Rep. Haley Stevens Talks Michigan Race

Published Nov 6, 2024, 10:38 PM

Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan speaks on Donald Trump's victory and state and the implications it will have moving forward. She speaks with Bloomberg's Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz.

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Michigan is a big, diverse, beautiful place that has given so much opportunity to so many people, and that is something that we should all be deeply proud of. If you can do big things in Michigan, you could do big things in the whole country, because we are a microcosm of the country here. We are home to Democrats, Republicans and independents and everything in between, and that's not going to change anytime too. We are on this boat together.

Democratic Congresswoman Melissa Slotkin of Michigan, just one Michigan Senate seat now officially called by the Associated Press, urging unity within the state during a speech that we witnessed last night. Joining us now fresh from her own re election win, is Slotkin's colleague, Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens of Michigan. Congresswoman, thanks for being back on Bloomberg. Good to see you on balance of power, and congratulations on your win. How come that support for Democrats not bubble to the top of the ticket in your critical swing state.

Well, look, I'm not here to armchair quarterback. Just as the data is fresh on the printing press age. Look there were a lot of things, and Kamala Harris reminded of the upper reminded of us of this every time she came to Michigan that were the underdogs. There were a lot of things that were in some ways inherently stacked against us. A late arrival to the ticket, a new ticket, some of the confusion surrounding that, and one thing with Alissa Sakin that she knows how to do. And she told me this morning at nearly three am, just because I had the chance to talk to her, and we're so close, that she had a really small margin of victory, but it was going to be a margin of victory, and she almost got it to the number before all the votes were in, but they were talking to clerks and getting the talent in and so these are just close elections and there's a lot to dissect on it.

I'm here in Oakland County.

You know, I don't want to be the highest vote get or necessarily in my congressional district, but I was. And in part we got to look at that what went wrong. We're going to be talking about that, but we also got to look to the future too. I mean, in many respects, this election just seems like a big wave in a lot of respects, and we've just.

We've got to look forward.

And not be sitting around talking about twenty sixteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty four. I mean, we've been a governing party. We've done a lot of great things. Mike Johnson saying he wants to repeal the Chips Act, which is creating jobs in Michigan, manufacturing jobs.

Allowing us to compete with China.

Trump's tariff only policies and I gotta talk to his administration about.

This at some point, they're not going to work.

Tariff only policies will not work for my small business is in my manufacturers, and I remember having these conversations with the administration in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. So we got to find consensus. People are sick of the personality wars. They're obviously tired about the high cost of food and groceries. And sometimes after six years, you know, Democrats took.

The House, help the House lost the House. Biden is in. You know, they just make a little switch, and we'll obviously still see what will happen with the House of Representatives too.

Well as we consider switches here. Congress women. We've been talking all cycle about the blue wall states that lit up on my electoral map. Right now are bright red, all three of them. So for those questioning whether Michigan is still a brick in the blue wall after this election, what would you say?

You know, it's it's a big loss for us here and I was with our governor and the enthusiasm was up. There's a lot of organized Democrats. There's amazing grassroot things that happen at the local level. And it's a reminder as we'll head into other statewide elections in two years from now house seats that I still want to win here in Michigan, that we're going to have work to do. And we've got to recognize that we also had very high turnout in Michigan that was unique for us compared to other blue wall states in the frankly other states around the country. Our Secretary of State reported that we had our highest voter turnout in history in twenty twenty four and Trump won Michigan, So we got to reckon with that. I'm really proud of the people who worked in Michigan on the campaigns, these campaign staffers, I mean they just take on such unique positions. And I don't think there was any fault to theirs. I think Kamala Harrison rose to the occasion. Joe Biden conceded or suspended his campaign.

She picked your governor, Wressian Whitmer. What would have been the outcome in Michigan.

Now, our governor was playing a big role in her race, and it is looking at some of these dynamics.

She was our governor played a big role rather and.

Look, she remains very popular and a lot of times what people don't understand. You got people who you vote for Congress, people you vote for for governor, and it feels different for the presidency. I mean, we're federalist system.

And you see that.

I mean there were people who voted for Whitmer in Michigan and just two years ago, and I know they voted for for Trump.

This last time.

And we're going to sit here and agonize some great long form journalism pieces and all this and that. It's like I got to get back to Washington next week and get back to work for people. I mean, we got a budget to pass, We've got a ron to deal with. I'm certainly still going to work on my critical supply chain critical mineral bills that we'd like to get done before the end of the term. At least introduced something along those lines, and we we just got to.

Keep moving forward.

I look, I lived through the twenty twenty or excuse me, twenty ten election cycle. I was in Wisconsin and I was younger then, and I just remember feeling like, holy smokes.

You know, Obama called it the Great Shalaki.

I mean it's Ted Strickland lost Wisconsin and it was a bummer, and we lost governorships, we lost the House, and on and on.

That's not what this is.

Per se, but something that we just have to own up to that frankly, Donald Trump didn't do four years ago, is peaceful transfer of power. You see, President Biden already invited him to the White House. I expect President Biden to be at his inauguration, at Donald Trump's inauguration. You know, there is that graciousness. There are these personality factors. We spent a lot of time talking about personality, and look know, people know who this guy is. I'm gonna have to deal with him as a member of Congress and him as president, and together we've got to somehow figure it out for this country, and we lived through a nightmare scenario with COVID hitting our country. We obviously had the vaccine. We're really proud to produce that here in Michigan. I know manufacturing brings people together. I'm going to continue to serve my constituents, stand up for their freedoms, their values, and I'm going to continue to help people because that's what my job's all about.

All Right, Congressoman, we will leave it on that note. Thank you so much for joining us. Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens of Michigan. We appreciate your time

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