Michigan US Senate Race: 4 Key Issues as Elissa Slotkin Faces Mike Rogers

In Michigan, former Republican Representative Mike Rogers is battling Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin in a potentially crucial race for the U.S. Senate, as an expert told Newsweek that the contest is steered by four key issues in the Great Lakes State.

The seat is vacant following Debbie Stabenow’s retirement after serving since 2001, and with the Democrats’ narrow Senate majority, the race could determine who controls the upper chamber next year.

Polls show Slotkin leading the contest, with a poll published this month by Redfield and Wilton Strategies putting her 5 points ahead of Rogers, 44 percent to 39 percent. Another recent poll from this month conducted by Morning Consult showed Slotkin 9 points ahead of her Republican opponent.

The RealClearPolitics poll tracker places Slotkin on average 5.4 points ahead of Rogers.

Despite Slotkin’s lead, Rogers has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and the financial backing of national Republicans, which could help his prospects come November.

U.S. Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin, left, is pictured at the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2023, in Washington, D.C., while her Trump-endorsed opponent Mike Rogers speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July…
U.S. Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin, left, is pictured at the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2023, in Washington, D.C., while her Trump-endorsed opponent Mike Rogers speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16. Polling shows Slotkin, a Democrat, leading in the key Michigan race.
More
Nathan Howard/Getty Images/ ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the contest for the seat a toss-up.

“This race is going to go down to the wire,” former Michigan Republican Representative Fred Upton told the Associated Press (AP) in August. “This is going to be two heavyweights, in a positive way. They really know the issues and will go toe to toe on them.” Republicans have not won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994.

With the Michigan Senate race shaping up to be highly competitive, Newsweek spoke with an expert to identify the key issues likely to influence voters in November.

According to Jonathan Hanson, public policy lecturer at the University of Michigan’s Ford School, the race will center around several pivotal concerns. “The main issues in the Michigan Senate race, thus far, have been the cost of living, reproductive rights, immigration, and the war in Gaza,” he said.

Cost of Living

“Slotkin portrays herself as a sensible, principled leader who wants to end the divisiveness in Congress. She calls herself part of “team normal” and criticizes the Republicans in Congress for waging cultural wars rather than work to help people. She campaigns on the cost of basic needs like prescription drugs, housing, and child care,” Hanson told Newsweek.

Throughout the campaign, both candidates have focused on the issue of inflation. In a recent interview with News 8, Slotkin said she would continue attacking the costs that are “disproportionately high.”

“The prices are too high on lots of things. Groceries, gas, but also, I mean, the big one that we’ve been attacking is prescription drug pricing,” Slotkin said.

As a congresswoman, Slotkin co-sponsored the Lowering Drug Costs for American Families Act, which expands Medicare price negotiation and other consumer price protections to lower costs for Michigan families on private insurance.

Rogers voted against giving Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices directly with drug companies, prompting Michigan Democrats to accuse him of “putting working families last.”

In her interview with News 8, Slotkin added that she and her team have “worked really hard to bring down the price of insulin, for instance to $35 for Medicare patients, allowing Medicare to negotiate for drug prices like Costco. So to me, going after those big chunks in our budget, particularly health care, prescription drugs, housing has become huge for people, child care often left off the table and then postsecondary education.

“The big blocks that people care about when they’re trying to stay in or achieve that middle-class life, those are the ones that to me I attack first, and we’ve been attacking certainly on prescription drug pricing,” she added.

Rogers told News 8 that he plans to tackle inflation by focusing on wasteful government spending.

“That money that Washington, D.C., is pouring into the economy is driving up your food prices, it’s driving up your gas prices, it’s driving up interest rates so your kids can’t buy a home,” Rogers said. “Think of this just on the immigration piece; $450 billion to give food, room and board, credit card, cellphones to illegals. You can get rid of that money. That would pay for every Michigan state trooper and every teacher in Michigan for 15 years. That part’s got to end.”

He added that Michigan needs to unleash its energy economy. “We’re going to need gasoline for the next 100 years by every good estimate I’ve seen, so we should be all-of-the-above strategy but unleash our ability to use our energy and our resources to pay for the things that we need here; otherwise, we send billions and billions and billions of dollars overseas and we send that to countries that don’t like us very much. So that’s kind of a quick boom to the economy: You bring down prices and then you go down the other actions, regulation that’s causing businesses problems,” he continued.

During his Senate campaign, Rogers has focused almost exclusively on inflation, slamming President Joe Biden over the rising cost of living in his speech at the Republican National Convention.

“American families have been crushed by inflation,” he said. “High cost of groceries and gasoline and rent. The most expensive vehicle to operate in Michigan in 2024 is your grocery cart, thanks to the Democrats in Washington, D.C.”

An Emerson College poll last month showed the economy is the top issue with voters, with 44 percent of respondents choosing it.

Gas prices in Michigan are about 50 cents lower than this time last year, according to AAA.

Reproductive Rights

Reproductive rights will also be on the ballot in November in Michigan, according to Hanson.

In 2022, voters backed overruling a 1931 law that outlawed abortion without exception for rape or incest. Under that ban, providing non-life-saving abortions would have been prosecuted as manslaughter.

Following the vote, Democrats are leaning heavily on the issue to boost voter turnout heading into November, with the presidents of three abortion-rights groups, EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Freedom for All, attending a rally with Slotkin in July.

“We were not used to talking about it, but they came for us,” Slotkin said at the rally, referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. “They came for our rights. They came for our daughters and our granddaughters.”

Slotkin seized the chance to stress her record of supporting reproductive rights in Congress and criticize her GOP colleagues for “extreme” restrictions on abortion and other reproductive health care. She also said Republican lawmakers seemed uneducated on reproductive care, saying they did not understand “seventh-grade health.”

