Michigan Democratic Senate candidate accuses Elissa Slotkin of pandering to black voters

EXCLUSIVE — Tensions are flaring in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat amid accusations from an opponent of Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) that she’s playing politics with black voters.

Hill Harper, a black actor and long-shot Democratic candidate against establishment-backed Slotkin, says she’s taking for granted the powerful voting bloc in the Great Lakes State, according to campaign footage obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Harper told supporters this week at an LGBT campaign event in Grand Rapids that Slotkin has engaged in “performative” politics by beefing up her team with “a whole bunch of black folks from Detroit” while employing none in her congressional offices.

“How do I know that stuff is so performative in this race? My opponent has sat in Congress for three terms, and you know how many black folks she had on her staff, total? Total, total, total, total, total, total, total, total? Zero,” Harper said. “But you look at her campaign, and she hired a whole bunch of black folks from Detroit. She got black people on the campaign who are like, ‘Whoa!’ But when you actually hired people for the work you’re doing, did you do that? Absolutely not.”

At another point, Harper tells the attendees that Slotkin voted to “disenfranchise 800,000 poor black folk” by supporting GOP-led legislation last year that overturned the District of Columbia’s policies loosening criminal penalties as violent crime surged in the nation’s capital. Slotkin was among several dozen Democrats to vote with Republicans.

With the help of the Democratic-led Senate and President Joe Biden, the measure overturning D.C.’s criminal code was passed and signed into law in March 2023.

“My opponent voted against the D.C. Crime Bill, which is a precursor to D.C. statehood,” Harper said. “Where there’s 800,000 black people who don’t even have a senator, don’t even have a congressperson, how do you make that vote? How, tell me that? In what world do you disenfranchise 800,000 poor black folk. How do you make that vote? Okay, you guys got me hot.”

Neither the Slotkin nor the Harper campaigns responded to requests for comment. The Washington Examiner could not verify how many black staffers Slotkin has in her congressional offices or on her campaign.

The Senate seat is open due to the retirement of longtime Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). The 74-year-old has held the seat for nearly 25 years since 2001. It is one of several battleground races that Democrats must defend to maintain their razor-thin one-seat Senate majority. Michigan is also pivotal for Biden in his race against presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Slotkin is backed by Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and is heavily favored to win the primary, according to polling and nonpartisan election forecasters. In hypothetical one-on-one matchups against the various Republican candidates, Slotkin has been tied or leading up to nine percentage points in surveys conducted this year.

Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman and ex-House Intelligence Committee chairman, is favored to win the primary and supported by the Senate GOP’s campaign arm.

The Senate primaries are on Aug. 6.

Harper has consistently raised concerns over the lack of black representation among Democrats in Michigan’s 15-member congressional delegation. Rep. John James (R-MI) is the only black member from the state, which has never elected a black senator.

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Detroit, Michigan‘s largest city whose population is three-fourths black, is not represented by a black member of Congress for the first time in more than half a century. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI), who is Indian, represents the Motor City.

“Michigan is a red state until black folks vote,” Harper said in a February CNN interview ahead of the state’s presidential primary, as he discussed Democratic opposition to Biden’s Israel support. “When this open U.S. Senate seat came up that I’m obviously running for, the Democratic leadership did not come to the black community and say, ‘You know what, you’re unrepresented, let’s have a conversation, who would you like to see?’ Instead, they hand-picked a candidate that they said, ‘This is who the establishment has chosen,’ and that candidate does not necessarily have a real relationship with the black community.”

Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.