Former Republican Representative Mike Rogers, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, is predicted to lose the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat to Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin, according to recent polls.
Rogers, a former FBI special agent and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is set to attend Trump’s Saturday campaign rally in the battleground state. This will be Trump’s first public campaign appearance since last weekend’s assassination attempt and the first time he will stand alongside his newly-named running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance.
Trump announced his endorsement of Rogers in a March Truth Social post, writing, “Mike Rogers will be a Great and Powerful Senator for Michigan, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement. HE KNOWS HOW TO WIN!”
Michigan’s Senate seat is vacant following Senator Debbie Stabenow’s retirement after serving in the role since 2001. The Senate, which the Democrats currently hold a narrow majority given that the four independent senators caucus with the Democrats, will be widely contested this fall as both parties seek to win control of the chamber.
Primary polls favor Rogers as the GOP nominee in the upcoming Michigan Senate primary on August 6. A Tarrance Group poll of 500 likely voters, conducted between July 8 and 10, shows Rogers securing a clear majority with 52 percent of the votes. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent. None of the three other candidates garnered over 15 percent over the vote.
“We’re doing exceptionally well in the primary,” Rogers told Fox News on Wednesday ahead of his speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) that evening.
While Trump-backed Rogers is the likely candidate to face off against Slotkin for the open Senate seat, the race appears much more challenging for Rogers than the primary, according to several polls.
The most recent, a Public Policy Polling survey of 650 registered voters in the state, conducted between July 17 and 18, puts Slotkin ahead of Rogers by 8 percentage points, 46 to 38 percent, respectively. Under a fifth of surveyed voters were unsure, at 17 percent. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.9 percent. This poll was sponsored by Clean and Prosperous America PAC, which is partisan sponsor of the Democratic Party.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images/Nathan Howard/Getty Images
Other polls similarly show Slotkin in the lead, just with varying margins. A SAY/New York Times poll of 1,000 Michigan registered voters conducted from July 4 to 12, also found Slotkin leading Rogers, 48 to 39 percent. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percent.
A previous Emerson College Polling/The Hill poll conducted from June 13 to 18 found Slotkin leading Rogers, 43 to 39 percent. That poll of 1,000 registered voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Slotkin’s favorable polling exceeds Biden’s in the state where he is trailing Trump at 41.5 percent to the former president’s 43.7 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s national poll aggregator as of Saturday morning.
Newsweek filed out an online contact form for Rogers press team and sent an email to Slotkin’s campaign on Saturday.
“Michigan is going to be critically important,” Rogers told Fox News Digital in an interview published Saturday, in reference to both the presidential and Senate campaigns.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.