DETROIT – The battle for the Senate in Michigan is one of many that could help determine control of the chamber and decide the presidential contest this fall. And unlike some other swing states, both candidates in the open Senate race remain near the top of their ticket.
GOP former Rep. Mike Rogers praised former President Donald Trump in an interview as “ready to act on day one to get America and Michigan specifically back on track.”
Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, meanwhile, praised Vice President Kamala Harris’ positive impact on her race as a “major change” from President Joe Biden’s campaign, which struggled before dramatically dropping out of the race in July after a brutal debate against the president. Trump.
“It was night and day, right?” Slotkin said of Harris’ rise to the top of the ticket. “We saw kind of an immediate change in voter turnout and interest from Democrats.”
But “night and day” doesn’t mean there’s any room for comfort in the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
“It’s going to be very close,” Slotkin acknowledged Thursday in the living quarters of her large camper van after a campaign stop in Ann Arbor. The election is three weeks away, and while she has small advantages over Rogers in most public polls, there are also plenty of very close elections.
“It’s about those independent voters, those swing voters, those voters who are very late in making their decisions,” she said. “We are competing for a very small group of people to decide the elections in Michigan, and they are still deciding.”
While Rogers has tied himself to Trump, he also said he believes his campaign will “attract a good number of Harris voters… and we will bring them with us.”
“I think autoworkers are doing really well with black men across the state because we’re going to talk to them about opportunity and the future,” he said of a trend the Republican Party is working hard to grow this election.
Rogers, a former law enforcement officer and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, once criticized Trump — and even weighed a challenge to the White House. But he has since exchanged messages of support with Trump and worked to bring his MAGA supporters to justice.
Now Rogers is careful not to criticize. Asked about Trump’s insulting comments about Detroit the day before, Rogers claimed he “didn’t hear what he said.” [Trump] said.” (Trump called Detroit, Michigan’s most populous city, a “development zone” and said the entire country would end up “like Detroit” if Harris is elected.)
Pressed about Trump’s comments about Jewish voters (he suggested that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate their religion”), Rogers similarly sidestepped: “Yes, listen, I’m not running Donald Trump’s campaign. I am managing Mike Rogers’ campaign for United States Senate.”
Slotkin, a moderate Democrat who has been in Congress since 2018, describes himself as a “member of the normal team.” She said she would work with “anyone in the normal team,” but accused Rogers of “adopting and absorbing the more recent politics of extremism.”
Two national security candidates clash
Both Rogers and Slotkin have deep roots in national security work. Slotkin was a CIA analyst who worked in the Department of Defense. Rogers was an FBI agent specializing in organized crime.
They have different ideas about outcompeting China, preventing an escalating war in the Middle East and ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon are especially relevant in Michigan, home to the largest population of Arab and Muslim Americans of any swing state. A significant number of Jewish Americans also live in Michigan.
Slotkin, the only Jewish member of Michigan’s congressional delegation, has tried to police the border between Muslim and Jewish communities east of Detroit. She has kept her contact with the groups largely private and has refrained from publicly criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the Gaza conflict.
Slotkin would not comment on the community divisions that are so widespread in the state, only noting that the conflict has been “so raw” for Michiganders.
“There’s no such thing as pleasing everyone. That’s just not there,” she said.
She said her strategy with the communities has been effective because the most important thing is to “keep the lines of communication open.” She urged the Biden-Harris administration to continually “have conversations with leaders, even if you don’t always agree.”
“I can also express real empathy for dead children. I mean, that doesn’t make me any less in favor of a strong state of Israel,” she added.
Slotkin’s balanced approach has led to criticism from Rogers.
Slotkin “can’t go to every community and tell them one thing and then do something else,” Rogers said.
“That’s why, I think, the Jewish community is angry with my opponent. That is why the Muslim community is angry with my opponent. That’s the old style from the 1970s: be for everyone, for whatever reason. That doesn’t work when you have the problems we have in the state of Michigan,” he continued.
Asked how he reaches the communities, Rogers said that while the regional conflict is “an important issue” for the groups, the border and the economy also matter.
“I don’t care if you are Arab, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Christian. Doesn’t matter. Those groceries cost the same across that entire spectrum,” Rogers said.
Slotkin has criticized Rogers for briefly moving to Florida before launching his Senate campaign. He in turn condemned her for her record on electric vehicles.
Slotkin has recently offended on the issue by assuring voters in campaign ads and during the first debate that she drives a gas-powered car and does not support electric vehicle mandates, even though she voted for the Biden administration’s rule that would shift the U.S. auto economy to two-thirds electric by 2032.
“I don’t believe in anything that’s not possible for the auto industry because that’s our bread and butter here in Michigan,” Slotkin said.
“And if they can’t meet them [those standards]If they change what they think they can do, then I’m willing to have that conversation,” Slotkin said, opening the door to opposing the administration’s emissions target.
Rogers argued that “mandates don’t work; markets work.”
“Let people buy electric cars. Let’s build EVs here. The electric vehicle market will eventually catch up, but you can’t force this on people today,” he said. “There is a great fear [among] people – it’s not fair to the people who build and work great cars here in Michigan.”
How the candidates deal with abortion
Biden won Michigan in 2020 by less than 3 percentage points, and abortion helped spark a historic election for Democrats in 2022, when they took control of the Legislature and retained the governorship and voters codified reproductive access into law. Recent polls show Harris and Trump neck-and-neck in the state.
Since launching his campaign for Senate, Rogers has said he respects Michigan law codifying protections for abortion and contraceptives and would take no federal action on the issue. He praised the will of Michigan voters in a campaign ad last month and recognized abortion as “a top priority.”
But years before the Supreme Court struck down the nation’s right to abortion, Rogers voted for several anti-abortion restrictions in the House of Representatives. He also described himself as a “lifelong pro-life” Republican.
Slotkin said she believes abortion will continue to have an impact on the race this year and that she is “somehow reforming the filibuster” to restore federal abortion rights.
Whether or not Democrats vote to change the rules and lower the 60-vote threshold to a simple majority, as Harris says she supports, Slotkin said she doesn’t think her party has been “proactive” on important policy issues.
“If I were to say in the Pentagon, ‘Let’s just defend; let’s not really have a plan’, I’d be fired. So I just don’t accept that,” she said.
Slotkin said she would use her background in “strategic planning” in the Senate to come up with a five-year plan to restore federal abortion rights, and she criticized her predecessors in the Democratic Party for “waiting for bad things to happen” in instead of thinking ahead.
“The Democrats I associate with collectively have no idea what our plan is,” she said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
