“It’s a question that’s been asked since January. And apparently remains unanswered.”
LANSING — Following the Detroit Free Press bombshell news report that “Mike Rogers does not live in the house” in White Lake Township, “questions have surfaced about the residency of U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers.”
The Rogers campaign is “mighty cagey” about where Rogers lives and “refused multiple requests to discuss the matter” while neighbors in the house he claims to live in with his brother confirmed “he doesn’t live [there]” and said they had “never seen Mike around.”
WATCH:
MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show: Not Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, It Turns Out
LISTEN:
- ML Elrick: There’s been a lot of questions about where Mike Rogers lives, and for folks who haven’t made up their mind yet he is a candidate for U.S. Senate. He won the Republican nomination. He’s a former Republican congressman from Michigan, very well regarded when he was in Congress. Retired on his own, left for a while, apparently got into some consulting, and last year he decided he was going to run for the U.S. Senate.
- Now at the time he was living in Florida and he’s been out of the state of Michigan for quite a while, but he returned to Michigan. He registered to vote at his brother’s house in Genoa Township, and since then has changed his voter registration to a home that he is building in White Lake Township. The problem is the House isn’t completed. It doesn’t have a certificate of occupancy, so he can’t legally live there, which raises some questions about whether he can legally vote from there.
- WJR radio host: So he’s building a house that he plans to live in White Lake. It’s just not done yet, and he says he’s living at his brother’s house, but you’re, you’re not so sure he’s actually living at his brother’s house either.
- Elrick: The problem is his campaign says he is living in White Lake Township now, but they won’t say where, and that raises some real questions about his eligibility to vote in an election as a resident of White Lake Township registered at this place that he can’t legally live at.
- And I did talk to some people in his brother’s neighborhood and just asked them, “Hey, did you ever see Mike Rogers around?” And I talk to three people, there’s 7 different residences. I didn’t bother talking to his brother’s house because I figured they’d tell me that he did live there, but three people I talked to the neighborhood either wouldn’t answer my questions or said “We’ve never seen him.”
- WJR radio host: So what do you think, he’s living in a hotel or something while he’s waiting for the paperwork to get done in White Lake?
- Elrick: Well, I think there’s a suspicion that Mike Rogers is living out of his suitcase while he’s running for Senate. Because if you are running for Senate and you’re a challenger or you’re running for an open seat, you should rarely sleep in your bed. You should be traversing the 83 counties, meet as many people as you can. So I’m not surprised that he’s not a regular in his brother’s neighborhood. But I am surprised that for somebody who has lived there for a year, nobody’s seen him, because I would think the first of people you would meet, is your neighbors and say “Hey, I’m Mike Rogers. I’m living at my brother’s house. I hope I can get your vote.” So you know this would be easily cleared up if his campaign would tell us where he’s been staying.
WJR Radio: ML Elrick Interview
- ML Elrick: It’s a beautiful place. I mean it’s 4,700 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 baths. It’s got an indoor pool and spa. It’s right on a canal. From what I understand, he likes the boat, so you can get right out there on the water. It’s a pretty nice place.
- WJR radio host: That’s what I expect of all my elected officials these days, ML. They all seem to be doing quite well.
- Elrick: They do seem to do pretty well in their post-political career, don’t they? But he was willing to give all of this up for a, basically, what looks like a really big shed in White Lake Township, 780 sq ft. I think once he got a real good look at it, he said “this ain’t going to work,” so he knocked it down, and started building this house where he does plan to live. That’s what we’re told. I think a question I’ve heard from a lot of readers, which is a fair one, which is “If he loses the Senate race, will he move back into that house? Or will he go back to Florida because he hasn’t put that home up for sale?”
Read more:
- MSNBC: “But perhaps no one in Republican politics is struggling with the [carpetbagger] issue more than former Rep. Mike Rogers… Where, exactly, does Rogers live?”
- MLive: “Questions have surfaced about the residency of U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers.”
- Jon King, Michigan Advance reporter: “It’s a question that’s been asked since January. And apparently remains unanswered.”
- Senator Jeremy Moss: “You would think after being exposed as a Florida voter back in April, Mike Rogers would have found a legit place to live and vote in Michigan. But apparently not?”
- Senator Dayna Polehanki: “‘I asked everyone I met if they had ever seen Mike Rogers in the neighborhood. ‘He doesn’t live here, that’s his brother,” said the first gentleman I encountered.’”
See also: Detroit Free Press: Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers’ neighborhoods have everything but Mr. Rogers, Michigan Advance: Where is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood?, Michigan Advance: A new house is being built for Mr. Rogers in his not-yet-neighborhood, Newsweek: Michigan Republican Candidate Caught Living in Florida, MSNBC: In Senate races, GOP haunted anew with ‘candidate quality’ issues
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