BYRON CENTER, MI – Former Rep. Mike Rogers is pushing a populist message as he aims to flip a blue-held seat red in a crucial Senate race that may decide whether the Democrats or Republicans win the majority next year.
“We’re going to have their back after November — folks living paycheck to paycheck,” the Senate GOP nominee in Michigan said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “We’ve got their back — they know it.”
The two public opinion polls conducted in Michigan this month indicate Democratic nominee Rep. Elissa Slotkin with the slight edge over Rogers in a margin-of-error race, in the battle to succeed retiring longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
Rogers, a one-time FBI special agent who later served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee during his tenure in Congress, touted his Michigan roots.
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Former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan, speaks at a former President Trump campaign rally headlined by running mate Sen. JD Vance in Byron Center, Michigan, on Aug. 14, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
“When you’re from here, you go to high school here at a public school, you go to college here. You dedicate your adult life here. I think that people understand that,” he emphasized.
Rogers spotlighted that “we’re talking to people where it matters about things that matter in their lives.”
He was interviewed Wednesday in southwestern Michigan after speaking at a rally headlined by Sen. JD Vance, former President Trump’s 2024 running mate.
“The good news is that they’re laser focused on the issues that matter in people’s lives,” Rogers said of Trump and Vance.
Republican presidential candidate former President Trump, left, listens as Michigan Senate candidate former Rep. Mike Rogers speaks at a campaign rally in Freeland, Michigan, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
He shared a story of a mother of four kids who attended. Rogers said she was “crying in my arms because she’s having a hard time putting food on her kids’ table. That’s heartbreaking. This is her first go around — as she would say — as a Republican.”
Pointing to his own childhood, Rogers said, “I know what it is to struggle at the end of the month when you’re dad’s a teacher with five boys.”
Democrats are not buying Rogers’ message.
“Revolving door Mike Rogers has shown he’s only fighting for himself: he ditched Michigan to go through the ‘revolving door’ in order to get rich and cash out working for companies tied to China, Saudi Arabia, and mega corporations,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Tommy Garcia charged.
“Come November, Michiganders will see Rogers for the self-serving politician he is and reject him,” Garcia predicted.
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In the four weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Biden at the top of the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket, the Democrats have enjoyed a wave of momentum.
When asked how the dramatic shift at the top of the ticket is impacting his race, Rogers said, “We see the intensity of Democrats up.”
However, he added, “We thought that was going to happen anyway.”
Rogers said the numbers in his race have not moved, adding, “We’re still in the margin of error with our opponent.”
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) speaks to United Auto Workers members and others at a rally after marching in the Detroit Labor Day Parade on Sept. 4, 2023, in Detroit. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
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The former congressman, who is backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and who was endorsed earlier this year by Trump, easily won this month’s GOP Senate primary.
Slotkin, who cruised to a victory in the Democratic Senate primary, on Thursday landed a major union endorsement as she won the support of the Michigan chapter of the AFL-CIO.