Washington Post: Democrats Need To Talk About ‘Real Things.’ Meet Kristen McDonald Rivet.
SAGINAW, Michigan — When Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Michigan) had breakfast recently with a dozen beet farmers from her state, she knew without having to ask that most of them had voted Republican.
The farmers leaned forward in their chairs, she recalled, and “we spent the rest of that breakfast talking about the Medicaid cuts.”
Kristen McDonald Rivet is probably not a name you’ve heard, given that she has been a member of Congress for fewer than 12 weeks.
But Democrats desperate for a way out of the wilderness, and bickering about how to get there, would do well to acquaint themselves with what McDonald Rivet did last year — and how she did it — in this House district about 100 miles north of Detroit.
Once bright-blue, Michigan’s 8th stands at the absolute median of the Cook Political Report’s partisan voting index, which means that 217 districts across the country lean more Republican than it does, and an equal number tilt more Democratic.
With redistricting and a general shift rightward by working-class voters, Donald Trump won here by a couple of percentage points, which was slightly better than he did statewide in this critical swing state.
But, in the open House seat, Democrat McDonald Rivet, then a state senator, cruised to an easy victory of almost 7 points.
Her biography is both impressive and relatable. McDonald Rivet, 54, is the mother of six and grew up the daughter of a construction worker who cleared snow in the winter to make ends meet. Before being elected to the Michigan Senate in 2022, she was executive director of the state’s Head Start program and chief of staff of its Education Department.
Ask her how she won, and she will tell you she did it by talking about “real things” — a phrase she uses often.
Take tax cuts, an issue you don’t often hear being touted by Democrats. In the state Senate, McDonald Rivet led the effort that quintupled the state’s match of the federal earned income tax credit, which added an average of $603 to the pockets of low- and moderate-income working families.
In one memorable — and hilarious — campaign ad last year, McDonald Rivet was filmed driving a car and declaring: “You know, I could talk about cutting taxes all day.” At which point, her exasperated husband is shown hurling himself out the passenger side. (A stunt double took the actual bounce off the curb.)
Meeting with about 20 neighborhood leaders here last Friday evening, McDonald Rivet noted that the most vulnerable Michiganders are already feeling the effects of what is happening in Republican-controlled Washington.
Her office has been getting calls from food banks whose federal assistance has been frozen. The Agriculture Department is also slashing a program under which schools buy local produce for their cafeterias, and House Republicans are considering a $230 billion reduction in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more familiarly known as food stamps.
“For me, the question — and not just as a mom of six, but as somebody who has supported children all my life, is, what is our national threshold for hungry children? What’s the percentage?” she said. “For me, that number is 0 percent.”
Along with her passion, there is also a lightness to her style, something you see far too little of in politics in these dark days.
“They say politics comes down to who you want to have a beer with,” McDonald Rivet said in one of her ads, shot at the counter of a bar. Quickly ticking through her bio and campaign talking points, she added: “I root for the Lions. I hate Ohio. And I think most politicians are full of [bleep].” Then someone off camera slid her a beer, which she lifted and declared: “Cheers!”