Rogers Couldn’t Defeat a Democrat in Michigan, But He Hopes to Beat a Muslim

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We are quite bullish when it comes to the Democrats’ chances of taking control of the Senate in November (as long as the election is even remotely fair) and believe that they can win more than a half dozen seats currently occupied by Republicans. 

However, since the vice president casts the deciding vote in case of a tie, and in light of the existence of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D-ish), they’ll need to win at least five of them* and not lose any of their own.

In what is shaping up to be a wave election (unless Donald Trump gets his way and exerts federal control over who gets to vote and how), that last part shouldn’t be a problem.

For example, while experts thought, at the start of last year, that Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) might have a hard time defending his seat, he is on track to cruise to reelection.

However, there is one state that Republicans hope to flip: Michigan.

Ordinarily, that would be quite a stretch, especially with a candidate like former Rep. Mike Rogers, who promises to be yet another Trump lackey in the Senate at a time when the president is extraordinarily unpopular and the GOP has fallen out of favor with voters — not only because of its sycophancy but, more importantly, because it failed to use its total control of Washington, DC, to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.

Apart from siphoning money from much-needed public assistance programs like Medicaid and redistributing it to corporations and the uber-rich (with some token tax cuts for everybody else), Republicans just don’t have much of a plan to lower costs.

To be fair, looking out for regular folks has never been their strength. Where the GOP shines is in passing measures that appeal to the MAGA base and, in particular, Trump.

However, Republicans believe that Michigan Democrats did them a favor when they picked their nominee to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D).

Because, while Rogers would likely not be able to defeat a “regular” opponent in this political climate and in a state that has elected only one GOP senator in the past five decades, he may be able to defeat a Muslim.

And, as every Republican and Fox News anchor has been reminding us, Abdul El-Sayed is one.

Ever since his primary win, they have been dialing up the Islamophobia to 10.

As usual, the president has led the way — by not-so-subtly using the Democrat’s full name in Truth Social posts, in the hopes that Michiganders will prove as bigoted as Trump himself is.

However, even that may not do the trick, which is why Rogers is trying another strategy: Knowing that he would have trouble beating the real El-Sayed — i.e., the candidate who wants to take money out of politics, invest it in Michigan, and make sure that all Americans have health insurance — the GOP nominee is trying to run against a caricature of him.

Or, to put it differently, since he can’t win a race on the issues, he has to make it about anything else.

Abdul is a puppy killer. pic.twitter.com/S1YPSvvzpB

— Republicans (@Republicans) August 13, 2026

Here is what that looks like: Earlier this week, Rogers appeared in the friendly confines of Fox News to dazzle the viewers of the right-wing propaganda network with some amazing alliterations.

“I want to make sure we’re protecting our faith and our families and our factories and our freedoms — while [Abdul El-Sayed] is advocating for doing away with our fireworks, football, the Fourth of July,” he told Sean Hannity.

That is not only false (El-Sayed played football in high school and was a captain of his team) but also insane.

And yet not as crazy as the next sentence that came out of Rogers’s mouth: “[El-Sayed] spent hours hating on what most Michiganders would enjoy in their pastimes, and he should be held to account for that.”

“Held to account for that”??? What is Rogers even talking about?

The answer to that last question, of course, is: “Anything but the issues.”

If it were up to Rogers, voters would never hear his opponent speak — and realize how passionately he talks about providing Medicare for all, getting money out of politics, and spending taxpayer dollars at home on American kids rather than on blowing up children elsewhere in the world, while risking the lives of US troops overseas.

Those are the things El-Sayed wants this election to be about.

Rogers would prefer it if it were about some guy who campaigned with the Democrat and the things that other guy once said on some podcast.

That, of course, has no relevance to whether it’ll be easier for Michiganders to put food on the table. For that matter, neither do football and fireworks or nonsensical talk about El-Sayed wanting to impose “sharia law” on others.

Those are distractions.

But it’s all Republicans have.

Because, to be fair to Rogers, he’s not the only one taking this approach… although the quote he gave Hannity sums up the entire GOP playbook pretty well.

In Texas, it’s not about football and fireworks but rather the (false) claim that Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is a vegan — as though that matters to families who can’t afford beef anymore.

Elsewhere, it’s mostly about trans athletes playing sports in high schools whose buildings are falling apart.

Those are the kinds of issues that might get GOP voters excited when the economy is strong, but we doubt they’ll work when gas costs more than $4 per gallon, tariffs and the Iran war have ensured that inflation outpaced wage increases, and the only ones who benefit from Trump’s “golden age” are the 1 percent and the White House’s interior decorators.

So, where does that leave Rogers and other Republicans?

In a pretty bad place.

Essentially, they have to run campaigns that rely almost entirely on lies and the hope that voters never actually hear from their Democratic opponents because, if they did, they’d realize that those candidates actually propose policies that would make Americans’ lives much easier.

One good thing Republicans have going for themselves is that a bunch of old Clintonites and establishment Democrats hate progressive candidates as much as Republicans do and are happy to say so in Fox News interviews, and in Wall Street Journal or New York Post editorials.

Another upside for Michigan Republicans is that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will probably spend tens of millions more dollars on behalf of Rogers to prevent the first Muslim from being elected senator. Then again, that investment backfired in the Democratic primary, so it remains to be seen who will benefit from it.

With or without AIPAC, Republicans are going to invest a lot of resources in the one race in which they could potentially flip a Democratic seat. And those efforts will be bolstered by what we predict will be endless coverage on Fox News… none of which will be about the issues but will instead consist of stoking Islamophobia, ad hominem attacks, strawmen, and red herrings.

Or, as Rogers put it, we’ll hear a lot about fireworks, football, and the Fourth of July.

One thing is for sure: Among all the Senate races, the one in Michigan is shaping up to be the most interesting. It is not only happening in an important swing state and may decide who controls the Senate next year, but it will also tell us a lot about the direction of the Democratic Party (and who the 2028 nominee might be), how much centrists hate progressives, and whether voters care about issues or noise.

In the end, if voters hear a lot from both candidates themselves, El-Sayed will probably win. The Democrat knows this, which is why he has proposed holding five debates across the state.

However, if Rogers manages to run against the caricature of his opponent that the right-wing propaganda network will work hard to paint in the coming weeks, then he has a chance.

*Roughly in order, we think those will be North Carolina, Maine, Alaska, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and maybe even one of the states currently considered to be “safely Republican,” such as Florida. We’re not saying they’ll win all of them, but we think the odds are better than 50-50 that they’ll prevail in at least five.