WASHINGTON — Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow — who has criticized her party for being out-of-touch and too “academic” — lashed out at “Middle America” voters, stood by “coastal elites” and suggested that red and blue states could divorce “amicably” in social media posts from after President Trump’s 2016 election.
Media outlets branded McMorrow, 38, a “rising Democratic star” in the weeks before she entered the 2026 Democratic primary to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) — and the state senator has used the platform to hawk her political memoir “Hate Won’t Win” as well as attack party bosses for pushing the “same old crap out of Washington.”
However, McMorrow herself elevated claims that President Trump’s supporters are “poorly educated,” accused them of fomenting “hate” for “women, Muslims, Mexicans, [and] the disabled,” and suggested that the idea “elites” were out of touch during the 2016 campaign was “backwards.”
“We’ve downplayed the importance of quality education for all, replaced it with fear and blaming and anger, and here we are,” she posted on Election Day 2016.
Two days later, McMorrow agreed with another tweet thread that began: “All of this talk about coastal elites needing to understand more of America has it backwards.”
“It is much of white working class America that needs to reach outside its comfort zone and meet people not like them,” then-journalist Patrick Thornton wrote. “Many rural Americans have isolated themselves from the rest of the country. They live in very unrepresentative areas.”
“[P]eople on the coasts could stand to meet more rural and exurban people,” Thornton acknowledged, before adding: “Rural and exurban people need to see more of America.”
McMorrow reposted the thread and added: “I’m from rural New Jersey, this rings 100%. Empathy should go both ways, but Trump’s base fears what they’ve never seen.”
Throughout the 2016 campaign, she further fueled the narrative that Trump was a possible Russian asset whose victory could be overturned by the Electoral College.
“Ok, so say Electoral College denies Trump, or the gov. takes action against Russia…then what? The other half of the country is raging mad?” McMorrow mused in December 2016 before certification of the electoral count.
“Just genuinely curious,” she added in the same post. “Trump voters have doubled-down on him. Facts don’t matter. Are we going to pull ourselves apart?”
McMorrow also heaped praise on 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, whose characterization of Trump voters as a “basket of deplorables” in September 2016 got bipartisan backlash.
Weeks before Trump’s swearing-in as the 45th president, McMorrow mused about “Middle America” breaking away from the Acela Corridor and the West Coast.
“I had a dream that the US amicably broke off into The Ring (coasts+Can+Mex+parts Mich/Tex) and Middle America,” McMorrow tweeted on Dec. 19, 2016 without elaborating on her feelings.
As late as September 2022, McMorrow — by this time an elected official — was slamming “Today’s GOP” and promoting then-President Biden’s student loan cancellations by tweeting a GIF of Trump with the caption: “I love the poorly educated.”
Other off-the-cuff remarks that McMorrow may want back include some jabs at the purple state she is now running to represent.
“Aaaand it’s snowing. Screw you, Michigan. #NYCtoLA,” she posted in April 2014.
“There are days like these that make me miss California even more,” McMorrow groused on Jan. 5, 2017, the day before Trump’s victory over Clinton was certified by Congress.
There was even a shot at the Mitten State’s flagship university on Aug. 2, 2016, when she tweeted in support of her alma mater: “[A]t least ‘ugh, Michigan’ is a sentiment we can all get behind. #GoIRISH 🍀”.
“Mallory grew up in the social media era and like most normal people she engages in self-deprecating humor,” Andrew Mamo, McMorrow campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “These are normal tweets by a normal person, something Washington needs a lot more of.”
Mamo added that like many Americans in the colder regions of the Midwest, McMorrow often “complains about the weather.”
On Wednesday, McMorrow, who spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, launched her bid to succeed Peters after he announced in January he wouldn’t seek re-election — and has called for new Democratic leadership to take the reins.
“Democrats have to start being unafraid to go everywhere and meeting people where they are,” she told Politico in an interview last month.
“Instead of snubbing your nose at those people, which is the perception that a lot of people have of Democrats, is that we’re elitist and we’re academic, and we look down on people who don’t watch traditional Hollywood movies or engage in mainstream media — that’s the perception, and that’s why people are turning against Democrats.
“You have to be willing to go into spaces that may feel a little bit uncomfortable, and be willing to have maybe three-hour long podcast conversations, or go into a dive bar or go into a bowling alley,” she added.
“I have been so frustrated seeing really a lack of a plan and a lack of a response coming from our current party leadership,” she told The Associated Press. “It’s so lacking the urgency of this moment.”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have already passed on running to replace Peters.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) is considered McMorrow’s likely GOP challenger in the US Senate contest, one of 35 in 2026.