“Do you understand contraception or do you understand how a woman gets pregnant?” Slotkin said.

“We must win this November and secure federal pro-choice majorities driven by Democratic pro-choice women like Elissa Slotkin,” EMILY’s List President Jessica Mackler added. “Then we can beat back these attacks, but we can also deliver true reproductive freedom for women across America.”

Slotkin’s Republican opponent has largely steered clear of discussing abortion rights. “Rogers has avoided a strong stand on reproductive rights, saying that Michigan voters have already spoken on the issue in 2022,” Hanson said.

Rogers told The Dispatch during an interview in April that although he was a “pro-life legislator,” he supports the rights of states to control their own fate on the contentious issue.

He has also said that he would not support a national abortion ban if it arose in the Senate. “I’m a states’ rights guy. I’m not going back to Washington, D.C., to undo what the people of Michigan decided to do,” he said, per AP.

During his time in the House, Rogers voted in favor of a 20-week abortion ban.

Immigration

Republicans have made illegal immigration at the southern border a core issue in the presidential campaign—and for voters in Michigan, it is just as important.

Immigrant workers who come to the U.S. via the H-2A program, which brings foreign workers to the country for temporary work, are a central part of Michigan’s economy.

But sentiment is not so positive about migrants who arrive in the state illegally.

Throughout the race, Republicans have hammered Slotkin on immigration—attempting to tie her to the Biden administration’s border policies.

One ad released by Michigan Republicans featured Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy, who previously hosted Trump for a speech focusing on crime and illegal 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,” he added, without citing any evidence.

Slotkin previously told News 8 she agrees that the country’s immigration system is “broken,” but that she wants a bipartisan solution to policy.

“I don’t think there’s massive disagreement—or there shouldn’t be—that our immigration system is broken,” Slotkin said. “It doesn’t work for anyone: employers, immigrants, our border forces.”

“No one’s proud of what’s going on on the southern border, or they shouldn’t be, and everybody’s got some blame in this: Democrats, Republicans, White House, Congress and anyone who tries to say, ‘It’s just their fault,’ isn’t a serious person,” she continued.

Slotkin added that she would like to see a “comprehensive approach” to immigration policy, and that merely signing executive orders isn’t effective in tackling the border challenge.

“Rational people should get in a room for 45 minutes without Twitter and be able to solve this, and that’s what was happening,” she said.

“You’ve got to let Democrats and Republicans work and compromise for the good of the nation.”

Rogers has called for reinstatement of the Remain in Mexico policy, implemented by Trump in 2019 to force asylum-seekers arriving at the U.S. border to stay in Mexico while their red tape was processed in the U.S. He has also called for deporting migrants who enter the U.S. illegally and don’t qualify for programs to stay.

“If you don’t get that law and order piece back to immigration, you’re going to still have these huge problems,” Rogers said, reiterating a false Trump campaign narrative that people who enter the U.S. illegally are responsible for a rise in crime.

“No illegal crossings should be OK. That should be our standard,” Rogers continued.

Many researchers crunching the numbers have found there’s no connection between immigration and crime.

Rogers has also been highly critical of Biden’s immigration policies. “(Illegal immigration) numbers were kind of bumping along the bottom and just skyrocketed, because [Biden] took away the two biggest tools that Customs and Border Patrol had,” he told News 8.

The unauthorized immigrant population grew to 11 million in 2022, according to Pew Research Center, reversing a long-term downward trend from 2007 to 2019.

In June, Biden signed an executive order to block asylum at the southern border in an effort to deter illegal crossings.

War in Gaza

Slotkin, who is Jewish, “has taken a middle ground position on the conflict in Gaza,” Hanson told Newsweek. “Rogers charges that she has not been strong enough in support of Israel,” he added.

Both candidates have an intelligence background, with Rogers having served in the FBI, and Slotkin having worked for the CIA and in the Pentagon.

Owing to their backgrounds, they have both faced questions over their views on the U.S. role in the war in Gaza.

Slotkin in May voted for a package that sent more aid to Israel but said in an AP interview that Israel must allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and explain what its military strategy is going forward. “If they don’t, then I am willing to have a conversation about putting conditions on offensive aid, not defensive,” she said.

Rogers has remained staunchly pro-Israel, saying the country is justified for its actions in Gaza because “they have a right to defend themselves and they have a right to go get those hostages.”

“America must remain committed to our friends and partners in Israel as they fight to eliminate terrorists who committed unspeakable atrocities on Oct. 7,” he previously said in a statement.

Rogers previously criticized Slotkin for refusing to condemn the People’s Conference for Palestine, which was addressed by Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaid, the only Palestinian member of the House.

“Elissa Slotkin’s refusal to condemn Rashida Tlaib while she continues to spread antisemitism and attends an event with terrorist organizations is pure cowardice,” he told Jewish Insider. “Slotkin’s astounding lack of judgment and the consequences as a result only lead to more antisemitism and violence towards Jews. America desperately needs leaders who will stand up to this hatred and support the entire Jewish community.”

Slotkin refused to comment on the remarks at the time. Tlaib has come under fire for repeatedly referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza, which have resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians, as “genocide” and has called for a ceasefire.

At the conference, which was attended by Wisam Rafeedie, an activist with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Tlaib accused Biden of being complicit in “genocide” in Gaza and doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to whom she referred as a “murderous war criminal.”

Michigan is home to more than 300,000 people who claim Middle Eastern or North African heritage.

A poll of 600 likely voters in Michigan, conducted in February by USA Today, showed 53 percent of respondents favored a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza.

Former Republican Representative Mike Rogers, left, is battling Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, right, in Michigan’s key battle for a U.S. Senate seat.
Former Republican Representative Mike Rogers, left, is battling Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, right, in Michigan’s key battle for a U.S. Senate seat.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty