Michigan Representative Seeking Senate Seat Tells Donors Biden Trails There

The leading Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat in Michigan said President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in her key battleground state, telling donors during a fund-raiser on Tuesday that private polling showed Mr. Trump ahead and the Senate race a tossup.

“Right now, President Biden is behind Trump in all of our polling and this Senate race is in a dead heat,” Representative Elissa Slotkin said during a video call with donors, according to a clip of the event obtained by The New York Times.

Ms. Slotkin also appeared to take a shot at Mr. Biden during the call by sarcastically noting that she was running for the seat only because Senator Debbie Stabenow, 74, was “doing a radical thing and passing the torch.”

A spokesman for Ms. Slotkin, the leading Democratic candidate heading into the state’s Senate primary next month, declined to comment.

Ms. Slotkin is expected to face Mike Rogers, a Republican former congressman who has emerged as his party’s leading contender. An average of public polls in Michigan from the data-driven news site FiveThirtyEight shows a tossup in the presidential race in Michigan, while several recent polls show Ms. Slotkin with a slight advantage in the Senate race.

A number of Democrats have called for Mr. Biden to step aside in the presidential race since his disastrous debate performance last month. Mr. Biden has insisted he will remain a candidate, despite the hand-wringing from Democrats in Michigan and beyond.

Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, has criticized the Biden campaign for its handling of the debate fallout and said Mr. Biden and his team have to “listen to people — and, by the way, I think the campaign needs to listen to us.” In an interview on Friday on Fox