How a one-time GOP critic found alliance with Trump in pivotal Michigan Senate race

Warren, Michigan (CNN) — The day after January 6, 2021, Mike Rogers was blunt.

The former Republican congressman blamed then-President Donald Trump’s “chaotic leadership style” for costing his party two critical Senate seats in Georgia. He said that “the spell” around Trump had been broken by the US Capitol attack, which, he said, Trump’s actions “clearly” provoked. And in discussing a news report a week later saying that Trump privately acknowledged some responsibility for the attack, Rogers made his own view crystal clear.

“Well, you’re damn right you had responsibility for this,” Rogers said of Trump on January 12, 2021.

Nearly four years later, as Rogers now battles Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin for a prized Senate seat in Michigan, Rogers and Trump are in a much different place, a relationship solidified over phone calls that led to Trump’s crucial primary endorsement of Rogers earlier this year.

“Well, I didn’t say he was clearly responsible” for January 6, Rogers told CNN last week at a diner in his old House district northwest of Detroit. “Listen, even Donald Trump said I was tough, but fair. I’ll take that all day long.”

While Rogers said he wasn’t walking away from his past remarks, he downplayed them.

“We’re going to have differences amongst our party members all the time,” he said.

Rogers’ evolution on Trump underscores both the former president’s enduring grip on the party and the calculation down-ticket Republicans have made in navigating the polarizing presence atop their ticket. Virtually all of them are aligning themselves with Trump, believing his sway with the GOP base overcomes his baggage with suburban and women voters – and that backing Trump could potentially let them ride his coattails into office.

Slotkin sees it differently.

“Everyone who used to be thoughtful and independent just either has to get with Trump and salute and do anything he says, or they can’t be in politics,” Slotkin said in an interview here in swing Macomb County. “And it’s sad to see. It’s like watching the last buffalo die.”

The Michigan seat is one of eight in competitive states that Democrats must hold in order to simply keep the Senate at 50-50, assuming their handful of long-shot pickup opportunities don’t materialize. And it’s a state where Democrats are forced to run the gauntlet – with the GOP making serious inroads with rank-and-file union workers here and the war in Gaza threatening to pull apart the Democratic coalition.

A fraying Democratic coalition

As both sides see the race as a deadheat, the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, is dropping a staggering $27 million in the final six weeks of the campaign. And now Republican groups are outpacing Democrats, with plans to spend a whopping $96 million on air this cycle, compared to $88 million for their foes, according to data from AdImpact.

“We have gotten ourself to where the national party says, ‘You can win.’ But we’ve been telling them that for a while, so we’re glad that they came,” said Rogers, 61.

A centerpiece of the GOP ad campaign: Votes Slotkin took to preserve tailpipe emission standards and to allow states to impose limits on gas-powered vehicles. Slotkin stands by her votes but was forced to cut a response ad saying she doesn’t drive an electric vehicle or believe in mandates, a move aimed at appealing to autoworkers but that has angered some environmentalists.

“I’ve been very open,” Slotkin, 48, told CNN. “I do not care what kind of car you drive. There’s no EV mandate. I don’t drive an EV. I drive a combustion engine forward. But I want to make that next generation of vehicles.”

Another major challenge: The Arab American Political Action Committee is now urging the sizable Arab population in Michigan – roughly 310,000 people or 3% of the population – to not vote for the Democratic or Republican candidates for president or the Senate. Democrats fear that could hurt their party in a closely contested election. Nearly 146,000 Muslim Americans voted in the 2020 general election in Michigan, according to an analysis by the group Emgage.

“Slotkin has a history,” said Osama Siblani, a spokesman for the Arab American Political Action Committee. “We’re judging people by their history, in here, and we’re not going to take a chance by voting for someone, put them in office and then regretting that.”

Slotkin, who is Jewish, downplayed the group’s decision but said: “It’s hard to overstate how this issue has roiled the state of Michigan, also because it’s personal here,” pointing to the large Arab, Jewish and student populations here.

But some GOP groups are seeking to stoke the divide even further. The Future Coalition PAC, a GOP-linked group, has cut digital ads and mailers targeting Arab voters with messages like this: “Kamala Harris and Elissa Slotkin have proven time and again that they will always have Israel’s back.”

An unflinching defense of Trump

Yet Slotkin, who represents a swing district, sees major vulnerabilities in Rogers’ voting record over 14 years in the House – namely over his previous votes on abortion restrictions, which has become central to the Democratic ad campaign against him.

But Slotkin has tried to make a broader case: That Rogers has changed since his time leaving office.

“I want the 2014 Mike Rogers back,” Slotkin said at a debate last week.

Asked to respond, Rogers fired back.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “The 2024 Mike Rogers is worried about people affording their homes, putting gas in their car, getting enough groceries. … So that’s a campaign tactic that some consultant came up with, but I will tell you what, I am the same guy that’s going to fight for Michigan citizens as hard as I did in 2014 and earlier.”

But what’s changed since 2014 is Trump’s emergence on the national scene and dominance in the GOP. Just earlier this month, Trump delivered an economic speech in Detroit, insulting the city.

“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” Trump said, referring to Harris. “We’re not going to let her do that to this country. We’re not going to let it happen.”

In the interview with CNN, Rogers defended the former president.

“What he was talking about is there are schools that are failing, and the Democrats, every year, keep saying, ‘I’m gonna help ya,’ and their schools have deteriorated. They keep saying, ‘Crime is better,’ if you live on the streets of Detroit, you know crime is not better,” Rogers said.

Slotkin had a different take.

“Do you see how scared he is of Donald Trump to even split with him on defending the biggest city in your state?” she said. “It’s sad.”

CNN’s Haley Talbot, David Wright and Max Rego contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.