LANSING, Mich. — Michigan voters are faced with a choice for U.S. Senate in November between two candidates with strong national security credentials but with sharply different views on how to effectively address threats to the U.S.

Both Southeast Michigan candidates, Republican Mike Rogers of White Lake and Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Holly, have been highlighting the economic and national security threats posed by China on the campaign trail.

The two have also carved out different views on to what extent the state’s automotive industry should position itself for the transition to electric vehicles.

Republicans haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in Michigan since 1994. Democrats have won every U.S. Senate race in Michigan since 1996. The retirement of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, this year creates an open seat. With it being the first open seat in the state since 2014, Republicans see the race as their best chance to end their drought.

Most polling and election forecasters so far have shown the race in a statistical tie or with a slight Slotkin lead.

A general election slugfest has been underway not just on the campaign trail but also with an advertising blitz dominating the airwaves. Data from AdImpact showed that since Aug. 6, the date of the Michigan primary, through the general election, $100 million has been spent or reserved — $63 million from Slotkin and the Democrats and $37 million by the Republicans.

Republican spending in Michigan compared to other states with competitive U.S. Senate races, such as Ohio, seem to show the GOP is aware of the Republican drought when it comes to victories here. In Ohio, Republicans have spent or reserved $100 million. 

Rogers and Slotkin came through their respective primaries on Aug. 6 relatively easily. Although Rogers had a slightly more competitive race, his top opponent ended up dropping out and endorsing his candidacy. 

Rogers has also been able to embrace Donald Trump while also keeping support from more moderate Republicans. He has said he is focused on “bread and butter” issues though he has rallied on his opposition to transgender women in sports.

Rogers served in the U.S. Army and worked for the FBI. He served in the state Senate from 1995 to 2001 and in the U.S. House from 2001 to 2015. He also chaired the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

Slotkin was recruited by the CIA after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, serving three tours in Iraq and later in various positions under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. She was elected to the U.S. House in 2018 and has won tough reelection fights each cycle since.

Following an Aug. 21 rally opposing the proposed Gotion Inc. electric vehicle battery plant project in the small northwestern Lower Peninsula community of Green Charter Township, Rogers, in an interview with Gongwer News Service, said the Gotion project is part of a larger discussion on the future of the automotive industry.

Gotion is a company based in China with locations in the United States. Opponents have alleged the company has ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The battery project has been a flashpoint in the cultural and political fights around China and electric vehicles. While the state has provided economic development funding and touted the project, backlash from local residents and Republican politicians has made some usually routine decisions far more controversial. 

“We have about 1.1 million people who are associated with gasoline cars. It’s a lot,” Rogers said. “You take 40% — that’s what Ford said, 40% less labor, that’s 400,000 jobs right there. You’re not paying your mortgage, you’re not getting a new car, your job is over. That’s huge and significant, already, in a fragile economy where people are having a hard time buying groceries, having a hard time paying their electric bill. … This is, to me, what the heart of who we’re going to be going forward.”

Republicans are not alone in pushing the issue of China on the campaign trail. Democrats have accused Rogers in advertisements of “helping Chinese tech companies” and “giving them access to the U.S.” while working for a time with AT&T after leaving Congress. Rogers has countered with cease-and-desist letters to media outlets stating the ads were false and misleading.

For months, Slotkin has faced allegations by Republicans of allegedly having signed a nondisclosure agreement with Gotion regarding its project. Slotkin and her campaign have repeatedly denied that claim and have said she has signed no nondisclosure agreements with Gotion or any company with ties to China.

“You have to be strong enough to be able to dictate the rules of the road. China is dictating the rules of the road to us because [of] the Democrats in Washington, D.C., and my opponent Elissa Slotkin,” Rogers said. “If you look at what China has done just in the last four years, they have really ramped it up. They weren’t doing that the four years prior to that. That tells you everything you need to know. Weakness is a disaster on the international stage, and we need to fix that.”

Slotkin, following a Sept. 5 campaign event in the southern Michigan community of Lapeer, east of the city of Flint, told reporters that Rogers and the GOP were hitting her on China and national security “because those are my strengths, because national security is my background.”

“I take a pretty hawkish view of China, and I’m open about that,” Slotkin said. “We try to put out our own ads. We have in certain parts of the state … ads that are specifically addressing Chinese purchase of manufacturing facilities and farmland. I’m showing my strength on China.”

She said the Rogers campaign has not been truthful about her stance on China and on national security.

Asked after her Lapeer campaign event whether the Gotion project should go forward, Slotkin distanced herself from state Democrats who had supported the economic development incentive package approved for the company.

She cited legislation she introduced in Congress that would prevent China and other countries of national security concern from purchasing farmland or manufacturing sites in the United States without a full national security vetting process.

“Part of the reason I wrote the legislation was because of Gotion,” Slotkin said. “I thought it should have had a proper national security vetting before any decision was made, and that’s a place where I differ from some of the state officials who pushed it through.”

Slotkin further pressed her emphasis on the national security aspects of the project.

“Until there’s a national security vetting, I don’t love the moving forward of any project or any sale of farmland or any of those things,” Slotkin said. “I believe that we need to not just think about economics but also about the national security implications of Chinese-affiliated companies.”

Slotkin also defended her support for federal funding to help spur the push toward electric vehicles.

“I want to make them here. China is eating our lunch in this market, in the EU, in Mexico,” she said. “I don’t give a crap whether you want to buy one or not. That’s not my issue. I just say it as plainly as that, and there is no mandate.”

Rogers told Gongwer following the Gotion rally that he was not concerned about the recent energy among Democrats with the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the party’s presidential ticket. He said he believed the reality on the ground for everyday Americans will bring the Democrats back to earth ahead of November.

He cited the story of a woman he spoke with on the campaign trail who had to cancel her wedding that had been planned 14 months earlier because of rising costs.

“This is a woman who told me: ‘I’m not really a Republican or a Democrat. I’m voting Republican this year,’” Rogers said, adding he believes Democrats do not understand the hardships that people such as the woman he cited are going through under the current economic conditions and in a period of high inflation. 

“I think the economic engine of this is going to take … the tarnish off of all this hope-y, joy-ey, type of thing. If that doesn’t put food on my table, and I can’t afford my mortgage, none of that means anything. That’s the campaign that we’re running,” he said.

In a brief speech during the Democratic National Convention, Slotkin focused on national security. She also urged Democrats to be proud to display their patriotism and not to cede the issue to Republicans, while also seeming to jab at the GOP’s stance on various personal freedoms such as abortion rights.

“Do not give an inch to pretenders who wrap themselves in the flag but spit in the face of [the] freedoms it represents,” Slotkin said.

Nick Smith is a staff writer for Gongwer News Service/State Affairs. Reach him at [email protected] or on X @nsmithreports.

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