LANSING — “Thank goodness it’s Friday.” – Mike Rogers, probably. We can only imagine that Rogers is ready for this rough week to be over as he lost another debate, faced backlash for refusing to condemn Trump’s insults of Detroit not once, but twice, and tried to claim that he’s “not sure” how DeVos – who is “one of his campaign’s biggest donors” – “has anything to do with us trying to improve education for our kids.”
Meanwhile, even more people are “raising concerns” and calling “Rogers’ residency into question, and they’re pointing out that when it comes to his anti-abortion record, “the receipts exist in abundance.”
Here’s the latest on Revolving Door Rogers’ rough week:
- Another debate, another L for Rogers. At the second U.S. Senate debate, Rogers made it clear who’s in this race for: himself. If you missed the debate, here’s what you need to know: “‘Do not trust him’: Elissa Slotkin calls out Mike Rogers’ voting record at fiery US Senate debate.”
- Even on the debate stage, Rogers can’t run away from his toxic anti-abortion record.
- Rogers, so confusing featuring DeVos. Rogers said he’s “not sure” how DeVos, who is “one of his campaign’s biggest donors,” “has anything to do with us trying to improve education for our kids.” Maybe it’s time for Rogers to go back to school (that DeVos is trying to defund), because I don’t think that’s exactly how it works…
- “The receipts exist in abundance.” Jezebel notes that “no matter how Rogers tries to spin his abortion position,” his “records and actions” speak for itself. Rogers voted for a “national abortion ban” and backed an initiative to “enshrine fetal personhood in the Constitution.”
- *Rogers stopped sharing location with you.* Michigan leaders are “raising concerns” and calling “Rogers’ residency into question” following the bombshell reports that Rogers does not live in the house that he claimed to.
- Sell out. Rogers voiced his opposition to saving 700 Michigan auto jobs, calling it a “bad investment.”
- TLDR — we can’t trust “Revolving Door Rogers” who has an extensive anti-abortion record. Questions about where Rogers actually lives ”were still being asked with just a month to go before the election.”
- Fact check. Rogers has shamelessly spread lies that PolitFact has fact checked as false.
See for yourself:
NBC News: Michigan Senate foes brace for a ‘really close’ race amid Harris-Trump brawl
- Now, Rogers is careful not to air any criticism. Asked about Trump’s insulting comments about Detroit the day before, Rogers claimed he “didn’t hear what he [Trump] said.” (Trump called Detroit, Michigan’s most populous city, a “developing area” and said the whole country would end up “like Detroit” if Harris is elected.)
Michigan Democratic Party: STATEMENT: Michigan Dems Chair Statement on Tonight’s U.S. Senate Debate
The Gander: ‘Do not trust him’: Elissa Slotkin calls out Mike Rogers’ voting record at fiery US Senate debate
The Gander: Did Mike Rogers forget that Betsy DeVos is one of his campaign’s biggest donors?
- Republican US Senate candidate and former Congressman Mike Rogers appeared visibly frustrated when Betsy DeVos’ name was mentioned during a debate this week.
- The right-wing billionaire, who served as the US Secretary of Education under ex-President Donald Trump’s administration, is a controversial figure in Michigan politics—namely because she has spent much of her career supporting measures that would defund public schools.
- She’s also one of the biggest donors to Rogers’ Senate campaign, records show.
- “My opponent likes to talk about everything other than what we’re talking about. Betsy DeVos? I’m not sure how that has anything to do with us trying to prove education for our kids,” he said.
- After her departure from the Trump administration, DeVos also garnered widespread criticism when she argued (like Project 2025 suggests) that the US Department of Education that she once led “should not exist” during a speech at an ultra-conservative Moms for Liberty summit.
- A 2022 poll coordinated by Lake Effect and Progress Michigan also found that only about 8% of Michiganders have a favorable opinion of DeVos, while 50% have an unfavorable opinion.
- In all, DeVos and her family have reportedly donated the maximum allowable political contributions to Rogers’ campaign.
