McMorrow Can’t Reconcile Conflicting Vote History

McMorrow Can’t Reconcile Conflicting Vote History

Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-MI) had no clean answers Sunday when CNN pressed her on a straightforward question: why did she vote in California two years after claiming she had permanently moved to Michigan?

CNN: “Why would you be voting in California 2 years after moving to Michigan?”
 
MCMORROW: “Moving takes time.”
 
CNN: "You had criticized a Twitter user in 2024 for voting in Michigan after moving to California, you called it illegal…"

MCMORROW: “Yeah, absolutely." pic.twitter.com/kE4xYSuXdo

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 3, 2026

At the center of the exchange was McMorrow’s own written claim, in her 2025 autobiography “Hate Won’t Win,” that she had “relocated permanently” to Michigan in 2014. That claim collides directly with her own social media trail, first surfaced by CNN‘s “KFile.”

Posts from 2016 show McMorrow describing herself as a registered California voter, celebrating a California absentee vote in that year’s Democratic primary, and even urging Californians to register to vote. One post, dated June 7, 2016, the day of the California primary, read: “As a registered California voter (who voted absentee!), I refuse to answer the phone today.” Another, from April 2016, read: “Make sure to register, Californians!” That is two years after she says she permanently moved.

When pressed, during the interview, on the discrepancy, McMorrow described the move as a gradual transition rather than a clean break:

“So we decided to move to Michigan in 2014. I was still working in Southern California. My then-boyfriend, now husband, was working in Michigan. Like a lot of millennials, moving takes time. It was a two-year process to finally settle in Michigan, and I registered to vote in Michigan in August of 2016 and voted in the general election in November that year.” 

The interviewer pressed further, pointing out that McMorrow had also posted on Instagram that she had moved out of California before the June 2016 primary, raising the question of whether she should have voted there at all. McMorrow did not concede wrongdoing, citing a split living situation and multiple jobs across two states, but the explanation did little to resolve the contradiction between her autobiography’s language and her actual voting behavior.

Under Michigan law, voters must be bona fide residents of the jurisdiction where they cast their ballot, and voting where one is not a legal resident can constitute election fraud, a felony carrying a sentence of up to 5 years in prison. Residency requirements are objective and turn on where a person actually lives, not on their stated intentions.

The exchange escalated when the anchor raised a 2024 post in which McMorrow publicly attacked a Twitter user for voting in Michigan after moving to California, calling it illegal. The parallel was hard to ignore: McMorrow had done something nearly identical in reverse, voting in California two years after writing that she had permanently moved to Michigan. Asked to reconcile the two during the CNN exchange, she invoked intent as her defense.

“Yeah, absolutely, if you are doing that intentionally after moving permanently to a place that is illegal. But in our case, it was a two-year process, and when I was finally a permanent resident in Michigan, that is where I registered, and that is where I voted.”

Under pressure, McMorrow finally acknowledged that her autobiography’s description of a “permanent” 2014 relocation was, at minimum, poorly worded.

“We made the decision to permanently relocate, but it does take time, and yeah, could have worded it a little bit differently.” 

Democrat Mallory McMorrow — running for Senate in Michigan —  defends her deleted tweets where she disparaged the Midwest and called Americans outside of California "morons."
 
MCMORROW: “I tweeted normal things like a normal person.” pic.twitter.com/aWVsVGDV7k

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 3, 2026

McMorrow also faced questions about resurfaced tweets that have drawn fire during the race and dismissed the backlash, arguing voters want authenticity over polish:

“I tweeted normal things, like a normal person, and people are desperate for authenticity.”

Stevens, a fellow Democrat running in the same primary, put it simply: the tweets are “tacky.” But deleted posts are the least of McMorrow’s problems. Voting in a state you claim to have permanently left, then calling the same behavior illegal when someone else does it, is not a branding problem. It is a credibility problem, and Michigan voters will have to decide if that distinction costs her the primary.

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