Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow launched her campaign for Sen. Gary Peters’ U.S. Senate seat on Wednesday with a video calling for a new generation of leadership in Washington and with Democrats.
She’s calling for the elders of the Democratic Party to step aside, to let a new generation step up, saying her party has been worse off because of its inability to pass the torch: “We are not bringing in new ideas and a new approach and a new mix of people in a way that has really hurt us.” McMorrow is 38.
McMorrow says if elected, she will not vote for Sen. Chuck Schumer to continue as Senate party leader. She disagrees with what she calls Schumer’s “slow-and-steady strategy,” criticizing Schumer’s “idea that we’re just going to wait and get them in the midterms, instead of recognizing that Donald Trump has completely remade this party and the priority of the MAGA party is to burn the government and institutions down and to dismantle it piece by piece.”
She also sent a private letter to President Biden asking him to step aside in the presidential race in 2024.
McMorrow came to light in 2022 over a speech on the Michigan Senate floor, responding to a MAGA colleague calling her a “groomer” who was “sexualizing children.”
She boldly stood up in the chamber, declaring she is “a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom” who wants “every kid to feel seen, heard and supported — not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight, white and Christian.”
That moment stands as an illustration of how McMorrow wants Democrats to address the Democrats’ messaging issue that Republicans have exploited.
“We have to talk to 99% of people, which means language that they understand, using examples that they understand, because you need a majority of people on your side to have the votes to move the policy that you want to move that gets to the end goal. I want to have the fight on my own terms, and I refuse to let Republicans paint me into a corner on the fight they want me to have,” McMorrow said.
An example she uses is the debate over “men in womens’ sports.”
“There is a massive difference between running cross country and, let’s say, D-1 [Division I] rugby or chess or e-sports, because that’s another conversation that’s come up. I don’t mean to be deflective, but that’s why I say that the sport’s governing body is the best place to make these decisions in a way that recognizes that, depending on when an individual may have transitioned, maybe there is a biological advantage, maybe there isn’t. Is that fair? That is not a place for me to decide or politicians in Washington to decide,” she said.
