By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin is one of two incumbent Democrats in Michigan with major fundraising leads in their races for re-election, although she acknowledges it will take more than money to win a second term.

Slotkin, the Democratic incumbent for Michigan's 8th Congressional District, raised the most money of any Michigan U.S. House candidate during the second quarter of 2020. According to fundraising disclosures from the Federal Election Commission, Slotkin raised $1.4 million from April through June and has $4.8 million in cash on hand. Of the four Republicans seeking to unseat her, former TV news anchor Paul Junge of Brighton has raised the most money, with more than $550,000 on hand, including more than $260,000 raised during the second quarter. East Lansing Attorney Kristina Lyke has just over $18,000, car salesman Mike Detmer of Howell has just under $9,000 and former Marine Alan Hoover of Ortonville has about $6,900. The winner of the August 4th primary will go up against Slotkin in November.

However, Slotkin tells WHMI that her massive cash advantage, in no way assures her re-election. “This idea (that) anyone’s got this election in the bag doesn’t understand where we are as a state and where we are as a country. I mean we’re going through something with this pandemic and if anyone can tell me what’s going to happen in the rest of 2020, I’ll give them a thousand dollars, because this has been the year of surprises. And when you have surprises like that you just don’t know how things are going to go. So you know that, to me, is a big red warning sign that certainly for Democrats that they can’t take anything for granted and I think people, certainly in Livingston County, know that.”

The 8th District features Ingham County, Livingston County and the northern tier of Oakland County. Slotkin will be the featured guest on WHMI’s Viewpoint program, Sunday morning at 8:30.