ICYMI: “Mike Rogers Not Living at Home Where He’s Registered to Vote” After Lying for Months About Where He Lives

 After lying for months about where he lives, Mike Rogers finally admits he does not live in the house that he claimed he did.

Michigan Advance: “Issues surrounding the residency of the former seven-term congressman from mid-Michigan have lingered for almost as long as he has sought to be Michigan’s next U.S senator”

LANSING — Mike Rogers is facing questions about “where exactly the former Michigan congressman is laying his head at night” following new reporting showing that Rogers has been lying about living in Michigan. 

Yesterday, the Detroit News reported that Mike Rogers has confirmed that he is not living at the house that he claims to. The house that Rogers claimed to live in “had no certificate of occupancy as of this week,” and it appears “to be still in a construction phase, with an unfinished deck and a Port-A-Jon next to the driveway.”

Take a look at the timeline of Rogers’ extensive lies about where he is “laying his head at night as he campaigns for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat:” 

• July 2023: Rogers moved to Michigan to run for Senate and left his “4,751-square-foot home in Cape Coral valued at $1.7 million [that] was his official residence until his decision to run for U.S. Senate.” 

• July 2023: Rogers “purchased a one-bedroom, 728-square-foot home in White Lake Township” “soon after he announced his senatorial bid and said he had moved back to Michigan from Florida.” 

• January 2024: The Michigan Advance reported that Rogers’ campaign confirmed he had not been living at the White Lake Township house, citing “pending renovations” as the excuse for why they had been lying about where he lived – despite the fact that “the real estate listing for the White Lake property shows the home was completely remodeled by the previous owner in 2022 just prior to its sale.”
  
• May 2024: The Michigan Advance reported the White Lake house had been “demolished” and that “the old house was gone” with “no workers or active construction visible.” Rogers’ campaign lied to Michigan Advance, and said Rogers “still lived at the Genoa Township residence, which was technically owned by his sister-in-law.”

• May 2024: Rogers’ campaign lied to Bridge Michigan, and told them that “Rogers is living at the Genoa Township home.”

• August 2024: Rogers’ campaign lied to the Detroit News and said that he was living in the White Lake Township house and was no longer staying with his brother in Genoa Township. 

• October 6, 2024: The Detroit Free Press reports that Rogers “does not live in the house” in White Lake Township as the house “did not — and still does not — have a certificate of occupancy.” Rogers’ campaign is “mighty cagey” about where Rogers lives and “refused multiple requests to discuss the matter.” 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.”  

• October 8, 2024: The Detroit News confirmed that Rogers is not living at the house that he claims to.  

Following a year and a half of lies, Rogers’ campaign is still refusing to publicly answer the very basic question of where he has been living during the campaign, and where he is living now. 

See for yourself:

Detroit News: Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers not living at home where he’s registered to vote

• Republican hopeful Mike Rogers has been registered to vote at three different addresses this year, raising questions in recent days about where exactly the former Michigan congressman is laying his head at night as he campaigns for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.
• Ahead of his first debate Tuesday night with his opponent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Rogers’ campaign clarified in a call with The Detroit News that he is currently residing with in-laws in White Lake Township in Oakland County, west of Pontiac, and not at the lakefront property where he’s registered to vote.
• That lakefront modular home had no certificate of occupancy as of this week, township officials confirmed Monday via a public records request. On Tuesday morning, the Rogers house on Round Lake appeared to be still in a construction phase, with an unfinished deck and a Port-A-Jon next to the driveway.
• Rogers, a former seven-term congressman who grew up in Brighton, previously faced carpetbagging attacks from Democrats after he launched his campaign for Senate in Michigan last year. He had spent several years living in Florida, where he bought a $1.57 million home in the Cape Coral area in May 2022.
• Rogers was still registered to vote in the Sunshine State as of April…
• When he came back to Michigan last year, Rogers and wife Kristi stayed with his brother’s family in Genoa Township in Livingston County, where he registered to vote in August 2023, according to township records. Outside of the new home in White Lake Township on Tuesday, there was a sign advertising EBI Inc., a modular home construction business registered in state records to Rogers’ brother, former state Rep. Bill Rogers, R-Brighton.

Michigan Advance: Rogers says he didn’t violate voter registration law he helped to pass

• Issues surrounding the residency of the former seven-term congressman from mid-Michigan have lingered for almost as long as he has sought to be Michigan’s next U.S senator, competing against Democratic nominee U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly).
• Last year, Rogers and his wife, Kristi, purchased a home in White Lake Township soon after he announced his senatorial bid and said he had moved back to Michigan from Florida. But As the Michigan Advance first reported in January, the small, one-bedroom home was not where he was living. Instead, Rogers said he was staying at his brother’s home in Genoa Township, where he had originally registered to vote. 
• In May, when the Advance reported the original house had been demolished and a new one was being built, his campaign said he still lived at the Genoa Township residence, which was technically owned by his sister-in-law, but intended to move into the house once it was finished. 
• Then on Sunday, the Detroit Free Press reported that Rogers had switched his voter registration to the White Lake Township property and that was the address he used when he presumably voted for himself in Michigan’s August primary, in which he became the GOP nominee.
• However, the paper also reported that the home does not yet have a certificate of occupancy, which means he could not legally be living in the home, creating the possibility that he committed a misdemeanor by registering to vote in a home in which he did not actually reside.
• However, Roger’ attorney, Eric Doster, told The Detroit News for a story Tuesday that the candidate is staying at his in-laws’ home, also in White Lake Township, until the house is ready.
• “The only people [that] are asking questions is the press,” Rogers told reporters. 
• Rogers confirmed he is staying with his in-laws, also in White Lake…

MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show: Not Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, It Turns Out

WJR Radio: ML Elrick Interview

• 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?” 

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.”

See also: Detroit Free Press: Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers’ neighborhoods have everything but Mr. Rogers, MSNBC: A key GOP Senate candidate faces new ‘carpetbagger’ accusations, MLive: Questions about Mike Rogers’ residency surface: report, 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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