Former Republican Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers is taking another crack at a Senate bid after narrowly coming up short last November.
Rogers announced his bid for the open Senate seat Monday morning, casting himself as an ally of President Donald Trump and the “battle-tested” candidate best positioned to win a general election in the swing state. The Daily Caller News Foundation interviewed Rogers who discussed the need for Republican unity to avoid a contested primary and focus on flipping the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters.
Rogers’ announcement was immediately followed by a joint endorsement from Senate Majority Leader John Thune and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chair Tim Scott. Both senators notably visited Michigan in fall 2024 to campaign for Rogers. The former congressman said Thune and Scott’s endorsement was the result of Senate GOP leadership’s decision to pick a candidate early and “ride the horse to victory.”
“It shows that we as Republicans are ready to unify early to win,” Rogers told the DCNF. “This is our chance to actually win the seat.”
“What you’re seeing is a coalition and kind of coalescing around a candidate,” the Senate candidate added. “A long, protracted primary is detrimental to winning in November of ’26 and I think that’s what you’re seeing happen.”
Though Rogers is the only candidate to announce a bid thus far, Trump’s endorsement is expected to weigh heavily on the GOP primary. The president supported Rogers’ candidacy during his 2024 Senate run and has hinted at supporting him again.
“He might be the one,” Trump reportedly said of Rogers during a meeting with Senate Republicans in February. “We’re talking to Michael and some of the others. He may be the one to run again.”
“We’d be delighted to have President Trump’s endorsement,” Rogers told the DCNF. “We’ve been talking to his staff and we think we’re in good shape and would look forward to an endorsement if he’s going to do it in the state of Michigan.”
Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, who co-managed Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, is notably serving as an advisor to Rogers’ campaign. He said following Rogers’ campaign announcement that the Michigan contest is “the number one pickup opportunity” for Senate Republicans in 2026.
Rogers told the DCNF he will be a strong supporter of the president’s agenda in the Senate and is looking forward to helping codify the president’s executive orders.
“I’ll stand with President Trump and we will deliver on the mandate given to him by the American people,” Rogers said in a campaign video released Monday.
WARREN, MICHIGAN – NOVEMBER 01: President Donald Trump campaigns for Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Mike Rogers (R) during a rally onstage at Macomb Community College on November 01, 2024 in Warren, Michigan. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Rogers came closer than any Republican candidate in three decades to turning one of Michigan’s Senate seats red. He lost the 2024 election for the state’s other senate seat to Democratic Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin by 19,000 votes. Trump carried Michigan the same night, besting Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by 80,000 votes in addition to sweeping the cycle’s six other battleground states.
The NRSC regards the open Michigan seat as one of the GOP’s best opportunities to expand its 53-47 Senate majority during the 2026 midterms. The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm is expected to aggressively campaign in support of Rogers given their endorsement.
Though Rogers is proud to have come within striking distance of Slotkin despite being significantly outspent, he said he is committed to performing better than he did last cycle.
He pointed to two areas that his campaign is already seeking to improve upon: starting fundraising now by getting in the race early and building out a ground game to grow enthusiasm among Republican voters.
“We’re not going to find ourselves in that same position,” Rogers told the DCNF. “And candidly, people weren’t sure we could win Michigan last go round. And we showed that we can win Michigan.”
However, Rogers acknowledged that he will need to make inroads with the voters who cast a ballot in support of Trump, but didn’t vote for down-ballot candidates. While the president outran Rogers by roughly 100,000 votes, the former congressman still argues that he performed better than other GOP Senate candidates.
Michigan was one of four states carried by Trump in 2024 that also elected Democrats to the Senate on the same ballot. The other three were Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.
“What we’re trying to do is have conversations with those voters about why Donald Trump needs help back in Washington, DC,” Rogers told the DCNF. “We’ll make sure we have a better conversation there than maybe we had last time, and part of it was we were so over-washed by Democrat cash in the beginning, it was really hard for us to get our message out.”
“There’s no Democrat that has that kind of name ID,” Rogers noted. “All of those folks are going to have to spend a lot of money trying to let people know who they are — and we think that’s a huge advantage for us.”
Early analysis from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the contest as a “toss-up” as Democrats are looking to defend Peters’ seat. Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow has already jumped into the primary and Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens is rumored to be announcing a bid sometime in April. Other possible Democratic candidates are likely to enter the race.
Rogers believes a bitter, deeply-divided Democratic field could benefit his campaign, particularly if he is able to avoid a contested primary.
He also disputed the notion that running in a midterm year with potentially high Democratic enthusiasm will hurt his election prospects.
“The electorate of Michigan is tracking right in a way we haven’t seen in the state in 30 years,” Rogers told the DCNF. “Again, mainly because we’ve just been crushed here economically.”
“In the last four years, under [former President Joe] Biden and Governor [Gretchen] Whitmer, Michigan alone has lost 27,000 manufacturing jobs,” Rogers told the DCNF. “That’s unsustainable. If you care about the middle class in America, we have to have this fight, and we have to have it now.”
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