The race for Michigan’s open Senate seat has its first high-profile candidate.

Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat who flipped a state Senate seat in 2018 and gained national attention in 2022 with a viral floor speech, launched her campaign Wednesday to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. 

Speaking directly to camera in her announcement video, McMorrow, 38, acknowledged “fear and anger and uncertainty about people in power who frankly have no business being there.” But the “same old crap out of Washington” won’t fix it, she said. 

“We need new leaders,” she said. “The same people in D.C. who got us into this mess are not going to be the ones to get us out of it.”

McMorrow has already said she would not support Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York as Senate Democratic leader after Schumer helped advance a stopgap spending bill last month that most Democrats opposed. 

McMorrow currently serves as the majority whip in the Michigan Senate, where she’s in her second term representing a Detroit-area district. 

She first gained a national profile in 2022 for a speech pushing back on a Republican state senator who had accused her in a fundraising email, without evidence, of wanting to “groom and sexualize kindergartners.” 

“I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom” who wants “every kid to feel seen, heard and supported — not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight, white and Christian,” McMorrow said on the chamber floor, The Associated Press reported at the time. 

She landed a coveted speaking slot at last summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where she criticized Project 2025, a policy blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term, drafted by his allies, that Democrats railed against throughout last year’s campaign. 

The 2026 Senate race will be McMorrow’s biggest electoral challenge yet. While former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Hillary Scholten have passed on seeking the Democratic nomination, two other House Democrats are considering runs: Haley Stevens and Kristen McDonald Rivet. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is also a potential candidate. 

On the Republican side, former Rep. Mike Rogers is considering another run. He was the Republican nominee for the state’s other Senate seat last year, which he lost to Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin. Conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, who lost a 2022 race for governor, has also said she is weighing runs for Senate and governor, while Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga has not ruled out a Senate bid. 

Republicans have not won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994. Voters in the battleground state narrowly backed Trump for the second time last year while also electing Slotkin by an even narrower margin to the Senate.