Michigan U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin said she would consider running for president in 2028 to help the Democratic Party chart a new path built around the next generation of leaders.
“I’m not so arrogant as to think it has to be me,” Slotkin told the Des Moines Register when asked during a trip to Iowa whether she has presidential ambitions. “Midterms is what I’m focused on right now, but if it comes to the point afterwards that I think there’s not anyone else who’s on the right path, I guess I wouldn’t say no forever.”
Slotkin, now 49, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, flipping a Republican-held district. And in 2024, she was one of only four Democrats to win a U.S. Senate seat in a state that Republican President Donald Trump also carried.
She is among a large field of potential White House contenders already working to raise their national profiles with swing state trips, book tours and podcast bookings.
Slotkin was in Iowa this week to campaign on behalf of Iowa Democrats ahead of a consequential 2026 midterm election. She will be in Ohio next to campaign in Columbus and Cincinnati.
National Democrats have targeted two must-win U.S. House seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd congressional districts. Iowa also has a U.S. Senate seat up for grabs as incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst retires, and the state’s governor’s race is shaping up to be among the most competitive in the country.
After a town hall event with 3rd District Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott, Slotkin told reporters that she’s “not announcing anything” but she wants to be part of the national conversation.
“Do I want to be in that national conversation and push my own party to be better ‘cause I like winning and I don’t like when people who try to destroy democracy are in the White House? Yeah,” she said.
She joked that “the minute you try and set foot in Iowa, the people kind of lose their minds a little bit.”
But Iowa currently carries less significance in the Democratic presidential shadow primary than it did previously after national Democrats booted it from its traditional place leading off the primary calendar.
Even without its first-in-the-nation status, Slotkin said Democrats still must be able to campaign in places like Iowa. She said she made the trip to the Hawkeye State as she tours other midwestern states such as Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Idaho.
“This is part of why I think, right now, my value add can be coming back to the middle of the country where I’m from and trying to figure out a different way forward for the Democratic Party,” she said. “The old system, the old guard, it’s just not working for people. You spend five minutes with voters and they’ll tell you that. It’s not a secret, OK? And a lot of folks who have been around for a very long time, the old guard, came into politics 30 years ago, maybe more, with a very different system in place. The system has changed. And we need to change with it.”
The Democratic National Committee is currently reviewing its presidential primary calendar ahead of the 2028 election cycle.
Slotkin said it would be “malpractice” by the DNC not to include a midwestern state. But she wasn’t ready to cede that ground to Iowa as Michigan also makes an aggressive play to earn a spot in the early voting window.
“I would get in a cage match with Iowa versus Michigan in order to have that first,” she said. “I’m not going to lie and say, like, I’m going to give it over to Iowa when really I want it to be Michigan.”
But she said candidates will “need the Midwest to win a general election.”
“So let’s test out these candidates, make them run the gauntlet in the Midwest early,” she said. “I think that only makes the primary field stronger. And it’s going to be massive. So let them come to the Midwest and learn how we do things here, which is different than a place like New York or California. But cage match, for sure, for who gets the top spot.”
Des Moines Register reporter Marissa Payne contributed to this report.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She writes about campaigns, elections and the Iowa Caucuses. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on X at @brianneDMR.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Elissa Slotkin says she would consider running for president in 2028
Reporting by Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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