In the suburbs of Detroit, there are a shocking number of pro-Trump signs in Michiganders’ yards. (My parents have at least 10 in their own yard — just in case the neighbors had any doubts). There are far fewer for Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for Michigan’s open Senate seat.
It could be that not many Michiganders are familiar with Rogers, a former representative who served in the Army and then worked for the FBI. My father is about as politically involved as it gets in the state and hasn’t seen or heard much from Rogers until recently when the Republican funding apparatus started pouring tens of millions of dollars into Rogers’s race against Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI).
Rogers has also run a pretty low-key campaign as a generic Republican who’s not trying to be anything but that. It’s a strategy that might not turn out big crowds or inspire a sense of loyalty, as former President Donald Trump does, but it could be the right one for Michigan. The Great Lakes State does, after all, constantly operate within the margin of error. Rogers himself won his first election to the House by just 111 votes.
Instead of pushing the envelope, Rogers has been focused on hitting Slotkin where she (and every Democrat, for that matter) is weakest: the economy, immigration, and the fact that the Biden administration’s policies on both have made Michiganders’ lives tangibly worse.
One of Rogers’s favorite lines is: “These days, the most expensive vehicle to operate is your grocery cart. … You shouldn’t have to choose between putting gas in the tank and putting food on your table.”
It’s an effective message because it gets at something true. Groceries, gas, and other everyday expenses cost Michiganders more under President Joe Biden than they did under Trump, and Slotkin conveniently voted in support of every Biden administration policy that has contributed to those price increases. For example, on electric vehicles, Slotkin voted against a bill that would have overturned the Biden administration’s mandate that auto manufacturers phase out traditional gas-powered vehicles and replace them with less efficient and pricier EVs.
Of course, when she cast her vote, Slotkin may very well have believed she was just doing her job as a good and faithful Democratic Party member. In fact, she appeared oblivious to the long-term consequences of the Biden administration’s EV mandate during a recent debate against Rogers.
“I live on a dirt road, nowhere near a charging station,” Slotkin said. “So, I don’t own an electric car. No one should tell us what to buy, and no one is going to mandate anything.”
Well, it’s a little late for that.
Indeed, Slotkin’s attempt to distance herself from the incumbent administration on EVs speaks to another matter Rogers has consistently raised: Too often, politicians sent to Washington, D.C., to act on behalf of their chosen political party’s apparatus rather than the constituents back home that they’re supposed to represent.
“I’ll change Washington,” Rogers promised in one of his first ads, “by putting you and your family first.”
The problem is Rogers has also spent a good deal of time in D.C. — 14 years, to be exact. He’s not a political outsider, and he has baggage of his own that Slotkin has not hesitated to use against him. In one particularly effective zinger during their recent debate, Slotkin suggested Rogers is an opportunist since his political opinions have changed in recent years. In 2021, for example, Rogers was extremely critical of Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, even blaming the former president for the GOP’s Senate losses that year.
“I want the [old] Mike Rogers back,” she said.
Slotkin assumes Rogers’s willingness to break from Trump will be held against him by Republican and independent voters. However, in Michigan, that might be the wrong bet to make. There are plenty of Michiganders who dislike Trump (hence, why they dumped him in 2020) but dislike the Biden administration’s disastrous policies even more and might find it encouraging that Rogers hasn’t been a diehard MAGA loyalist.
Recent polling has confirmed as much. Trump is either tied with or narrowly leading Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan in all the recent polls — the first time he’s ever led in the state. Rogers is tied with Slotkin, according to a survey from Quinnipiac University earlier this month.
Of the two Republican candidates, Rogers has the steeper climb. However, with momentum building in the GOP’s favor, don’t count him out yet.
Perhaps consider Rogers’s closing argument in his last debate against Slotkin: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Because Slotkin and her party have been the ones in charge, and whatever else Rogers might be, he’s far better than a continuation of Democratic control and the failed policies that come with it.
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Kaylee McGhee White is the editor of Restoring America for the Washington Examiner and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.