Slotkin and Rogers battle for Michigan’s 1st open US Senate seat in a decade

BY JON KING, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

MICHIGAN—A recent Brookings Institution analysis found that for the first time in a presidential election, non-college-educated females, who tend to vote for Republicans, will make up less than 40% of the female electorate.

That’s a statistic that Lansing-based GOP strategist Andrea Bitely says may be a key factor in the battle for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat between U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake).

“Slotkin has the upper hand because she is a college-educated woman voter, but Rogers has some of the tactics going right now that will appeal to that group as well: talking about taxes, talking about various other topics,” said Bitely, founder of Lansing-based Bitely Communications. “Because [former President Donald] Trump has such a hard time with that particular group of voters, Rogers is going to have to go out on his own a little bit more and find ways to appeal to that group.”

Making that appeal could be the key to whether or not Republicans can reclaim a Michigan U.S. Senate seat for the first time since 2001 — when now-former U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham represented the state.

He lost to now-U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing), who became Michigan’s first and only female U.S. senator. The last time a seat was open was in 2014, when U.S. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Detroit) announced his retirement. Now-U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Twp.) defeated GOP former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land that year.

Slotkin has focused on painting her opponent as out of touch with women’s issues, especially reproductive rights.

“I am so sick of people who don’t understand women’s health, who don’t understand reproductive rights, who don’t understand that this is about the rights of our grandchildren having the same rights as their grandmother, saying one thing and doing another,” she said of Rogers during their second debate on Oct. 14. “Michiganders, do not believe him. He will not protect you.”

Rogers has disputed that assertion, while centering his appeal to female voters on the economy, as well as trans athletes in women’s sports.

“Protecting women’s spaces and opportunities to compete are critical to the future of our nation. I am proud to sign the Stand with Women Commitment to ensure our daughters can access opportunities for generations to come. Biological men should not be competing with our daughters, period,” said Rogers.

A change of plans

Stabenow has gone on to win four terms and chairs the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. She’s been a force in Michigan politics for roughly a half-century — so when she announced in January 2023 she would not seek another term, it came as a jolt to leaders across the political spectrum.

Almost immediately, the National Republican Senatorial Committee said it planned to “aggressively target” the seat as key to their hopes of gaining control of the U.S. Senate, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), coming off a better-than-expected 2022 election when Democrats added one seat to their majority, was suddenly faced with an even tougher election map heading into 2024.

Democrats now had to defend 23 Senate seats, one of which, that of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), is all but a guaranteed loss after he announced his retirement.

It’s safe to say that the two candidates now vying to replace Stabenow did not have a senatorial run in their 2024 plans. Slotkin was gearing up for a reelection bid to Michigan’s 7th District, while Rogers was expressing an interest in a run for the White House.

But plans change.

Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and high-ranking Defense Department official, came to Congress after defeating former U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) and flipping a district that former President Donald Trump had won by 6 points in 2016.

“My life began in service, really on 9/11,” said Slotkin. “I happened to be in New York City on my second day of school. 9/11 happened. I knew my life was going to change. I got recruited by the CIA, did three tours in Iraq alongside the military, and then came home and worked for two presidents, one Democrat, one Republican, proudly because I believe service should be nonpartisan. I’m, at the end of the day, running for Senate because I believe in my bones that we need a strong and growing middle class.”

It was also the same region that Rogers had represented in the Michigan Senate from 1995 to 2001, and then in Congress for seven terms, during which he rose to national prominence as chair of the powerful House Intelligence Committee.

In that role, Rogers helped authorize and oversee a $70 billion budget that funded the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, garnering a reputation as someone who could work across the aisle, with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius calling him “a noteworthy exception to the culture of dysfunction on Capitol Hill,” and a “voice for adult supervision of (the) intelligence” community.

But before all that, he served in the Army as an officer, and then as an FBI agent, telling attendees at a Michigan Farm Bureau forum that his dream was to “either chase Soviet spies or go after gangsters,” but “had the great privilege to get assigned to Chicago for organized crime.”

