RECOGNITION JUGGERNAUT

Mari Manoogian

The buzz about Michigan State Represenative Mari Manoogian (D-Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township) seems to have taken on a life of its own in this year. Earlier in the 2020 campaign drive she got a personal boost when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer showed up at a private home fundraising event in Bloomfield Village for Manoogian. Then in August she was asked to make keynote comments as part of the virtual Democratic Party nominating convention. In September, Manoogian penned an op-ed piece (not bad) in the now-online Teen Vogue (average visitor monthly count well over one million) and she was invited to reflect on the first presidential debate on the MSNBC Joy Reid Show (Reid Out) where the host left viewers with the impression that Michigan’s youngest member of the House would be invited back in the future. Now a writer for Elle magazine (audience mainly women, majority ages 18-49) has included Michigan’s first Armenian American member of the state House in a group of 2020 candidates “about to become household names” for their efforts either at the national or state legislative levels. As the writer said it best, a “rising star.”