After Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., won reelection, she said that she will “not be voting” to reelect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as House Speaker, Politico reported.
“I have no idea if people are gonna run against her, or who might run against her. And I will of course have this conversation directly with her. But I believe we need new leadership,” she said. “I would love to see more Midwesterners, because if you look across the leadership. … I respect these people, but it’s New York and California.”
However, no House Democrats have stepped up to challenge Pelosi among their caucus.
Slotkin, who is closely linked with the administrative state as a former CIA analyst and Defense Department official, won election in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District in the 2018 midterms.
Republicans had held the Lansing-area seat for almost 20 years before her victory.
Slotkin said Democrats fared poorly this election cycle in the heartland because of the party’s lack of a unified message.
This allowed Republicans to attack Democrats for supporting the Defund the Police movement, socialism, and collusion with big banks and technology companies.
“The brand of the national Democratic Party is mushy,” she said. “People don’t know what we stand for, what we’re about. So, every two years when the new flavor of attack comes out, it’s easy to convince a portion of the population that those attacks are true, because they still don’t know our brand.”
People believe these attacks because the Democratic Party platform adopted many of the most radical proposals offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Slotkin said the Democratic Party needs to focus on economic policy rather than cultural and social issues if they want to win in 2022.
“I remember, long before literally Donald Trump was even a twinkle in our eye, the way that people in my life here couldn’t stand political correctness,” she said.
