Democrat Mallory McMorrow, a state senator in Michigan, has suspended her campaign for U.S. Senate.

“Today, I’m announcing that I am suspending my campaign for United States Senate. And I’m doing it with a deep, deep sense of gratitude. For our thousands of volunteers, for everyone who donated what you could — building a campaign with zero corporate PAC dollars. For my staff, who built this team up from nothing. I thank you,” McMorrow said on Sunday.

“For my family. For Ray, who believed in me long before I ever believed in myself. And for Noa. Our five-year-old, who presses her hands up against the window to wave goodbye every morning when I leave for work,” she continued.

Watch McMorrow’s video address below:

Full text:

Today, I’m announcing that I am suspending my campaign for United States Senate.

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And I’m doing it with a deep, deep sense of gratitude. For our thousands of volunteers, for everyone who donated what you could — building a campaign with zero corporate PAC dollars. For my staff, who built this team up from nothing. I thank you.

For my family. For Ray, who believed in me long before I ever believed in myself. And for Noa. Our five-year-old, who presses her hands up against the window to wave goodbye every morning when I leave for work.

“Remember, Mom,” she reminded me recently. “It’s not about if you win. It’s about trying hard and having fun.”

She’s right. So I want to be very clear about what this announcement is not. I may be suspending this campaign, but I am not leaving the fight.

I never planned on politics. After the 2016 election, I felt lost. I picked up my phone and typed five words into the search bar: “How to run for office.”

And here’s what I learned: when regular people get in the fight, things can change. In my very first election, we flipped a district against the incumbent. Four years later — with so many of you — we flipped the Michigan Senate for the first time in nearly forty years.

And we didn’t stop at winning. We repealed Michigan’s abortion ban. We raised wages. We made sure every child gets breakfast and lunch at school. We made it easier to go to college. We expanded civil rights and voting rights. And so, so much more.

These wins took thousands of us — showing up every single day, refusing to give up when there were setbacks. That’s why I’m staying in this fight. And why I need you to stay in it with me.

Now, I haven’t been shy about calling for new leadership and a better Democratic Party. I mean it. The energy is there. People are crying out for change. And we owe it to them to listen.

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Then we need to build it up, together, from the ground up.

So here’s what we do next. Every day through November 3rd. We win this Senate seat and send Mike Rogers back to Florida for good. Whoever wins this primary on August 4th will have my full support.

Then, let’s elect Jocelyn Benson as our next Governor. Let’s flip the State House, and expand our majority in the State Senate. Let’s elect Democrats up and down the ticket and show the rest of this country what it means to fight like Michigan.

Ten years ago, I started this work heartbroken, typing five words into a search bar. And I learned the only thing that has ever really changed this country: ordinary people who love something enough to fight for it.

I love this country. I love Michigan. And I love the little girl who waves at me from the window every morning, trusting the grown-ups to leave her a state and a country worth inheriting.

That’s who I’m fighting for.

And I’m not going anywhere. I hope you’ll join me.

McMorrow’s exit makes Michigan’s Senate Democratic primary a two-way contest between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official.

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Last year, The Post reported how after the 2016 election, McMorrow concurred with a tweet that said: “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-reporter Patrick Thornton contended in the Twitter thread. “Many rural Americans have isolated themselves from the rest of the country. They live in very unrepresentative areas.”

She quote-tweeted that post, adding, “I’m from rural New Jersey, this rings 100%. Empathy should go both ways, but Trump’s base fears what they’ve never seen.”

She later admitted that it was not an “eloquent” tweet on her part.

McMorrow had been seen as a rising star within the Democratic Party among progressive circles, having garnered national attention for high-profile fights over abortion and other issues in the Michigan state legislature.

In 2022, she went viral for tearing into a GOP colleague who suggested in a fundraising blast that she was grooming, pointing to her stance on LGBTQ issues.

In polls conducted before McMorrow had dropped out, El-Sayed had a commanding lead over Stevens in the primary.

The New York Times shared further:

Ms. Stevens is backed by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and pro-Israel groups, while Dr. El-Sayed has endorsements from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

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Ms. McMorrow did not make an endorsement in her announcement Sunday but said that she would support whoever wins the primary.

Ms. McMorrow’s argument to Michigan voters was that they did not have to choose between Ms. Stevens, a four-term congresswoman with deep ties to the party establishment, and Dr. El-Sayed, whose left-wing views have made some Democrats nervous about his ability to win a general election. He lost the 2018 Democratic primary for governor to Gretchen Whitmer, who subsequently won two general elections by wide margins.

“We are being presented right now with what I believe is a false binary choice” between “the status quo in Haley Stevens” and “a candidate who has never won a campaign before,” Ms. McMorrow said in a CNN interview last month.

Michigan Republicans are set to nominate former Representative Mike Rogers, who narrowly lost the state’s Senate race in 2024. The Senate seat is being vacated by Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat who is not seeking a third term. The primary is Aug. 4.

 

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