Needless to say, having two candidates with deep national security credentials is not your run-of-the-mill Senate race, if such a thing exists. 

A ‘tossup’ district

Slotkin has been the candidate to beat from the moment she announced in February 2023 that she was making a run to replace Stabenow.

Slotkin eventually gained the nomination after winning the Democratic primary in August over her lone rival, beating actor Hill Harper of Detroit 76 to 24%.

Despite the result, Slotkin still had to contend with Harper’s insurgent campaign during which he questioned her ability to represent the needs of Michigan’s Black community, which came to a head when a planned debate between the two was canceled amid accusations of a lack of representation of a Black female journalist on the panel.

Slotkin steered clear of the controversy, merely saying she would “instead continue to directly engage voters in Detroit and across the state.”

Her campaign also emphasized her long list of endorsements among Black leaders across the state, including state Sen. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing), state Reps. Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids) and Amos O’Neal (D-Saginaw), Jackson Mayor Daniel Mahoney, Saginaw Mayor Brenda Moore, and former Detroit Police Chief Ike McKinnon.

Slotkin, meanwhile, has made a national profile on security issues her calling card during her time in Congress, which was largely connected to being an outspoken Trump critic.

Slotkin’s attempt to keep Michigan’s Senate delegation as an almost exclusively a Democratic club — the GOP has only won two of the last 15 Senate elections in Michigan — met some headwinds with the emergence of Rogers as the Republican nominee, bringing with him his own profile on national security issues, albeit one that had not made many headlines in a decade.

After leaving Congress in 2015, he became a cyber security adviser and businessman and later moved to Florida before the opportunity to run for Senate brought him back to Michigan, although his subsequent purchase of a home in White Lake created questions as the Advance reported in January about where he actually was living. Those questions remained unanswered as the campaign wore on, and were still being asked with just a month to go before the election.

Regardless, Rogers brought name recognition to the GOP side of the race that would hopefully translate into major financial backing that lesser-known candidates would have trouble attracting.

President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Rogers in March was a key moment, setting aside the doubts of all but the most hardcore MAGA voters who saw Rogers as the embodiment of the “deep state.”

Still, Rogers had more competition to contend with in his run for the nomination, beating out his final two rivals for the position, former U.S Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.) and physician and former congressional candidate Dr. Sherry O’Donnell. Rogers polled just about 63%, while Amash and O’Donnell picked up 16% and 12% respectively.

It was further helped along after Grosse Pointe Park businessman Sandy Pensler also endorsed Rogers, although Pensler’s name still appeared on the ballot and picked up 9% of the vote.

Rogers’ path to the nomination involved a political conversion of sorts. In 2018, Rogers said Trump was “fundamentally wrong” in his assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin, while also calling Trump’s political tactics “destructive” and saying he would not commit to supporting Trump for president in 2024 if he was the GOP nominee.

But Rogers’ political instincts honed over nearly 20 years in elected office, allowed him to move beyond those stances and adapt to the political reality of a Trump-dominated Republican Party.

The Cook Political Report continues to rate the open race as a “tossup.”

Third quarter Federal Elections Commission reports show Slotkin with more than $4 million in cash on hand as of Sept. 30, while Rogers reported just over $2.5 million in cash on hand. Slotkin also outraised Rogers in the quarter, pulling in about $16.7 million to Rogers’ $9.55 million.

Independent groups are also playing heavily in the race.

Additionally, almost all of the polls show Slotkin ahead in the race, ranging anywhere from a 2- to 7-point lead over Rogers. Regardless, the Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP-aligned PAC, planned to spend an additional $10.5 million on the race in support of Rogers.

‘Shady Slotkin’ or ‘Revolving Door Rogers’

Perhaps the biggest attack point for both campaigns has been on each candidates’ perceived weakness when it comes to Chinese influence. And nothing has represented that divide more forcefully than a proposed $2.36 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Mecosta County owned by Gotion Inc., the U.S.-owned subsidiary of Chinese battery manufacturer Gotion.

While receiving more than $700 million in state tax incentives, it has also been the target of ongoing criticism by Republicans who contend it is a front for the Chinese Communist Party, most especially Rogers who has referred to his adversary as “Shady Slotkin,” alleging that she “signed a secret agreement” to make the deal possible.

