Poll shows Slotkin leading Rogers in Michigan Senate race

Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin holds an 8.5 percentage point lead over former Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers in a new statewide poll in the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, with Rogers trailing former President Donald Trump’s level of support in the state two months before Election Day.

Slotkin, a three-term congresswoman from Holly, garnered 43.5 percent of respondents’ support versus 35 percent for Rogers, a seven-term former congresswoman from White Lake Township, and about 15 percent of respondents were undecided, many of whom identified as independent voters.

Among third-party candidates, about 3% of respondents said they would support Libertarian candidate Joseph Solis-Mullen, 1.5% said they would support Green Party candidate Douglas Marsh and 1% said they would support America’s Taxpayers’ Party candidate Dave Stein, according to the poll results.

Last week’s poll of 600 likely general election voters was commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4) and conducted by live operators from Aug. 26-29. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Slotkin’s lead builds on the five-point advantage she held in a Detroit News-WDIV poll conducted July 22-24, two weeks before Slotkin and Rogers secured their parties’ nominations in the Aug. 6 primary.

“Our polls show the race is much closer, which is why we continue to invest millions of dollars in the Michigan Senate race,” said Maggie Abboud, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is supporting Rogers.

“I’m betting that the Democrats’ polls also show the race is much closer, and that’s why they continue to pour millions of dollars into the Michigan Senate race.”

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the race for the seat long held by Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Lansing, as uncertain. Stabenow is retiring.

Further: Poll shows Michigan presidential race is up for grabs with two months to go

Key differences emerge

While Slotkin is winning 90% of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ voters in the new poll, Rogers is only attracting 72% of Trump voters.

The poll found Slotkin’s support was identical to Harris’, who also got 43.5%. Trump got 44.7%, but Rogers was 9.7 percentage points behind at 35%. Rogers got Trump’s endorsement in March.

“Slotkin has done a much better job of securing her base than Rogers has so far. And unlike Harris, she leads among independent voters” by nearly 6 percentage points, said pollster Richard Czuba of the Lansing-based Glengariff Group, which conducted the survey.

“So he’s done everything he needs to do to make sure his base is on board and now he can use the last 60 days to swing to the center. But Rogers can still pick up votes on the Republican side; there are still Republican votes he can get. This could very well turn out to be a close race, but it’s going to take a lot of investment to get there.”

Czuba was referring to the dearth of positive on-air ads supporting Rogers. Czuba pointed to some of the name-identification data in the poll to explain Rogers’ problem: 44% of independent voters said they hadn’t heard of him, as did 34.5% of voters who lean GOP and 28% of rank-and-file Republican voters who are core GOP supporters.

By comparison, 14.5% of rank-and-file Democratic voters and 22% of leaning Democrats had never heard of Slotkin, though she also has room to grow among independent voters, 47% of whom had never heard of her, the poll found.

“What’s clear is that Rogers has never fully introduced himself to voters, and we saw the same thing happen in 2022 when (GOP gubernatorial candidate) Tudor Dixon did not introduce himself to voters. That allows the opposition to introduce themselves for you,” Czuba said.

“I think that’s largely what’s happening now. The 2022 and 2024 elections are completely different, so Mike Rogers still has a chance to close this race out and make it a very close race.”

Dixon lost the 2022 gubernatorial race to incumbent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by nearly 11 percentage points.

How campaigns are targeting cash

Rogers’ campaign has done some hybrid ad spending with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, with about $500,000 spent through Monday and about $225,000 this week, according to ad tracking data. Rogers’ campaign has also paid for ads that ran primarily on digital platforms, including one focused on the economy and another that criticized Slotkin for “lying” about him. Separately, the conservative political group Americans for Prosperity Action has been promoting Rogers in direct-mail mailers.

Slotkin’s campaign is a different story. The high-powered fundraiser has been on the air with television ads since late May and has spent more than $5 million, much of it on ads pitching herself to voters and talking about issues like drug prices and her late mother’s fight with health care companies.

Allies of both candidates have also spent millions on attack ads, including from the NRSC (which has committed $10 million to ad reserves), One Nation and the Rogers-supporting Great Lakes Conservatives Fund on the Republican side, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and groups tied to Senate Majority PAC on the Democratic side.