Jezebel: Ranking the Closest Senate Races by How Batshit the GOP Candidate Is
- But I’d rather listen to Rogers’ record than his lies: In 2000, Rogers completed a candidate questionnaire for the Michigan Catholic Conference in which he backed an initiative known as the “Human Life Amendment,” which would ban abortion from the moment of conception and enshrine fetal personhood in the Constitution. Earlier this year, Rogers said he’d vote against a national abortion ban and wouldn’t threaten Michigan’s constitutional abortion right. But in 2013, Rogers voted for a 20-week national abortion ban, which is still very much a national ban, whether he calls it one or not.
- If you take one thing away from this dumpster fire of an election season, please let it be to evaluate candidates’ records and actions—not their word salads.
- Rating: I give this race
and a 
, because no matter how Rogers tries to spin his abortion position, the receipts exist in abundance.
WCMU Public Radio: Democrats raise concerns about where Mike Rogers lives
- Ahead of tonight’s debate, in the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, Democrats are raising concerns about where the Republican candidate lives.
- That’s after reporting from the Detroit Free Press found Mike Rogers used an address for a house that he’s been building in White Lake Township to vote despite the house not yet being approved for occupancy.
- Democratic state Senator Jeremy Moss says it’s an issue Michigan voters should care about. ‘People are kind of sick that we’re getting, kind of, even to more politics as usual, and that some of these things are becoming the norm. Again as I said, I think it’s ridiculous that now we’re going to have to ask candidates, do they live here?’
- Rogers, a former mid-Michigan congressman, had lived in Florida after leaving office prior to this year.
Detroit News: Rogers says $500M grant for building EVs at Michigan plant shouldn’t move forward
- U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers said Tuesday he does not think the federal government should move forward with a $500 million grant to aid the conversion of a General Motors Co. assembly plant in Lansing to producing electric vehicles.
- Rogers’ comments Tuesday came after Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has not directly answered questions regarding whether a future Trump administration would honor Biden administration investments in EV manufacturing planned for Michigan, such as the $500 million investment in Lansing that is expected to retain 650 jobs and create 50 new jobs. On Tuesday, Vance referred to the $500 million grant as “table scraps” compared with the larger job losses he argued could be on the horizon as a result of the transition to electric vehicles.
Michigan Advance: Slotkin and Rogers battle for Michigan’s 1st open US Senate seat in a decade
- After leaving Congress in 2015, [Rogers] became a cyber security adviser and businessman and later moved to Florida before the opportunity to run for Senate brought him back to Michigan, although his subsequent purchase of a home in White Lake created questions as the Advance reported in January about where he actually was living. Those questions remained unanswered as the campaign wore on, and were still being asked with just a month to go before the election.
- Rogers has also faced his own criticism regarding connections to China, including a Detroit News report earlier this year that he “briefly worked for AT&T, which faced pushback for its entanglements” with Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
- Financial disclosures also indicated that in the two years before he announced his Senate bid, Rogers earned at least $460,000 working as a risk analyst for the Nokia Corp., which in January announced that after a decade of extensive business deals in China, it was selling its majority stake in a Beijing-based firm amid rising tensions with the U.S.
- Those connections earned the former congressman the moniker “Revolving Door Rogers” from the Michigan Democratic Party.
- When Rogers appeared on WKAR’s “Off the Record” in March 2023, before he announced his run for Senate, he was asked if he would have voted yes or no on Proposal 3
- “I probably wouldn’t have done that because it covers right up to the day of birth, and I’m not there,” said Rogers. “I don’t think most Americans are there. I think that’s kind of an extreme position.”
- The statewide proposal passed by a 13-point margin with 57% of the vote.
- In Congress, he voted multiple times to overturn the ACA, while also sponsoring four bills, in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2013, that would have provided legal personhood from the moment of conception, the same definition that has threatened to ban in vitro fertilization (IVF).
- According to a pair of letters provided to the Advance by American Bridge 21st Century, a research and response operation run by the Democratic Party, while serving in the Michigan Senate in the 1990s, Rogers told a constituent that the federal government was “established to protect our lives and the lives of the unborn,” calling abortion the “ultimate discrimination.”
- In a letter to March for Life in 2000, Rogers prayed for action against abortion on Capitol Hill and referred to Roe vs. Wade as a “travesty.”
- The letters were obtained by American Bridge through a search of Rogers’ congressional archives at Oakland University. Also found in the archives was an undated template from Rogers’ time in Congress that appeared to be for helping draft responses to constituents on the abortion issue.
PolitiFact: “We rate this claim False.”
###
