Democratic representative Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), who is running for U.S. Senate, hasn’t resided in the district she represents for nearly a year—a living arrangement that could complicate her efforts to paint her Republican opponent as a carpetbagger.
Slotkin moved out of Michigan’s Seventh Congressional District in the summer of 2023, months after she was elected to the seat. She told the Lansing City Pulse that she had moved to a property owned by her family in the state’s ninth district, which is represented by Republican representative Lisa McClain.
Voting records show Slotkin hasn’t been registered to vote in the district she represents since June 2023.
The Michigan Senate race is one of the most competitive in the country and could determine party control of the upper chamber. Slotkin is the Democratic frontrunner. Former representative Mike Rogers, who has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump, is the Republican frontrunner in a primary field that also includes former congressmen Peter Meijer and Justin Amash.
Slotkin’s living situation could become an issue in the Senate race, during which she has slammed Rogers over his own voter registration issues. After leaving Congress in 2015, Rogers bought a home in Cape Coral, Fla., where records show his name is still on the voter rolls.
“Fun fact: @MikeRogersForMI is literally registered to vote in Florida *right now* #MISen,” wrote Slotkin campaign spokesman Austin Cook tweeted this week.
“Home Sweet Cape Coral, am I right?” Cook wrote in another tweet.
Rogers, who served in the House for 14 years, moved back to Michigan last July and reregistered to vote in the state in August, according to his campaign.
Rogers’s campaign told the Washington Free Beacon that Slotkin is the one with weak ties to Michigan.
“Elissa Slotkin spent the majority of her adult life living in New York and Washington, D.C., only moving to Michigan after Nancy Pelosi begged, and still refuses to even live in the district she represents,” said Rogers spokesman Chris Gustafson. “It’s no wonder her campaign would rather lie than talk about the worsening cost of living and the crisis at the southern border she helped create with Joe Biden.”
Slotkin’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Slotkin—who was born in New York but raised in Michigan—has relocated multiple times over the years, coinciding with her congressional runs. In 2017, she moved back to Michigan after two decades of living outside the state. She announced her candidacy months later for the eighth district’s House seat.
After serving in the eighth district for two terms, Slotkin moved into a rented condo in the neighboring seventh district in 2022. She successfully ran for the eighth district seat the same year.
But Slotkin came under fire for her living arrangement, after Fox News reported that the apartment she rented was owned by a pharmaceutical lobbyist and one of her campaign donors. Last August, nine months after her election, Slotkin told the City Pulse that she had moved back to her family’s farm in Holly, Michigan—which is located in the ninth district. She also canceled her voter registration in her own district.
“Given changing family circumstances, Rep. Slotkin had decided to return to her family farm in Holly as her permanent residence,” Cook told the paper in August.
Seven months later, Slotkin announced her Senate run.
Original News Source – Washington Free Beacon
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