Republican Mike Rogers is making a play for Jewish Democrats in his battleground Michigan Senate race and is, to at least some degree, making gains against Democratic rival and staunch Israel critic Abdul el Sayed.
Rogers, the close ally to President Donald Trump who narrowly lost in 2024 to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), is deploying “Democrats for Mike Rogers” yard signs and enlisting the help of longtime Jewish Democrats for campaign ads and fundraising.
The strategy is part of a broader appeal by Rogers to Democrats who may be turned off by el Sayed’s proximity to socialist figures and policies following his insurgent primary triumph over establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI).
“If you’re among the majority of Democratic voters that woke up on Wednesday feeling, well, hopeless, because the person who won does not represent your values, well, just know there is still hope,” Rogers said in a video released the morning after el Sayed’s win earlier this month. “You have a home with us. The fight is far greater than just Left vs. Right.”
Rogers’s latest campaign ad, released Tuesday, featured a woman wearing a Star of David necklace who described herself as a “pissed off” and “lifelong” Democrat. Identified only by her first name, Chelsea from West Bloomfield, she rattles off Stevens, Slotkin, former President Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the Democrats she’s voted for in the past.
“Now, I’m voting for Mike Rogers,” she said. “This is no longer ‘vote blue no matter who.’ We need to wake up and realize that it’s not party over everything. We need to vote for the candidates that actually share our values.”
Next week, a trio of prominent Jewish Democrats, including the president of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, will host a fundraiser for Rogers.
“We feel this is a departure in the direction of the Democratic Party,” Hannan Lis, one of its organizers, told Jewish Insider of el Sayed’s Israel opposition.
The el Sayed campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the criticism or Rogers’s increased outreach to Democratic Jewish voters.
More than 100,000 Jewish adults are estimated to live in Michigan, representing about 1.4% of the electorate. Roughly two-thirds align with Democrats. In 2024, Slotkin bested Rogers by only 0.3%, or just over 20,000 votes out of nearly 5.4 million votes. Rogers and el Sayed are vying to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).
And el Sayed’s past anti-Israel rhetoric, including dodging questions about whether he believes the Jewish state has the right to exist, appears to be jeopardizing the longtime Democratic support from the voting bloc. Recent polling shows the contest is virtually neck-and-neck, with many survey results within the margins of error.
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El Sayed seemed to acknowledge underlying concerns among Jewish voters and offered a “commitment to Jewish safety” in a post-primary speech urging party unity.
“I want you to know that my commitment to your safety, my commitment to Jewish safety, is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters,” el Sayed said.