranian militias, Israel, the Middle East, NATO, Russia—seems all this would come in handy these days. She had a staff numbering in the hundreds in the Pentagon and is an excellent manager. In fact, her House and now Senate staff is so top notch, I think it speaks to her ability to gauge character, ability, and be an effective administrator. I have more than one friend in the district who never voted other than Republican before Slotkin and became an active Slotkin supporter because when she wrote to her office, they responded, they called her, they helped her. I hear this often in the district—unusually responsive to the constituents. She is particularly popular among (formerly) Republican women. In our district we had "book clubs" of Republican women who could not tell their staunchly GOP husbands that they were not actually going to a book club, but rather going to phone bank for Slotkin. I swear this is fact.
    
    She has been a prolific fundraiser (breaking records in her House and Senate campaigns), is telegenic, and inspiring. The only downside I can think of is perhaps she has been too bipartisan based on her successful and positive experiences in the Bush and Obama Administrations and being a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress. She was subject to a good deal of criticism for voting to confirm Kristi Noem and a few other Trump nominees. She has explained those publicly to my satisfaction, but she does strive for civility and understanding. Recently, though, I have heard her say "Don't take a knife to a gun fight" (regarding redistricting/gerrymandering).
    
    I've never heard a whiff of any skeletons in her closet and she has been in public life for years including 8+ in Congress. She was married to a West Point grad Army officer, Apache pilot, and they divorced within the past couple of years—quietly, drama-free, and apparently amicably.
    
    We think she is the total package and would make a fine president.
    
    
  • B.J.L. in Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arborite here. Elissa Slotkin is a pretty good representative for Michigan. She has our accent, although I'm not sure whether she is a native Michigander or not. She's portrayed as kind of a workhorse, does due diligence and useful committee work. She seems to get things done. She's not a particularly eloquent speaker, but serviceable, and the closer to her national security wheelhouse she is, the better she does. Probably an introvert.
    
    I doubt there is much in her oratorical skills to inspire others, and inspiration is needed to break away from the pack of others.
    
    
  • W.V. in Andover, MN: The best, and most favored, female candidate from Michigan is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).
    
    
  • K.T. in Oakdale, NY: She's a woman, and she's boring. You can be a boring man (Gov. Andy Beshear, D-KY) or an exciting woman (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY), but unfortunately you cannot be a boring woman in today's political climate and get any meaningful support for president. Personally, I'd love some boring after what we've been going through, but there is zero chance she even gets the nomination for the blue team, much less winning a general election.
    
    
  • E.F. in Baltimore, MD: I don't know much about her. I'm sure she's a very nice lady. What the Trump era should have taught us, however, is that if the Democrats don't nominate a straight, white, Christian man, they'll lose.
    
    
  • G.R. in Basel, Switzerland: You asked and I shall happily answer! I like everything about Sen. Slotkin. But I watched two well-qualified, very different female nominees lose to an orange clown. So with considerable regret, I would not back her in a primary. (As a G in the LGBTQ, I face a similar conundrum with the amazing Pete Buttigieg, even more personal.)
    
    Her path to the White House would be as a terrific VP (Michigan is a blue-but-swinging state) and we can see if America outgrows its obvious lingering misogyny. There would be a potential complication if the amazing Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is the Democrats' 2028 presidential nominee: Can the first Jewish nominee have a Jewish running mate? Shouldn't matter. Likely still does.
    
    
  • P.K. in Arlington Heights, IL: Surefire loser of a presidential campaign right now. Female? Check. Jewish? Check. Past history of pro-Israel support? Check. Unfortunately, each item might turn off a generic voter, and she's got 3 of 'em. I think she's extremely qualified and would vote for her, but in a general U.S. Presidential election in 2028, she has zero chance of winning.
    
    
  • S.P. in Harrisburg, PA: We have had first-term senators successfully winning the presidency, but Sen. Slotkin doesn't seem to have the traits that made past senators-turned-president successful. Maybe give her some more time.
    
    
  • B.B. in Somerville, MA: Elissa Slotkin has a name problem. I'm a longtime reader of the site, and I've confused Elissa Slotkin and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) more than I'd like to admit.
    
    
  • A.J. in Moorhead, MN: That you had to separately request additional feedback regarding Slotkin I think says everything you need to know.
  
  
• The Bottom Line: Slotkin is still young enough that there could be a presidential run in her future. However, we don't think the 2028 stars are aligned in a way that favors her, even as a VP candidate.

Next week, it's #21, Sen. Raphael Warnock. If readers have comments about Warnock running for president in 2028, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com.

The U.K. Gets a New PM

On Monday, the United Kingdom officially got its 7th prime minister in the last decade. The new guy is Andy Burnham who, until a few weeks ago, was Mayor of Greater Manchester. In his first set of remarks as PM, Burnham noted that the office has had a lot of instability recently, and that he would work to rectify that. Easier said than done, as six people can personally confirm for Burnham.

One of the first tests for a new PM these days, outside of dealing with domestic issues, is dealing with Donald Trump. Each man has badmouthed the other in the past, with Trump slurring Burnham as "too liberal" and Burnham slamming Trump for his "polarized, poisonous politics." That said, it's much easier to carry on this kind of pi**ing contest when one of the pi**ers is not the leader of their country. It's rather less practical once both sides are in power. We'll see if Trump tries to hit the Brits with 50% tariffs, Canada-style.

Meanwhile, Britons are going to get a chance next month to indirectly poke Trump in the eye. We've written about the by-election for the seat in Parliament left vacant by the resignation of Nigel Farage, who is the U.K.'s answer to Trump. Farage is running for reelection to the seat—his resignation was to make a point—and he's drawn more than 30 opponents. The highest-profile of those, as we noted, is the joke candidate Binface. And, at the moment, Binface not only has the endorsements of two former PMs—Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson—he's also leading Farage in the latest poll of the race, 33% to 21%. If ever there is a nation where voters might actually elect a joke candidate to make a point, it's the U.K. The election is on August 13; we'll certainly be watching. (Z)

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