MI-Sen: Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced Thursday that she would not seek a fifth term in 2024 in Michigan, a move that sets off an open seat race in a state that swung from Trump to Biden. Stabenow, whose 2000 win made her the first, and to date only, woman to represent the Wolverine State in the upper chamber, hinted she wanted another woman to succeed her in her statement. “But I have always believed it’s not enough to be the ‘first’ unless there is a ‘second’ and a ‘third,” she said.
Stabenow’s departure ends a long political career. The future senator, who paid her way through Michigan State University by working as a folk singer, first sought elected office in 1974 at the age of 24 when she campaigned for a seat on the Ingham County Commission. Stabenow, who was a graduate student at MSU at the time, recounted that she decided to run after she learned that Republican incumbent Gordon Swix, who had fended off her husband by 200 votes two years before, wanted to close the one nursing home in Lansing that accepted Medicaid patients.
Stabenow ended up scoring a landslide win over Swix, who disparaged her as “that young broad,” and she went on to serve in both the state House and Senate. The state senator sought a promotion in 1994 when she sought to challenge Republican Gov. John Engler, but Stabenow lost the primary 35-30 to former Rep. Howard Wolpe. Wolpe soon selected her to be his running mate, but their ticket lost in a 61-38 landslide during that Republican wave year.
Stabenow, though, got a chance to return to elected office in 1996 when she went up against freshman Rep. Dick Chrysler, who was an ally of hard-right Speaker Newt Gingrich, in what was then numbered the 8th Congressional District. Labor groups made this contest a major priority, while Chrysler and his allies urged Lansing area voters to reject what one ad characterized as, “The big labor bosses. Big money. Big Lies. Big liberals.”
Chrysler’s loyalty to Gingrich, though, proved to be a major obstacle here: As political analyst William Ballenger put it at the time, “It takes a person with great political skills and finely tuned political antennae to take a seat like this. Chrysler is not that sort of person.” Stabenow, who retained a deep political base here, also was a far better campaigner than the incumbent, whom the Washington Post described as someone who “often appears stiff and self-conscious on the campaign trail.”
Chrysler got an endorsement late in the race from Ross Perot's Reform Party, but it was far from enough. While observers anticipated a close race, Stabenow scored a 54-44 victory: According to analyst Kiernan Park-Egan, Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole 50-41 in this seat, with the balance going to Perot.
Stabenow, who was decisively re-elected two years later, soon set her sights on a 2000 campaign against Sen. Spencer Abraham, another Republican who was swept in during the 1994 wave. Abraham made use of his considerable financial resources to attack the congresswoman early and promote, and he posted what the Chicago Tribune characterized as a “steady but not overwhelming lead” in the polls through early October. Stabenow, who did not face any primary opposition, went on the air during the final month of the campaign and emphasized lowering the cost of pharmaceuticals.
And in a development that would be unimaginable today, the anti-immigration Federation for American Immigration Reform ran commercials against the Republican: One infamous spring newspaper ad accused Abraham, who was one of the most prominent Arab American politicians in the country, of “trying to make it easy for Osama bin Laden to export terrorism to the U.S.” Stabenow, for her part, disavowed the messaging. The challenger ended up winning the cliffhanger race 49-48 as Al Gore was taking Michigan 51-46.
Stabenow had a far easier time in 2006 when the blue wave helped lift her to a 57-41 victory over Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, a Republican who never led in a single released poll. The senator initially seemed to be in for a tougher 2012 contest against former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, but he made news for all the wrong reasons when he deployed a flagrantly racist ad during the Super Bowl starring a woman of Asian descent speaking in broken English, featuring bon mots like, "Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spend-it-now." Backlash to the spot torpedoed Hoekstra's campaign, and Stabenow beat him by a punishing 59-38 margin.
Stabenow’s final campaign in 2018 pitted her against John James, a well-funded Army veteran backed by Donald Trump. While Trump had narrowly carried Michigan two years before in a shocker, his unpopularity helped establish Stabenow as the favorite in what was shaping up to be another good year for Democrats. However, while the senator posted huge leads going into October, James held her to a surprisingly modest 52-46 victory.