Elissa Slotkin beats Mike Rogers, wins Michigan's open US Senate seat

Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin was declared the winner of a tight race for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat on Wednesday afternoon, beating Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, 48.6%-48.3%.

With 99% of the estimated vote total counted, the Associated Press called the race for Slotkin shortly after 3 p.m. on Wednesday. The difference in the vote total at the time of the call was 18,435 votes.

Slotkin, a three-term congresswoman from Holly, will replace Democratic U.S. Sen Debbie Stabenow, who announced early last year she would not run for a fifth six-year term. Rogers, of White Lake, left Congress in 2015 after serving 14 years as a congressman and rose to become House Intelligence Committee chairman.

Slotkin's campaign Wednesday morning released a statement expressing confidence in winning the seat, saying she had a lead of nearly 20,000 votes, "and our margin will continue to grow as the remaining ballots are processed."

The race between Slotkin, who also is former acting assistant Defense secretary and former intelligence officer; and Rogers, a former FBI agent and Army officer, was considered a national bellwether for just how successful Republicans might be in this year's election. In the end, Slotkin won as Democrats were projected to lose the majority in the Senate to the GOP in the next Congress.

Michigan hasn't elected a Republican U.S. senator since Spencer Abraham won a single six-year term in 1994. And no Republican has been elected to the office in the state during a presidential year going back to the 1970s.

But the GOP believed it had a good shot this year, with Democratic President Joe Biden facing low favorability ratings, at least in part, because of what had been a surge in illegal immigration along the southern border and high inflation that, in recent months, has somewhat subsided. There also was the fact that Republican former President Donald Trump, running for reelection, was putting a special emphasis on winning Michigan, as he did in 2016, and the belief that that could buoy Rogers, a former critic of Trump's who has since joined with him and won his endorsement.

But in Slotkin, Democrats, too, settled on a nominee who is known for her tenacity on the campaign trail and an ability to run ahead of her party's ticket. She also is known as a prodigious fundraiser and throughout the election was considered the likely favorite to win the seat being vacated by Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow after four six-year terms.

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In the most recent Free Press poll, Slotkin held a 47%-42% lead on Rogers, which was just outside the survey's plus or minus 4-percentage-point margin of error. Some other polls had the race closer than that, however.

According to Open Secrets, a website that tracks political spending, Slotkin has already spent nearly $44 million of her own campaign funds on the race, compared with $8.6 million for Rogers. But given that the race could help determine which party gets majority control of the Senate — and how large that majority is — a staggering amount of independent spending on behalf of electing either has poured into the race, including more than $78 million from conservative groups opposing Slotkin and supporting Rogers. Another nearly $63 million supports Slotkin and is targeting Rogers for defeat.

The race has largely revolved around Rogers' attempts to characterize Slotkin as an ally of the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, saying Slotkin has done nothing while consumer prices and illegal immigration both rose. He also has tagged her a supporter of what Republicans call an electrical vehicle mandate that would force automakers to build, and consumers to buy, electric-powered cars and trucks.

No mandate exists — though stronger emissions rules could mean automakers would have to sell many more EVs by 2032 or face stiff penalties if those rules weren't changed — but Detroit automakers were part of drawing up those standards. Slotkin, who throughout her political career has presented herself as a moderate and a bipartisan consensus builder, also has said that she doesn't support any rule that would force anyone to make or buy an EV but that she supports standards that would improve EV technology so they can be built in the U.S.

Slotkin, meanwhile, has fought back by noting that Rogers lived outside of the state for most of the time after he left office, returning only to run for the Senate seat, and that he is not to be trusted on the question of abortion rights. Rogers, like other Republicans, has promised he would not vote for any national ban or other restriction that would run afoul of abortion protections now enshrined in the state constitution. But Slotkin rightly notes that throughout his political career, Rogers was a staunch abortion opponent. She has also criticized him as being too cozy with corporations, protecting the pharmaceutical industry against price controls and voting against health care reforms like the Affordable Care Act.

Contact Todd Spangler: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Slotkin beats Rogers, wins Michigan's open US Senate seat