Elissa Slotkin, Mike Rogers win nominations for Michigan's vacant US Senate seat

The battle for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat came into clearer focus Tuesday night as U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, won their parties' nominations to succeed U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who is stepping down after 24 years in the job.

The Associated Press, which the Free Press relies on for final results, called the races as the final polls in the state closed at 9 p.m., despite only a small amount of the total votes having been counted across Michigan. Both had amassed substantial leads by that point, however.

More:Find all 2024 Michigan primary election results here

Slotkin led Detroit actor Hill Harper 76% to 24% in the Democratic primary, with 94% of the vote tallied statewide. Rogers led the Republican primary, with 63% to 16% for former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade Charter Township, and 12% for west Michigan Dr. Sherry O'Donnell, with about 94% of the GOP vote in statewide. Grosse Pointe businessman Sandy Pensler, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Rogers two weeks ago but still appeared on the ballot, had about 9% of the vote.

Both Slotkin and Rogers had long been considered the front-runners in the Democratic and Republican primaries for the Senate seat. Come back to www.freep.com for updated vote totals.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters in Detroit, Slotkin said accepting the nomination was an "extremely proud moment" for her and praised Harper and Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun, who had earlier been disqualified from the Democratic primary race, for running. "I know how hard it is to step into the arena," she said. "I applaud anyone who stands up to run."

As for Rogers, Slotkin described him as a friend to big business and pharmaceutical companies who would rather stoke culture war arguments than attack the danger posed to children by guns. "The contrasts between us could not be clearer," she said. "This election will come down to service to country versus service to self."

Rogers, who had a watch party in Oakland County, issued a statement expressing his gratitude for the support he had received. "The road to victory in November starts now and we’re more united than ever before to deliver for hard working Michiganders," he said. "Together, we will lower the costs of gas and groceries, secure our southern border, eliminate pro-China EV (electric vehicle) mandates, and Get America Back on Track!”

The race to replace Stabenow is expected to be an unusually hard-fought one, given that no Republican U.S. Senate nominee has won in Michigan since 1994, when former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham was elected to a single six-year term by beating Democratic former U.S. Rep. Bob Carr in the Republican wave nationally that year.

Stabenow, who had been a U.S. House member, beat Abraham by only about 1½ percentage points in 2000 and never faced as close a race again.

But political handicappers, including those at the well-respected Cook Political Report in Washington, have declared Michigan's open seat a toss-up, largely based on the strength that had been shown by Republican former President Donald Trump in opinion polls for his reelection bid in the state, compared with what were lagging numbers for Democratic President Joe Biden before he abandoned his party's nomination late last month.

The belief was that Biden's problems would weigh down the Democrats' chances of keeping the U.S. Senate seat, though it's possible now if Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, continues to see her polling numbers rise against Trump in Michigan and nationally, political handicappers could again tout the state as a likely Democratic hold.

Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will be in Michigan campaigning Wednesday and Thursday. Trump's running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, will be campaigning in Macomb County on Wednesday.

Almost from the moment that Stabenow shocked Michigan political circles in early 2023 by announcing she would not seek a fifth six-year term, Slotkin — who threw her hat in the ring less than two months later — had been seen as a strong replacement by those in her party. A former intelligence officer who served both the administrations of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and who rose to the rank of acting assistant Pentagon secretary for the latter, Slotkin has been seen as a formidable campaigner, raising scads of money and leaning into a reputation as a pragmatic, more moderate voice for her party in Washington.

In her first run in 2018, she upset former U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, in a district that had long been seen as a Republican stronghold and had been filled by Rogers before he left Congress in 2015. Two years later, she beat Republican Paul Junge even as Trump, running for reelection, won the district for a second time. In 2022, she defeated former state Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, in a redrawn district that was still considered a toss-up between the parties.

In the Senate nominating campaign, Slotkin initially faced a somewhat larger field, until Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun was removed from the ballot for failing to include a proper street address on the petition signature sheets he provided to the Secretary of State's Office. That left Slotkin facing Harper, an actor who has appeared in TV's "The Good Doctor" and "CSI:NY" and a writer who moved to Detroit some years ago.

Harper, who is Black, picked up some early endorsements, including those from Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, former U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Southfield, and Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell, and tried to push a message that Slotkin, who is white and Jewish, wasn't appropriately committed to the concerns of Black Michiganders as she should be. He has also argued that Slotkin is too connected with institutional Washington and, by inference, the Biden administration, which has been criticized for not doing more to demand an Israeli cease-fire in Gaza.