Rogers’ post was referencing a Detroit News story from last year in which it was reported that while Slotkin never signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) about the project, her deputy legislative director did in 2021.

The report also noted that among the state lawmakers who signed NDAs that year were several prominent Republicans, including House Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.), former House Speaker Jason Wentworth (R-Farwell), and former Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake), as well as top Democrats, including now-House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) and former Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich (D-Flint).

When Slotkin told reporters in early September that she opposed moving forward on the project until officials could work out “the national security implications of Chinese-affiliated companies,” Rogers’ campaign was quick to jump on the statement.

While Rogers campaign did not respond to a request for an interview, Chris Gustafson, Rogers’ campaign spokesperson, told the Advance that Slotkin had “sold out Michigan auto workers to China, signed an NDA to conceal it, and Chinese foreign agents rewarded her with cash,” adding that the congresswoman “cannot hide her record of helping the CCP, and this blatant flip-flop is just further proof that she’ll say whatever the polling recommends and can’t be trusted.”

However, Slotkin told the Advance that the continued misinformation on the issue has been more than just disappointing.

“Honestly, for someone who claims to have a national security background, that’s insulting,” she said. “The idea that he’s accusing me, I guess, of being, I don’t know, a foreign agent? As a former CIA officer, I take that very seriously, and it is just lies, and it’s part and parcel of the way that he’s been engaging in this campaign, much to, I think, everyone’s chagrin. He’s just absorbed that extreme mentality instead of actually having a conversation on something that should be bipartisan.”

Republicans, including Rogers and Trump’s running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, have held campaign events near the proposed site outside Big Rapids.

While Slotkin’s statement was the first in which she openly questioned Gotion as the owner of the facility, the congresswoman has previously expressed concerns about foreign firms, especially those tied to China, purchasing real estate in the U.S.

In March, she introduced bipartisan legislation that would “allow the U.S. government to more closely scrutinize significant real estate transactions by entities with ties to America’s potential adversaries.”

That same month, Slotkin also said that Congress should not just think about foreign transactions when it comes to farmland but to other infrastructure sites such as manufacturing.

“If you have a company coming in to do a huge purchase of our infrastructure like hog slaughter, you should be putting that through that same intelligence community process to help us understand if that’s a strategic threat to us,” she said.

Rogers has also faced his own criticism regarding connections to China, including a Detroit News report earlier this year that he “briefly worked for AT&T, which faced pushback for its entanglements” with Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

Financial disclosures also indicated that in the two years before he announced his Senate bid, Rogers earned at least $460,000 working as a risk analyst for the Nokia Corp., which in January announced that after a decade of extensive business deals in China, it was selling its majority stake in a Beijing-based firm amid rising tensions with the U.S.

Those connections earned the former congressman the moniker “Revolving Door Rogers” from the Michigan Democratic Party.

However, Politifact noted that “Rogers’ work at AT&T was for a separately managed cybersecurity division, which AT&T said had no connection to Chinese tech companies.” Rogers also appeared in 2012 on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” and warned American tech companies against doing business with Huawei, and continued to do so in 2021.

‘We can’t believe them for one second’

As it was in 2022, reproductive rights are a major issue, if not the major issue, of this campaign season.

It was one of the main topics in the candidates’ first of two debates, held Monday in Grand Rapids, with Rogers saying he would honor Michigan voters’ decision in 2022 when they passed Proposal 3 and enshrined abortion into the Michigan Constitution.

Slotkin called Rogers’ record into question, saying he had voted for restrictions on abortion, contraception and in vitro fertilization while in Congress.

In response, Rogers said he was 100% in support of making sure families had access to fertility treatments. Slotkin responded that Rogers had never broken with the GOP on abortion.

Slotkin has been an unapologetic defender of a woman’s right to an abortion, telling the Advance that even with the successful passage of Proposal 3, coming in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, access to the procedure remains in danger.