Further: The Rogers-Slotkin duel is expected to rank among the most competitive Senate races

Two more groups are expected to begin spending soon: six figures starting this week from Senate majority-affiliated WinSenate, which has committed $14 million to the Michigan race, and at least $3 million in spending by the cryptocurrency-focused Protect Progress PAC. A spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund said Monday that the group has not yet made any decisions on Michigan spending.

Slotkin and her allies are trying to present their version of Rogers to voters, Czuba said, but not by linking him to Trump; instead, they aim to create a “separate negative persona” from Rogers as a politician/creature of Washington. Rogers’ campaign, in particular, is trying to link Slotkin to President Joe Biden’s record and make her out to be “everything that’s wrong with Washington.”

Jobs and the economy topped the list of issues that influenced respondents’ votes, followed by abortion and women’s rights, and inflation and the cost of living.

What voters say

Ricci Horst, from Detroit, 56 years old, One self-employed construction subcontractor who took part in the poll said he would “definitely” not support Slotkin because he was too radical and would instead vote for Rogers.

Horst’s main concern is the economy, raising concerns that any layoffs could hurt his business if people stop or slow down work at home.

“What they’re doing with the auto industry right now is just horrible: They’re trying to build Chinese battery plants for electric cars that won’t run in the winter in Michigan,” Horst said.

“There are a lot of problems with waste and all that, and the same goes for solar parks, electric vehicle chargers and all that crap that the government has tried to force on us for the last four years. There are definitely a lot of things that are not working well in the government.”

Horst said he will vote for Rogers because he is pro-auto industry and is trying to keep jobs in Michigan.

“I don’t know exactly what his views are, but I know enough about him to know that he’s best for Michigan,” Horst said. “He has values that put America first.”

Further: Detractors and supporters squabble over whether the Gotion battery plant will be built in West Michigan

Mike Belligan, a 45-year-old state government employee from Grand Rapids, said his top issue heading into November is women’s reproductive rights, which he believes are at risk this election season.

“Honestly, for me, there’s no comparison. Mike Rogers has been in office before … and he hasn’t shown me anything that would make me think he would support progressive policy. It’s business as usual for him,” said Belligan, an environmental resources specialist with the Michigan Department of Transportation who participated in the survey.

“Given Mike Rogers’ past, I don’t think he’s an independent voice for the Republican Party. At worst, if Donald Trump were re-elected, he would want someone to resist his agenda… This makes it that much more important to have a Democrat in that seat.”

Key Voting Groups

In the poll, Slotkin held a 23 percentage point lead among college-educated voters, 51 percent to 28 percent.

The candidates were essentially tied among voters without a college education, who have become a key constituency for Republicans. Rogers led among this group with 39.8 percent to Slotkin’s 37.8 percent, though this split is within the poll’s margin of error.

“To me, these numbers are truly astonishing. If Rogers can’t build a significant lead among non-college-educated voters, he can’t win. It’s that simple,” Czuba said.

“Trump is tied with Harris in Michigan thanks to non-college voters. But this is a case where Trump voters don’t necessarily move to the other candidates, and it’s specifically those non-college voters.”

According to the poll, women without a college education support Slotkin 41% to 38%, while Rogers gets 42% among men without a college education to Slotkin’s 35%. However, the poll also identified a segment of respondents who identified themselves as “likely” rather than “certain” voters, many of them men under 40 without a college education who are less motivated to vote.

“For both Trump and Rogers, there’s a small segment of their vote that has a motivation problem, and that’s why I think there’s so much effort being made to talk to men in rural areas,” Czuba said.

Rogers just wrapped up a tour of the Upper Peninsula over the weekend, with stops at Iron Mountain and Houghton and a five-mile hike across the Mackinac Bridge on Labor Day.

According to the poll, Slotkin was leading among women overall by 21 percentage points, although 19% of women remained undecided. Rogers was leading by 4.4% among men, with 11% of male voters undecided.

Rogers held a 10.3 percentage point lead among out-of-state voters (those living outside the Detroit metropolitan region), 43.5% to 33.2%, where 18.4% of voters were undecided in the Senate race. Slotkin was winning among metro Detroit voters by a 2-to-1 margin, 54.2% to 26.1%, according to the poll.

“He has room to change these numbers, but he’s not going to do it by just visiting them on campaign trips,” Czuba said. “If you’re not on the air, voters aren’t listening to you.”

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Breaking

Poll shows Slotkin leading Rogers in Michigan Senate race

ByS. Jacob

Key differences emerge

How campaigns are targeting cash

What voters say

Key Voting Groups

By S. Jacob

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