By Jim Ellis — Thursday, April 17, 2025
Senate
Former Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers (R)
Former seven-term US Rep. Mike Rogers (R), who rose to chair the House Intelligence Committee and came within 19,006 votes of upsetting now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in November, announced that he will return in 2026 to compete for the state’s second open Senate seat in consecutive election cycles.
In the 2024 general election, Rogers defied the polling that predicted a more comfortable victory for then-Rep. Slotkin. He also was at a major fundraising disadvantage, a problem he won’t likely face in this campaign.
Immediately, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) endorsed Rogers.
On the other hand, US Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Holland) confirms he is considering a Senate bid and will decide about running later in the year. Huizenga flirted with a statewide run before but ultimately backed away.
For the Democrats, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) is an announced Senate candidate. US Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham) is sending signals that she will soon enter the race, as is Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed. Former state House Speaker Joe Tate and term-limited Attorney General Dana Nessel are possible candidates. Former US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was leading in early Senate polling, last month announced that he would not enter the race.
The open Michigan Senate race with incumbent Gary Peters (D) retiring promises to be one of the top 2026 US Senate campaigns.
The Wolverine State has a long history of electing Democrats to the Senate, and the GOP’s path to victory remains difficult despite coming close to winning in November. Since the 1954 election, only two Republicans have won Senate elections: Robert Griffin who lost his seat in 1978 to Democrat Carl Levin who would go onto win five additional terms, and Spence Abraham who won in 1994 but lost to Democrat Debbie Stabenow in 2000. Sen. Stabenow served until she retired in the last cycle.
Michigan, for the first time in the modern political era, will feature an open Governor and open Senate race in the same election cycle. For a Republican to win either of these 2026 statewide campaigns, they will have to perform as well as President Donald Trump did in 2024.
In November, the President carried 74 of Michigan’s 83 counties but still lost all of the populous metro entities. Therefore, the eventual GOP nominees for Senate, presumably Rogers, and Governor, presumably James, must also do as well as President Trump in the metro counties. Statewide, he defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris, 49.7 – 48.3 percent, a margin of 80,103 votes.
The Trump urban/metro benchmark percentages are 47.2 (Genesee County-Flint), 34.1 (Ingham County-Lansing), 40.3 (Kalamazoo County), 46.4 (Kent County-Grand Rapids), 45.4 (Leelanau County-Traverse City), 44.8 (Marquette County-Upper Peninsula), 43.7 (Oakland County-Detroit Metro), 26.6 (Washtenaw County-Ann Arbor), and 33.7 (Wayne County-Detroit and Dearborn).
Considering the three-way split in the Governor’s race, it will likely be easier for the Republican nominee to win here because Mayor Duggan, who will be a significant Independent candidate, is likely to take a major chunk of Wayne County votes away from the Democratic nominee.
Perhaps the only clear point about the 2026 Michigan election cycle is the political analysis world will be paying a great deal of attention to its happenings from beginning to end.