As Republicans aim to win back the Senate majority in this autumn’s elections, they’re eyeing Michigan, where longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow isn’t seeking re-election this year.
The state is also a key presidential election battleground state that former President Trump narrowly carried in 2016 and President Biden won by a razor-thin margin four years later.
Trump and his new running-mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, are coming to Michigan on Saturday, to hold their first rally since Thursday’s conclusion of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump applauds as Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio gestures on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin., July 16, 2024. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
“Michigan is going to be critically important,” former Rep. Mike Rogers, the front-runner for the GOP Senate nomination, emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview.
Rogers, a one-time FBI special agent who later served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee during his tenure in Congress, will be at the rally on Saturday. He argued that “all of the coalitions of the Democrats are falling apart. Why. Because they haven’t delivered.”
And he said that having Trump back in Michigan – for the third time since April – gives him and other Republicans down-ballot a boost by telling voters that “help is on the way. We’ve got your back. Here are the policies that are going to make your lives better.”
Former President Donald Trump listens as Michigan Senate candidate and former Rep. Mike Rogers speaks at a campaign rally in Freeland, Mich., Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Trump’s stop in Grand Rapids is also his second in the southwestern Michigan city since April.
But President Biden’s campaign, in a statement on the eve of the Trump-Vance rally, charged that the former president’s agenda “would hurt workers, raise costs on working families while giving handouts to billionaires, and destroy unions.”
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Rogers will face off in Michigan’s August 6 primary against a GOP Senate field that includes wealthy investor and entrepreneur Sandy Pensler, former Rep. Justin Amash, and physician Sherry O’Donnell. He enjoys the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which is the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. And in March, he landed the endorsement of Trump.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers, a GOP Senate candidate in Michigan, gestures as he speaks on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 16, 2024. (REUTERS/Jeenah Moon)
“We’re doing exceptionally well in the primary,” said Rogers, who was interviewed in Milwaukee on Wednesday ahead of his speech at the convention that evening.
He predicted that “we’re going to win the primary but we still need people to come out and get fired up.”
The eventual Republican nominee will likely face off in November with Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the clear front-runner for her party’s Senate nomination.
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