Meet the candidates for Michigan state senator for the 34th District: Christine Gerace
Editor's note: In the interest of fairness, Central Michigan Life also contacted Gerace's opponents, Becky McDonald and Roger Hauck to interview them. This article is not an endorsement.
Christine Gerace said she has been working 12 to 14 hour days the past few months campaigning and preparing for the election on Nov. 8.
Since becoming the Democratic candidate, Gerace said she has been knocking on doors starting around 10 a.m. until the sun goes down and then driving over an hour to get back home to Beaver Creek.
Gerace said she wants to be very accessible to the people she may be representing, and is willing to listen to anyone who wants to talk, she said. Gerace said she is open to calls on her personal cell phone, which is (989) 600-8116.
When asked what Gerace will do especially for the younger generation, Gerace said she wants to work on reducing the price of college and funding higher education.
"Whitmer recently increased K-12 education funding by $2.5 billion but I want to work on getting an increase budget for higher education," she said.
Gerace said Michigan education has been "falling down the tubes" for the past 10 to 15 years.
Gerace said she also feels passionately about the environment, and wants to work with legislation that will help combat climate change, she said. Gerace said she is sorry for the young people who will have to deal with the consequences left from older politicians not fighting harder to stop climate change.
“I don’t have kids or grandkids but I am still going to fight for the younger generation to grow up on a better Earth,” Gerace said.
Gerace said she has been involved with politics since she worked on former President Barrack Obama's campaign by making phone calls in Gladwin county. After that she began watching the news more and became more aware of what was going on.
“This is the one election where democracy is on the line,” Gerace said. “Young people are the ones who are going to change the world.”
"When I found out there was no democratic candidate for Michigan’s senate I felt a nudge from my guardian angel that pushed me to volunteer and run for the state senate," Gerace said.
Gerace’s advice to young voters is that voting is very simple and very easy, and if anyone needs help, a great resource is the democrat or republican party offices which she said are located in each county.
Gerace said she faced some challenges along the way with her campaign, including getting volunteers from the 11 different counties to work well together, as well as continuing to motivate volunteers who are working with her and being their cheerleader.
Gerace said she is thankful for all the friends she has made from all over the 11 counties working alongside her.
“This is the last shot at voting to save our democracy,” Gerace said.
