People Are “Terrified.” Mallory McMorrow Has a Democratic Blueprint for Hope

I have seen the Democratic Party’s future and its name is Mallory McMorrow. Millions of other people have also seen McMorrow, of course. Three years ago, she leapt from obscurity as a first-term Michigan state senator to become a viral and cable-news star by delivering a searing, heartfelt speech in the state capitol. During those remarks, McMorrow ripped an unfounded Republican attempt to brand her a pedophile and called out the broader right-wing campaign to demonize marginalized people.

Now 38 years old and the mother of a four-year-old daughter, McMorrow is on the verge of going national again—in two ways. The first arrives next week as a book, titled Hate Won’t Win, a part memoir, part how-to guide for despondent Democrats. The second push is in the works: A likely 2026 run for Michigan’s soon-to-be vacant US Senate seat.

McMorrow, whether in print or in conversation, is funny, sharp, principled, tough, and relatable—exactly the kind of young voice her party needs if it’s going to bounce back. Hmmm, which other youthful Democrat from the Upper Midwest with a distinctive name and a gift for communication rose rapidly from state senator to US Senator to the White House? McMorrow may or may not share that future trajectory, but in the meantime, she’s eager to talk about everything from her darkly humorous experience with alleged sexual harassment (“it was obscene and laughable”) to her ideas for how to take on President Donald Trump. “We have to be honest with people that it is bad right now,” McMorrow says in an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited for length and clarity. “But I would caution Democrats: Are you adding to that chaos or are you cutting through it in a way that’s helpful?”

Vanity Fair: The title of your book is Hate Won’t Win. I realize you chose it before November, but given the election results, do you want a do-over?

Mallory McMorrow: No. The title for me is about the long haul. This moment is certainly a step back, but I still believe fundamentally—and I had a town hall [recently] with a state representative that was at overflow capacity, people were standing in the hallway—and that to me indicates people really care and they’re not checked out. And so long as we all participate, then I think the title still stands.

What was the mood of the town hall?

People are paying attention, and they’re engaged, but they’re also terrified.

How is the national Democratic Party leadership doing in its response to President Donald Trump?

I think there’s a real vacuum and a real lack of leadership. We have to dig ourselves out of a hole because people do not trust Democrats right now. And then to see Democrats on the federal level looking for insidery, procedural moves to slow things down—it just is not enough. It’s not enough to stand behind a podium in front of the Capitol and talk about how Trump’s Cabinet picks are unqualified. What are you doing and why are you not in your community? Why are you not meeting with people? Why are you not having these local meetings where people actually are? What I’ve heard more than anything else is that people don’t just want [elected] Democrats to do something—people want to do it too. I had multiple people last night tell me, “What can I do to help?”

That is what I’m trying to do in my corner of the world, but I wish federal Democrats did a better job. It can’t just be, “Chip in five bucks.” Treat people with respect and like they’re actually a part of this with you and give them tangible things to do that would be helpful. People want to know how they can fight back. People are so sick and tired of politics and politicians and business as usual that the simple thing with Donald Trump—and this is not true for everybody who voted for him—but I think there are enough people who just want to blow the system up, and he’s the man to do it. And that’s what we’re seeing right now. But I think Democrats have a lot to learn about how we talk to people.

One theme of the book is you figuring out how to communicate in ways that reach voters.

When we see the budget that passed out of Congress, once again it’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. But it’s not just tax cuts—We pay for it. It’s our tax dollars that are being reappropriated to give Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg more money. That is a very visceral thing. We can’t talk about it in abstracts. It is the reverse Robin Hood and we should call that out. It’s stealing from the poor to give to the rich. And I don’t think that’s what a lot of people voted for, even people who voted for Donald Trump.

You write about progressive advocacy groups promoting the use of terms like “chestfeeding.” Do you think “woke” language is an actual problem for Democrats, or have Republicans made it seem like Democrats are too woke?

I mean, I think it’s both. I think that Republicans are incredibly adept at setting the traps for Democrats, and Democrats too often don’t notice, and they fall for the trap. So, this entire last cycle, “Are Democrats too woke?” I think is the wrong question. But were Democrats falling into the traps that Republicans were setting? The millions upon millions of dollars that Donald Trump and Elon spent on anti-trans ads was a trap.

We have to think about what winning looks like. Winning is a numbers game, and it is about getting more people on your side in support of your issue. And to do that, you have to speak in the language of the people that you need to convert to your side.

We saw this in Michigan after Dobbs fell, that there was thankfully a language shift. Because there was so much pressure to talk in what some of the progressive groups said was inclusive language, things like “chestfeeding” and “birthing persons,” that acknowledged, and I think rightfully so, that trans people may need and do access reproductive care. But if we know that, in a state like Michigan, which is a fairly evenly divided purple state, we need to get Republicans on our side to codify abortion in our state constitution, we have to talk in their language. And if you’ve never met a trans person, that’s not going to make sense to you.

