‘He’s going to be there two years, and then he’s gone’: Mike Rogers’s Trump tightrope

Mike Rogers, the Republican running for Michigan's open Senate seat, is trying to hold onto Donald Trump's loyalists without alienating swing voters unhappy with the president, and his handling of that problem is drawing scrutiny as a possible Trump visit looms. Trump said he expected to come to the state in roughly ten days, though nothing has been formally announced. Rogers says he welcomes the visit but declined to say whether he would share a stage with Trump, although he joined the president at a July rally, according to MS NOW.

His positions have been uneven. One ad called for ending the tariff war, yet he later toured a factory praising the policy and called the effect on Michigan mostly positive. He described ICE's Minnesota operations as probably inappropriate and disagreed with a Russian diesel arrangement. But he would not criticize Trump for calling his Democratic rival Abdul El-Sayed a "Jihadist lunatic," and he thanked Trump for his stance on election transparency.

The stakes are high: Trump won Michigan in 2024 by 1.4 points, Rogers lost to Elissa Slotkin by 0.34, and around 42% of likely voters approve of Trump, per Mitchell Research & Communications. Rogers's own backers disagree on whether a visit helps.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →