Whichever way the elections in Michigan swung, the intelligence community would have gained a new ally. Retired CIA analyst and incumbent Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, was running for a promotion to the Senate, facing off against retired FBI agent and former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican. In the end, the former CIA officer prevailed. Slotkin has won her race, according to the Associated Press, becoming the first CIA veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Michigan's elections were not just about Michigan. They were about the place of the American national security state in the world. In the presidential race, local Muslim and Arab-American communities became an unexpected swing demographic when they peeled off in protest of the Biden administration's support for wars in the Middle East. And the Senate race between two hawkish intelligence veterans attracted a lot of out-of-state donations, many of them linked to the Washington, D.C., beltway.
