Democrats will be trying to keep their slim Senate majority and will look to find a candidate with Stabenow’s broad support. Republicans say they’ll aggressively go after the seat.
— Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a member of the Democratic leadership, announced Thursday that she will not run for a fifth term in 2024, a surprise decision that sets up a scramble by both parties for an open seat in the key battleground state. “It really was the right time for me,” she said.
The news shocked many Democrats in the state and her impending retirement turns Michigan’s next Senate race into one of the most competitive in the country as the party tries to preserve its slim majority.
Stabenow told The Associated Press that she made the decision to retire a few months ago. “I knew that this was a moment when I could pass the torch to the next generation of leaders,” she said.
Democrats will face a test to find a candidate with Stabenow’s broad support. “We’ll see how things develop,” the senator said, adding that she expects “to have a lot of discussions with people.”
On the GOP side, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans, said in a statement after Stabenow’s announcement that it would “aggressively target this seat in 2024.”
While the current political climate in Michigan favors Democrats following a midterm election where they flipped the state House and Senate, the state is still expected to be one of the nation’s premier battlegrounds in the 2024 presidential election. Only one Michigan Republican has held a seat in the Senate in the past 40 years.
