Michigan’s Republican Senate nominee has a new message for voters uneasy about President Donald Trump.
Mike Rogers, who faces Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for the state’s open seat, made the case to MS NOW outside a barn party in Highland, Michigan, highlighting the difficulties the 80-year-old president is burdening GOP candidates in the midterm election cycle.
“We only — he’s going to be there two years, and then he’s gone,” Rogers said. “This is a six-year term.”
The pitch reflects the bind Rogers faces in a battleground state where Trump’s approval rating among likely voters sits around 42 percent, according to a Mitchell Research & Communications poll. Trump carried Michigan by 1.4 points in 2024, the same year Rogers lost his Senate bid to Elissa Slotkin by about a third of a point.
Rogers has tried to have it both ways. On the eve of his first debate, he released an ad declaring “we need to end this tariff war now.” Two days later, he toured a factory to tout the benefits of Trump’s tariffs, then told the barn party crowd the levies on Canada had been “overall positive” for the state.
He has also dodged questions about sharing a stage with the president, who said last week he’d be “going to Michigan in about a week and a half.” Asked by MS NOW whether he would appear alongside Trump, Rogers moved on to the next question.
Bob Hoffman, the farmer who hosted the barn party, said a Trump visit wouldn’t help.
“[Trump’s] approval rating is so low, Mike Rogers has to, I believe, emphasize that he represents the state of Michigan first, and maybe the Republican Party second,” Hoffman said.
Rogers has broken with Trump on a few issues, calling ICE’s crackdown in Minnesota, where federal agents killed two civilians, “probably not appropriate” and objecting to the president’s deal to obtain diesel from Russia. But he declined to criticize Trump for branding El-Sayed, who would be the Senate’s first Muslim member, “a Jihadist lunatic who hates our Country.”
“I can’t pick the guy’s middle name — that’s his legal middle name,” Rogers said.
El-Sayed is daring Trump to show up.
“Donald, come. Tell everybody in Michigan that you are on the ballot,” the Democrat told a town hall crowd in the Upper Peninsula. “Your s--- tariff war is on the ballot.”
Rogers argued Michigan needs a senator who works with the White House.
“My argument is, why don’t we send one person back to say, ‘hey, Mr. President, this is bad for us, this is really good for us, can you do this?’” he said.