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Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., is now running to fill the soon-to-be vacant U.S. Senate seat in that state, she confirmed Monday. "Today, I'm announcing my run to be Michigan's next U.S. Senator," the 46-year-old Tweeted in a statement linked to a campaign video.
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"We need a new generation of leaders that thinks differently, works harder, and never forgets that we are *public servants*."
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said last month, she will not seek re-election next year for what would have been a fifth term.
Slotkin was first elected to the House in 2019, where she serves Michigan's 8th Congressional District.
The former CIA analyst also served as acting assistant Defense Department secretary under former President Barack Obama. She is the first high-profile candidate to join the race to replace Stabenow.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D- Mich., had been rumored as a potential candidate for the vacancy as had Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Both have said they are not interested in the position.
Slotkin, who grew up on a farm in Holly, Mich., was one of only a few Democrats who did not vote for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she last ran for the leadership position.
She has made campaigning without major corporate financial support, a pillar of her platform.
"I've never taken corporate PAC money, and I'm not starting now. Our Senate campaign will therefore be powered by real people chipping in what they can," she Tweeted Monday.
She went on to tout her security background as an important credential she brings to the job.
"Look, we all know America is going through something right now. We seem to be living crisis to crisis," Slotkin said in Monday's campaign ad.
"But there are certain things that should be really simple, like living a middle class life in the state that invented the middle class."
