Slotkin defeats Rogers to win Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat

Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin was declared the winner of a close race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat Wednesday afternoon, defeating Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers 48.6%-48.3%.

When 99% of the estimated votes had been counted, the Associated Press called the race for Slotkin on Wednesday shortly after 3 p.m. The difference in the vote total at the time of the call was 18,435 votes.

Slotkin, a three-term congresswoman from Holly, will replace Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who announced early last year that she would not run for a fifth six-year term. Rogers, of White Lake, left Congress in 2015 after serving as a congressman for 14 years and rose to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Slotkin’s campaign released a statement Wednesday morning expressing her confidence in winning the seat, saying she had a lead of nearly 20,000 votes, “and our margin will continue to grow as the remaining ballots are processed.”

The race between Slotkin, who is also a former acting assistant secretary of Defense and a former intelligence officer; and Rogers, a former FBI agent and Army officer, was considered a national bellwether for how successful Republicans could be in this year’s elections. Ultimately, Slotkin won because Democrats were expected to lose the Senate majority to the Republican Party in the next Congress.

Michigan has not elected a Republican U.S. senator since Spencer Abraham won a single six-year term in 1994. And not a single Republican has been elected in the state in a presidential year dating back to the 1970s.

But the Republican Party felt it had a good chance this year, with Democratic President Joe Biden receiving low approval ratings, at least in part, due to the increase in illegal immigration along the southern border and high inflation in recent months. somewhat decreased. There was also the fact that Republican former President Donald Trump, running for re-election, placed special emphasis on winning Michigan, as he did in 2016, and the belief that that could captivate Rogers, a former Trump critic which has since joined him and won his endorsement.

But in Slotkin, Democrats also opted for a candidate known for her tenacity on the campaign trail and her ability to ride out her party’s lead. She is also known as a prodigious fundraiser and was considered during the election as the likely favorite to win the seat vacated by Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow after four six-year terms.

The most recent poll by the Free Press shows Slotkin had a 47%-42% lead over Rogerswhich was just outside the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. However, in some other polls the race was closer.

According to Open Secrets, a website that tracks political spending, Slotkin has already spent nearly $44 million of her own campaign money on the race, compared to $8.6 million for Rogers. But since the race could help determine which party will gain majority control of the Senate — and how big that majority is — a staggering amount of independent spending on behalf of either party has gone into the race, including more than $78 million from conservative groups that oppose Slotkin and support Rogers. Another nearly $63 million backs Slotkin and is targeting a defeat against Rogers.

The race largely revolved around Rogers’ efforts to characterize Slotkin as an ally of the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, who said Slotkin has done nothing while consumer prices and illegal immigration both rose. He has also labeled her as a supporter of what Republicans call an electric vehicle mandate, which would force automakers to build and consumers to buy electric-powered cars and trucks.

There’s no mandate — though stricter emissions rules could mean automakers would have to sell many more electric cars by 2032 or face stiff penalties if those rules weren’t changed — but Detroit automakers were part of setting those standards. Slotkin, who has presented herself as a moderate and bipartisan consensus builder throughout her political career, has also said that she does not support any rule that would force anyone to make or buy an EV, but that she supports standards that would improve. so they can be built in the US

Slotkin, meanwhile, has fought back by noting that Rogers lived out of state most of the time after leaving office, returning only to run for the Senate seat, and that he cannot be trusted in the field of abortion rights. Rogers, like other Republicans, has pledged that he would not vote for any national ban or other restriction that would conflict with abortion protections now enshrined in the state constitution. But Slotkin rightly notes that Rogers was a staunch opponent of abortion throughout his political career. She has also criticized him for getting too cozy with corporations, protecting the pharmaceutical industry from price controls and voting against health care reforms like the Affordable Care Act.

Contact Todd Spangler: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler