Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) secured former President Barack Obama’s endorsement and participation in a brand new ad campaign as polling shows her senate ambitions are on shaky ground.
Obama nominated Slotkin to be an assistant secretary of Defense during his presidency. On Friday, he threw his weight behind her again as she races against Republican nominee Mike Rogers to claim the state’s open senate seat.
For the first time this election cycle, voters across the Great Lakes State are seeing the former president back Slotkin in a roughly 60-second ad called “Make You Proud.”
“She understood when to compromise and when to stand firm,” Obama says in the ad, which will air on digital channels and radio throughout the battleground state. “And that’s why I nominated her to be an assistant secretary of Defense. Elissa is the kind of leader we need: tough, independent, and effective. She’ll get the job done, and she will make you proud.”
“In the Situation Room, Elissa delivered national security briefings on some of the toughest issues we were dealing with. That’s why I sent Elissa to negotiate on my behalf because she understood when to compromise and when to stand firm,” the former president continues in the ad. “And it’s why I nominated her to be an assistant secretary of defense.”
Obama’s new show of support for Slotkin and other Democratic senatorial candidates, such as Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks, comes as his party is fighting to save its razor-thin two-seat majority in the upper chamber. Polling shows Rogers has begun closing the gap with Slotkin in recent weeks, now trailing her by only three percentage points. It’s a sign that doesn’t bode well for the Democratic Party’s goal of fighting back GOP gains in Congress.
Eric Schultz, a spokesman for Obama, indicated he believed keeping the Democratic majority in the Senate “could not be more consequential” in comments to NBC News.
“Now that voting has begun, our focus is on persuading and mobilizing voters, especially in states with key races,” Schultz explained.
Slotkin and her allies have poured millions into doing just that. Data released in September from Open Secrets, an organization that tracks money flowing into political campaigns, showed the Michigan Democrat had outraised Rogers 4 to 1.
But Slotkin suffered a blow the same month when the powerful Michigan Farm Bureau’s AgriPac decided to back her Republican opponent.
“Slotkin serves on the House Agriculture Committee and her patron, Debbie Stabenow, is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. I imagine they are both pretty pissed about that decision,” Michigan GOP strategist Jason Roe told Fox News Digital.
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The agriculture community wields significant influence in the state, where the farming industry employs nearly a million Michigan residents.
In another eleventh-hour boost to Roger’s campaign, the Senate Leadership Fund and the Great Lakes Conservative Fund recently launched ad campaigns on his behalf that are worth more than $30 million.
