Will Michigan Democrats Really Turn Out After a Virtual Campaign?
On the afternoon of August 4—primary day in Michigan—Slotkin joined her friend, state Rep. Sarah Anthony, on a “contactless canvassing” tour of a south Lansing neighborhood. For an hour, the two masked women walked along shabby sidewalks and across overgrown lawns, toting campaign literature they affixed to doors. In that time, the congresswoman’s human interaction was limited to joking with two children about tying her muddy boots; yelling to a roofer that he should think about voting in November (“Good idea!” he mused); and saying hello to a pair of older women who engaged Anthony, their representative, in a brief conversation from seats on a front patio.
“It’s frustrating,” she tells me a short while later, sitting at a picnic table outside local party headquarters, just before visiting the popcorn shop. “I’m hypersensitive to getting too close and invading their space on their own porch. I’m struggling with that personal connection.”