But Harper also had several missteps, including not initially disclosing his sources of income as required by federal law, and failing to raise anywhere near the money raised by Slotkin, who, as of the middle of last month had some $24 million in campaign receipts compared to less than $3 million for Harper, more than $1 million of which he donated or loaned himself. Meanwhile, Slotkin began to make inroads in Detroit, meeting with leaders, cosponsoring bills in the U.S. House to study reparations and raise the minimum wage, and seeking out endorsements.

It appeared up to the end that Harper, while game, didn't have time or resources enough to bounce back and Slotkin was widely considered the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination. As of 10:25 p.m. Tuesday, his campaign had not yet provided the Free Press with any indication that he had conceded the race.

Rogers, a former critic, buoyed by Trump's endorsement

Rogers, a former FBI agent who replaced Stabenow in the U.S. House in 2001 and rose to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before deciding not to run for an eighth two-year term in 2014, had widely been considered the Republican favorite for the nomination headed into the primary.

After getting into the race last September, Rogers quickly sewed up much of the institutional support, including that of the influential DeVos family in west Michigan, and his connections with metro Detroit — having lived in Livingston County for decades — were seen as a strength despite his having moved back into Michigan from Florida during the campaign.

But Rogers could have faced serious headwinds given that the state's Republicans had become far less swayed by institutional party strength and the fact that he had criticized Trump in the past for not accepting the results of the 2020 election, which showed Trump losing to Biden nationally and in Michigan.

That worry, however, disappeared after Trump endorsed Rogers over the rest of the field, which occurred only after Rogers made clear his own endorsement of Trump in this year's election and that he felt the justice system under the Biden administration had been weaponized against the former president despite lacking any clear evidence that it had. Since then, it has been largely clear sailing for Rogers, even as Democrats began to attack him for flip-flopping on Trump and working for companies that did business in China after leaving Congress.

Initially, Rogers also faced a large group of Republican hopefuls that included former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who was seen as having broader name recognition than Rogers. But Craig dropped out in February of this year and endorsed Rogers, his campaign unable to raise sufficient amounts of financial support. Later, another candidate, former U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Grand Rapids Township, dropped out just ahead of the deadline to do so.

That left Amash, who had left the GOP previously, O'Donnell and Pensler, who ramped up the most significant attacks against Rogers as being insufficiently committed to the conservative cause for authoring a report, while in Congress, that largely cleared the intelligence community of any responsibility in the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Pensler framed it as a defense of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration.

By that point, though, Rogers was seen as having the lead, and got chances to stand next to Trump at rallies and speak at the Republican National Convention. On July 20, at a rally in Grand Rapids shortly after the convention, Pensler stood next to Trump and Rogers and endorsed Rogers, saying he was getting out of the race. "President Trump endorsed Mike Rogers. Tonight, so am I," Pensler said. "Mike’s going to make a heck of a senator."

How the Senate campaign will likely shape up

Both candidates in their statements provided insights into how they can be expected to go after their opponent ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

For Slotkin and the Democrats, that will mean drawing attention to Rogers' attempts to block and repeal the Affordable Care Act and his support for trade deals which many workers found harmful to domestic manufacturing during his tenure. It also means going after him on gun control and the need for what she claims would be common-sense restrictions given the number of children who die, including through suicides and accidental shootings.

Rogers' history of working − and greatly increasing his wealth doing so − after leaving Congress, a time during which he mostly lived outside of Michigan, will also continue to be a Democratic theme against him, even as Slotkin argues for expanded health care and child care and efforts to increase better-paying jobs, especially union jobs, in Michigan.

Rogers and the Republicans, meanwhile, will hammer away at the claims they've been using already against Democrats this year, especially the surge in undocumented immigrants that had been coming across the southern border until recent changes and the Biden administration's push for tailpipe emission rules the GOP say amount to a mandate to force automakers to sell expensive electric vehicles the public may not want. And while there is no actual mandate, the administration has put in place rules that could result in automakers paying fines if they don't sell a lot more EVs.

Republicans will also work to tag Slotkin as more liberal than her reputation as a moderate, even though she has generally voted against her party more than most Democrats.

Regardless of the issues, expect outside groups supporting either side to flood the state with ads and money, with control of the U.S. Senate possibly at stake.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

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