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\n

Hill Democrats on Thursday named Sen. Elissa Slotkin to deliver their response to President Donald Trump\u2019s joint address next week.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a high-profile platform for the first-term senator and an early indication that Democrats are looking to emphasize kitchen-table issues after their drubbing in the last election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m looking forward to speaking directly to the American people next week. The public expects leaders to level with them on what\u2019s actually happening in our country,\u201d Slotkin said in a statement. \u201cFrom our economic security to our national security, we\u2019ve got to chart a way forward that actually improves people\u2019s lives in the country we all love, and I\u2019m looking forward to laying that out.”<\/p>\n

Democratic leaders signaled Slotkin\u2019s speech could focus on economic issues, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries saying in a statement she\u2019d communicate about the cost of living and protecting Medicaid and Medicare \u2014 as GOP lawmakers mull cuts to certain safety-net programs in their planned party-line budget bill. Polling showed that voter discontent about the economy and rising inflation, as well as immigration, were significant factors in Republicans winning unified control of government last fall.<\/p>\n

Slotkin, who\u2019d previously served in the House and flipped a red district in 2018, narrowly won her Senate seat last fall to succeed retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow. She\u2019d carved out a centrist lane in the House and had been among a group of House Democrats who focused on national security.<\/p>\n

Democrats also named Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Hispanic Caucus, to give a Spanish-language response to Trump\u2019s speech. Some Democrats have worried about Hispanic voters drifting to the right, especially in working-class districts across the country.<\/p>\n

The minority party generally uses the speech as a launching pad for a rising star to spotlight a specific issue. Former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear gave a health care-centered speech as a response to Trump\u2019s first address in 2017, and that issue became central to Democrats\u2019 efforts to recapture the majority in the midterms the next year.<\/p>\n

Progressives in the Working Families Party also named Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.) to deliver their own response to the president. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hill Democrats on Thursday named Sen. Elissa Slotkin to deliver their response to President Donald Trump\u2019s joint address next week. It\u2019s a high-profile platform for the first-term senator and an early indication that Democrats are looking to emphasize kitchen-table issues after their drubbing in the last election. \u201cI’m looking forward to speaking directly to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}