“Even though Michiganders did our job and voted for [Proposal] 3 in 2022, there’s never been a single week since then that the other side hasn’t been trying to take away something around a woman’s right to choose when and how she has a family,” she said. “Whether it’s going after IVF or contraception, the medications that perform abortions, trying to ban women’s travel in the military so that they can’t get an abortion in in out of state. They haven’t stopped. I voted just in the past year and a half, I think, 15 times to block some sort of restriction on women. So they haven’t stopped.”

When Rogers appeared on WKAR’s “Off the Record” in March 2023, before he announced his run for Senate, he was asked if he would have voted yes or no on Proposal 3

“I probably wouldn’t have done that because it covers right up to the day of birth, and I’m not there,” said Rogers. “I don’t think most Americans are there. I think that’s kind of an extreme position.”

The statewide proposal passed by a 13-point margin with 57% of the vote.

While Rogers has said he would not support a national abortion ban that would override Proposal 3, that represents a change in perspective from his past stance on the issue.

In Congress, he voted multiple times to overturn the ACA, while also sponsoring four bills, in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2013, that would have provided legal personhood from the moment of conception, the same definition that has threatened to ban in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Speaking at an event in Detroit in September, Rogers said as far as he was concerned, the issue had been settled.

“What I have said in this case is that I did believe that the states should decide this issue. I think it’s really important. Because this is where your faith is, this is where your pastor is. This is where your family is, this is where your partner is, this is where your doctor is,” he said.

Yet Rogers’ record on the issue has not settled the controversy for many.

According to a pair of letters provided to the Advance by American Bridge 21st Century, a research and response operation run by the Democratic Party, while serving in the Michigan Senate in the 1990s, Rogers told a constituent that the federal government was “established to protect our lives and the lives of the unborn,” calling abortion the “ultimate discrimination.”

In a letter to March for Life in 2000, Rogers prayed for action against abortion on Capitol Hill and referred to Roe vs. Wade as a “travesty.”

The letters were obtained by American Bridge through a search of Rogers’ congressional archives at Oakland University. Also found in the archives was an undated template from Rogers’ time in Congress that appeared to be for helping draft responses to constituents on the abortion issue.

“Mike Rogers can lie all he wants about where he stands on abortion, but his track record speaks for itself,” said American Bridge 21st Century spokesperson Nico Delgado. “Michiganders can’t trust Rogers to protect abortion rights in the Senate and these constituent letters are hard evidence from the horse’s mouth that he would vote for a national abortion ban,”

When asked for comment, Rogers sent the Advance the following statement:

“I have always championed protecting life and supporting Americans looking to grow their families. This is one of the most difficult and heart wrenching decisions a woman may ever have to make, and we must respect their right to have that decision,” he said. “Here in Michigan, we’ve come to a consensus and enshrined the right to that choice into the Michigan Constitution. I took an oath to uphold and defend our state’s constitution and as Michigan’s Senator I will continue to uphold that oath to defend the rights guaranteed by it.”

Slotkin, however, says she’s having none of it.

“People tell you who they are by the choices that they make, and Mike Rogers for 20 years as a politician voted for every single bill, ban, and restriction that came across his desk. He has a 100% voting record against women. He cosponsored bills just like Alabama that would have literally made IVF and some forms of contraception illegal. And now he wants us to believe that he’s just had this moment of epiphany after 30 years of touting his pro-life credentials. He doesn’t trust women. If he doesn’t trust us, we should not trust him.”

From border security to election integrity

Immigration has been the cornerstone of the GOP attack plan against Democrats at all levels, and it’s no different in the race for U.S. Senate, with Rogers linking Slotkin to the Biden administration’s border policies that are then linked to anecdotal instances of crime committed by undocumented immigrants.

“I’m telling you there are real victims, even here in our own community,” said Rogers at a Trump “Safety and Security” event held in August at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in which he listed off a half-dozen crimes committed by someone illegally in the country.

“Crime is an issue in this election. I have to tell you, it causes emotional pain, physical pain. These are scars that will last a lifetime, not just to the victim themselves, but think of that family who is now touched forever by that violent crime,” Rogers continued. “Because we have an open border, because Harris and Biden, my opponent, Slotkin, did not choose to close the border. They don’t have to wait until 2025. They can close the border today, and by God, they should do it for our families and our communities.”

