Rep. Slotkin, Junge Make Case For Eighth District to Voters

Two years ago, Republicans lost a number of congressional races to Democrats in districts that have been red for quite some time.

The victories for moderate Demcocratic women in two mostly suburban districts here in Michigan fit a national narrative — that there was a “pink wave” in 2018.

“Certainly not everyone in the Eight District agrees with me. I have tried to be open and transparent about the decisions I’ve made.” — Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly).

In Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District, incumbent Congressman Mike Bishop lost his seat to challenger Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served three tours in Iraq. Slotkin won the seat two years after voters in the district — which includes portions of northern Oakland, Livingston, and Ingham counties — voted for Donald Trump by a seven point margin.

“The ACA was clearly not a cure all. Anything I propose would be focused on patients and providers and would demand transparency.” – Paul Junge, Republican candidate for Congress.

Now, Republicans hope to win the seat back.

GOP voters nominated Paul Junge, a former deputy district attorney, Trump Administration official, and TV news anchor.

Listen: Rep. Elissa Slotkin and GOP challenger Paul Junge talk about their campaigns to represent Michigan’s Eighth District.

Guests

Paul Junge is the Republican nominee for Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District, challenging Democratic incumbent Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly). He says one of his policy goals would be to bolster Social Security and Medicare as a member of Congress. He defends Trump’s decision to suspend collection of the payroll tax, which is the principal funding source of Social Security, but says if there was a proposal to make that move permanent “I can’t imagine I’d support that.”

Junge also stops short of saying he’d vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. “I think about the ACA, if that’s part of a solution, we should continue it, but it was clearly not a cure all. Anything I propose would be focused on patients and providers and would demand transparency,” he says.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) is the incumbent Democrat representing Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District, running for a second term in the U.S. House. Despite running in 2018 on a promise of not picking fights with Trump, she did end up voting to impeach the president and co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for an investigation into Trump’s dealings with foreign governments. 

“I can’t think of an issue I wanted to work on less in my first term in Congress than impeachment,” she says. “And I was against impeachment for a long time.”

She also says she recognizes that the Eighth District is still a relatively conservative district, but hopes voters will send her back to Washington despite not always being in lock step on policy issues.

“Certainly not everyone in the Eight District agrees with me. I have tried to be open and transparent about the decisions I’ve made,” says Slotkin.