Senator Elissa Slotkin, a first-term Democrat from Michigan, will deliver her party’s response to President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, stepping in at a moment when Democrats are struggling to find an effective messenger and message for pushing back on a president unbound.
In Ms. Slotkin, 48, Democrats have chosen a relatively young woman who is fresh off a victory in a competitive race in a critical presidential state. She is a center-leaning Democrat with a strong national security background (she worked as a C.I.A. analyst and in national security posts in the White Houses of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama). And her entire political career has been defined by Mr. Trump. Ms. Slotkin first won her House seat in 2018 as part of a tight-knit group of Democratic women with backgrounds in the military or intelligence who were recruited to run as a counterweight to the president.
Ms. Slotkin has said she wants to use her brief moment to lay out what’s “actually happening in our country” in terms of economic and national security.
It’s a big and fraught moment for Ms. Slotkin, who will have about 10 minutes on the national stage to fill a void for a party whose voters are desperate for someone to outline a cohesive strategy to rebuild, resist Mr. Trump and persuade voters that the party is worth supporting. She will be responding to a speech that is likely to last well over an hour, delivered to a raucous chamber that will be more than half full of Republicans eager to show off their support for their party leader.
Some Democrats are skipping the annual event all together. But Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and minority leader, encouraged members to show up, in order to have a “strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber,” according to a letter he sent to colleagues on Monday.
On a podcast, Mr. Jeffries explained that Democrats had to come because “it’s not his house, it’s the people’s house.” He added: “We shouldn’t let him come in there and just speak to a group of sycophants who are going to applaud at every single thing he says or does like lap dogs. He’s got to also know that there’s a significant opposition.”
The job of the televised response is often seen as a springboard for lesser-known politicians to boost their political profiles. But the speaking slot can also be a thankless role, one that has been botched by so many promising elected officials in both parties that it is now considered almost cursed.
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