Piggybacking off of that event, the National Republican Senatorial Committee released an ad featuring Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy directly attacking Slotkin on immigration.

“As sheriff, I see every day how illegal immigration has affected Michigan,” Murphy said in the 30-second spot. “I hold [Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee] Kamala Harris and Elissa Slotkin responsible. Harris and Slotkin have opened our borders to illegals. And then they reward them with taxpayer-funded benefits. These liberal policies are a threat to families and taxpayers.”

The ad cited no evidence to back up those claims. A recently published study by the National Institute of Justice found that “undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.”

Speaking Feb. 5 on the House floor, Slotkin said it was no secret the country’s immigration system was broken.

“We can say with clarity and certainty that immigration, in a nation of immigrants, is broken. And there’s blame enough to go around. Democrats, Republicans, multiple White Houses, multiple administrations. Congress plays a big part in this. Washington departments and agencies over many, many years have used this issue to play politics rather than actually doing anything about it,” she said.

Slotkin pointed to the bipartisan border security legislation that had been unveiled just the day before, but which fell apart after Trump said he wanted to keep the issue alive through the campaign.

“But no sooner was it out, that is it now sailing down a river like a dumpster fire, being trashed by the very people who negotiated it? Being trashed by the very people who asked for it? Being trashed by the Speaker of the House who desperately said, ‘I won’t consider any future assistance without border security?’ No piece of legislation is ever perfect, but it does help us, this deal, curb who’s coming in, get people working legally in our businesses, like our farms, which desperately need that labor. And in the meantime, these people would be paying taxes, paying into Social Security, paying into Medicare. I can’t understand why we continually refuse to take up bipartisan solutions,” said Slotkin.

Rogers has consistently called for reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which was implemented in 2019 by the Trump administration and forced asylum-seekers who arrived at the U.S. border to stay in Mexico while their request was processed. He told MLive in July that if elected he would go even further and “build physical and technological barriers, and reform our asylum laws to require individuals to begin their applications in their home country, or else they’ll be rejected immediately at the border.”

The policy, which was widely criticized as inhumane, was wound down by the Biden administration following a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 that it had the authority to do so. Mexico has also categorically rejected any suggestion that it be reinstated.

When asked about that after his second debate with Slotkin, Rogers indicated it was really not an issue to ask about, but instead something that needed to be insisted upon.

“We have lots of leverage to pull on Mexico to stop this problem,” said Rogers. “The human casualties of this are immense. And so I have no tolerance for Mexico telling us they’re not going to play along. They are absolutely partly responsible. And the other thing I would do is I would make these drug cartels. I put them on the terrorist list. They are bringing fentanyl knowingly into the United States, and it killed 3,000 of our fellow citizens.”

Looking back over the race, Slotkin said that she had been disappointed in how Rogers had run his campaign, especially in embracing far-right MAGA rhetoric surrounding election integrity.

“I think I’ve been surprised the entire time just knowing that in the past he positioned himself as a moderate, just to watch him go full into the extremism,” said Slotkin. “And I think the one that’s really been difficult for me to understand is really seeding doubt in the 2024 election in the same way that others who are extreme have been sowing doubt in the 2020 election. And as someone who barricaded herself in our office on Jan. 6 [2021], it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or Republican or how you feel politically. Our democracy is the most important thing we have, and by attacking it and basically jumping on this train that if he doesn’t win, the election was rigged? That’s the predicate that’s being laid right now across the state from him [and] the head of the Michigan Republican Party. To me, it is really sad and hard to watch.”

Rogers downplayed the remarks, telling The Detroit News that the Republican National Committee and the Michigan Republican Party State Central Committee were “making sure that we have all the things that we need to do for ballot integrity,” adding, “I have faith and confidence that with those keeping things on the straight and narrow, we’ll be in good shape.”

READ MORE: Elissa Slotkin calls out Mike Rogers’ voting record at fiery US Senate debate

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.