Mike Rogers says he has no preference in Tuesday’s Michigan Democratic Senate primary, even though his name appears unopposed on the Republican side of the ballot.
“Haley Stevens or Abdul El-Sayed?” I asked him.
“Doesn’t matter,” he answered. “I really don’t care. They’re both the same to me. I’ll beat them both.”
Maybe so, maybe no. A poll conducted for the Michigan Education Association and Business Leaders for Michigan by the Glengariff Group suggests Rogers would be smart to cross over and cast a vote for El-Sayed.
In a head-to-head general election match-up with the socialist El-Sayed, Rogers walks away with 49% of the vote to El-Sayed’s 38.7%. That’s a big, fat lead considering El-Sayed has been in the news every day this summer, while Rogers, without primary opposition, is barely mentioned.
But against Stevens, Rogers trails by less than a percentage point, 45.5% to 44.7%.
That slim margin is nightmarishly familiar to Rogers, who lost to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin in the Senate race two years ago by something like three-tenths of a percentage point in a year that President Donald Trump won the state.
The poll supports Stevens’ contention in Monday’s Senate debate that Republicans would rather face El-Sayed than her in November. But other polls from campaigns and third parties are all over the map. At least one showed El-Sayed with a sizable primary lead.
So Rogers isn’t placing a bet. Rather, he’s studying the 2024 race in search of enough voters to close the .3% gap.
He’s got his message: A Democrat is a Democrat, whether of the garden-variety type or a socialist. They’ll all exploit the pain of Michigan voters by promising them a Big Rock Candy Mountain without telling them the price is higher taxes and fewer jobs.
“We’ll be talking about how the Green New Deal, which both Haley and Abdul supported, is driving up the price of everything,” Rogers says.
Rogers, with no primary, was able to get an earlier start this time, and with a far better campaign organization. In July, the campaign crossed the one million mark for doors knocked on. He’s also ahead of his 2024 fundraising pace. With control of the Senate in play and an open seat, outside money will come pouring in as well.
And he won’t be facing as formidable an opponent, he says.
“Neither one is as talented a politician as Elissa Slotkin,” he says.
As long as there’s a Donald Trump, however, he will be the wild card in any race. The question this time is whether weariness and resentment of Trump will be a more powerful motivator than aversion to the socialist platform on which all Democrats are being forced to stand this cycle.
“This race will be about Michigan, not Trump,” Rogers says. “People just want to know Michigan can get back on the right track. They’ve seen manufacturing jobs come back under Trump, and prices go up under Democrats.”
Millions will be spent by the Stevens and El-Sayed campaigns over the next five days. And almost every dollar will sell the message that their opponent in Tuesday’s primary is a dirty, rotten scoundrel.
Mike Rogers will be an equal beneficiary of that spending, no matter who wins Tuesday.
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Finley: Mike Rogers hunting for a 0.3-point edge
Reporting by Nolan Finley, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Nolan Finley, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