I feel like I could lean into this because I was raised Catholic and I understand a Catholic upbringing. I would go into areas like Macomb County or downriver that are more blue-collar, that are trending away from Democrats. And I would be able to talk to deeply religious people. Everybody knows a woman who has lost a pregnancy, has miscarried, has had an ectopic pregnancy, has had a stillbirth. It is such a widespread lived experience that I think for decades women were told just not to talk about that. The only way we were able to succeed in building support for Prop 3, which codified abortion access and reproductive rights, was to speak in that language, in the language that people understand.

In 2022, a Michigan Republican state senator, Lana Theis, sent out a fundraising email that claimed you wanted to “groom and sexualize kindergartners.” The speech you delivered in response the next day made you nationally famous. The book describes what happened in between: a pivotal conversation you had with a group of high school students, where one of them asked about the wave of bills targeting LGBTQ people.

For that one girl to ask me, “I’m queer, why does my state hate me?” It was such a punch to the gut. It kind of connected how horrible I felt for one day—because I did, I felt horrendous—and realized this is what she feels like every day, every time she sees one of these headlines, every time she sees Christopher Rufo is connecting via Zoom to a Michigan legislative hearing to ban trans kids from playing on sports teams. She feels like this constantly. I realized, I’m fine. I’ve never felt worse in my life, but I only felt this way for a day.

A lot of people told me [about the groomer accusation], ‘Oh, it’s ugliness, it’s bullying, don’t do anything about it.’ But that wouldn’t do anything to stop it. And that’s when I decided, I have to respond. And I have to respond in a way that is going to cut through.

Senator Theis is a woman who has “Christian” in her Twitter bio and always makes a point to wear a cross necklace. Watching the rise of groups like Moms for Liberty, they were always led by white Christian women who were using and weaponizing their position and their Christianity to hurt kids. I wanted to stand up and say, excuse my language, but that’s bullshit. I am a straight, white, Christian married mom who is tired of you hurting kids. I did it in a way to hopefully signal to other women who look like me and have the same privilege that I do that we don’t have to do this. There’s a lot of reasons to be frustrated as a working mom in Michigan and in this country, but we don’t have to hurt kids to get the protections that we want.

I think one reason why my speech resonated the way that it did was because I made the direct connection for people. At the end, I say people who are different are not the reason why health care costs are too high, or why teachers are leaving the profession, or why the roads are crumbling. And I think we have to continually hammer that message home.

One prelude to that speech was a more local controversy, an incident that would seem comical if it wasn’t so offensive: Shortly after being elected, at an orientation meeting for new legislators, you say you were sexually harassed by a fellow senator during a break in the anti-sexual-harassment training. (The now former senator, Peter Lucido, denied McMorrow’s accusation; an internal senate investigation concluded that he had engaged in “inappropriate workplace behavior.”)

It feels like something that would be written in an episode of Veep, not something that happens in real life. I had just worked my ass off for a year and a half to get here, and this is my first experience, being sexually harassed during sexual harassment training? You’ve got to be kidding me.

There’s a fine line between making it all about yourself. And I think people get very frustrated with politicians who want to be the main character, I hate that. What I try to do is share my lived experience in a way that allows people to share theirs and step into my space. And that is where I recognized that I have a lot of power. People want to see themselves in our elected leaders. I think this is a moment in time where the federal level is wildly out of step with most Americans, because most Americans aren’t 70 years old and above and independently wealthy. They are young parents trying to make it work and trying to pay bills and trying to buy a house. We need more of that, and I’m happy to do that if it gives people the space to participate because they see somebody like them.

Are you going to try to join the federal level by running for US Senate next year?

I am very seriously exploring. I have not made an official announcement yet.

Would you run even if Pete Buttigieg also runs?

Yeah, I think so. I know Pete. I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but I know him fairly well. I have a lot of respect for Pete. But I’ve seen a lot in my now two terms in the state senate and what we’ve been able to do—the successes that we’ve had, the failures that we’ve had—in a way that I don’t know he does. There is strength in coming up from the local level. [Shortly after our conversation, Buttigieg announced he would not be running for the US Senate seat in Michigan.]

Trump’s 2016 victory provoked you to run for office for the first time. Before that, you had done many different things, including working as a designer at Mattel. Which Hot Wheels car were you responsible for?

I was a senior designer over global branding licensing, so I designed everything but the cars. I have a patent! I invented a ride-on toy called the Urban Shredder. It was three-wheeled, with skateboard trucks in the front and a powered wheel in the back. You rode it face first, kind of like an Olympic skeleton. You could kick out the back end and there were spark plates, so it would shoot sparks. Which was super fun. We built an adult-size prototype that went 45 miles an hour, which I would ride around campus through the parking lot. It was very dangerous.

You could have just hung it up right there. What else was left to achieve?

It’s a good question. Certainly I got a lot less death threats than I do now.