GOP Goes Scorched-Earth on Abdul El-Sayed
The Bulwark · C · trust 46/100
For Mike Rogers, it sure beats talking about Donald Trump and what he’s done to Michigan.
Jonathan Cohn October 11 Upgrade to listen 17 minute s 657 128 68 October Surprise: 30% OFF Bulwark+ for a year. Upgrade now. Abdul El-Sayed during a rally in Port Huron, Michigan on October 6, 2026. (Photo by Jeff Kowalsky / AFP via Getty Images) Mount Pleasant, Michigan A NEW CAMPAIGN AD FROM MIKE ROGERS says a lot about the kind of senator he would be for Michigan.
I don’t think it’s the message he wants to be sending.
The ad is about the tariffs that Donald Trump has imposed on Canada since taking office, and the trade war that’s unfolding as a result. The tariffs are already damaging Michigan’s economy , especially the auto industry where—according to one estimate —the extra charges on parts crisscrossing the Michigan–Ontario border have saddled carmakers with more than $4 billion in extra costs.
The tariffs are super unpopular too. I have heard it in my conversations with voters across the state. But it’s evident in the polls as well, which show voters here oppose the tariffs by a two-to-one margin—quite possibly because they have heard (correctly) that Canadian tariffs will raise the prices of everything from cosmetics to skating gear.
Rogers’s new ad leans hard into the local anxiety. It places him at a pub, sitting at a barstool while a hockey game plays on the television, a Canadian beer right there on the bar.
“Drinking a Labatt and watching the Red Wings—man, it just doesn’t get any more Michigan than that,” Rogers says, speaking in what I am guessing is some political consultant’s idea of how real Michiganders talk. Then Rogers waxes indignant about the tariffs: “We know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war. Now.”
The indignation would have been perfectly natural coming from the version of Rogers that represented Michigan in Congress from 2001 to 2015. Back then, he was a fairly typical, pro-business Republican —the type who would reliably stand alongside the Chamber of Commerce and the “ Detroit Three ” in condemning the tariffs threatening a supply chain that has largely benefited both Americans and Canadians.
But that’s not the version of Rogers that has been running for Senate this year. Rogers 2.0 stands by Trump, and until about five minutes ago he stood by Trump’s tariffs too—rationalizing them as “ necessary ” because “ the Canadians have not been good partners .” His flip-flop drew instant attention from the state’s local outlets, including the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News , in part because it followed a similar reversal on the war in Iran—which, after praising it for months, Rogers is now saying must end .
Still, Rogers has been consistent about one thing: He won’t take on Trump directly. Whether talking about the “war” with tariffs or the war with bombs, he won’t blame the president. And it’s no mystery why. Breaking with Trump is not something you can do in modern Republican politics.
That explains the precarious political position of Rogers and so many other Republicans, both here in Michigan and in the rest of the country as well. They can’t separate themselves from Trump without antagonizing him and his most rabid supporters. But if they don’t make a clean break from Trump, they are stuck leaving the impression that they support his policies or, maybe even worse, that they are afraid to confront him when they don’t.
Here in Michigan, Rogers’s solution has been to make the debate about El-Sayed—and then, to make El-Sayed seem as scary as possible—in hopes voters will forget about everything Trump has done to the state. The strategy has been obvious from the get-go, when Rogers and his allies started airing attack ads painting El-Sayed as extreme literally hours after he won the bitterly contested Democratic nomination in early August. But it may never have been more obvious than it was on Thursday night, when the two candidates met in a televised debate.
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THURSDAY’S DEBATE WAS ACTUALLY supposed to be the second faceoff between Rogers and El-Sayed. The first was scheduled to take place in September. Rogers refused to participate, saying that the host—a well-respected local anchor for the Detroit Fox affiliate named Roop Raj—was biased. El-Sayed showed up anyway and answered questions, standing opposite an empty chair.
It was emblematic of how this campaign has gone. I’ve been attending El-Sayed events ever since he declared his candidacy early last year. He holds several a week and generally takes reporters’ questions afterwards, including from outlets he knows will be hostile. During those sessions he holds forth confidently on an array of topics, from industrial policy to childcare. This week, while discussing artificial intelligence, he talked about China’s progress—and how its development is “drafting” on America’s—in a nuanced way that suggests he’s been reading up on the topic (or at least listening to some good podcasts ).
El-Sayed can get ornery: When he thinks a question is dumb or redundant, he’ll turn it around on the reporter and interrogate them. But mostly he mixes it up enthusiastically, as he did recently in two marquee appearances on Fox News—one of which left host Martha MacCallum fumbling for facts, and the other of which left Jesse Watters with what his Fox colleagues likened to a man crush . Even Trump noticed, according to Axios , and complained to Fox brass that they were not giving El-Sayed a hard enough time.
Rogers came to Thursday’s debate determined not to let that happen. But engaging with scrutiny is like any other campaign skill: It takes practice.…
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