Michigan will choose between Democrat Elissa Slotkin and Republican Mike Rogers for US Senate

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers has secured the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan and will face Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin in the November election.

Slotkin and Rogers, long considered the front-runners for their respective party nominations, will now face off in what is expected to be one of the most expensive Senate races in the country. Slotkin enters with a massive fundraising advantage and emerges nearly unscathed from a sparse primary, while Rogers has the backing of national Republican groups and former President Donald Trump.

Slotkin defeated actor Hill Harper in the Democratic primary, while Republicans chose Rogers over former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash and physician Sherry O’Donnell. Both candidates will now compete for a seat left open by longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s retirement.

Stabenow threw her support behind Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin early in the Democratic primary process. At a party for Slotkin Tuesday night in Detroit, Stabenow said her support never waned.

“There is no one more qualified, more talented, more hard working, who I could pass the torch to than our next U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin,” she said.

In a victory speech to a small crowd of supporters, Slotkin — who defeated Harper by a 3 to 1 margin — talked about focusing on core issues like the economy and women’s reproductive rights.

Slotkin told the crowd she provides an alternative to personal attacks and outrage over social issues.

“For everyone who believes our country is better than our current politics – I ask you to give me a shot. My message is simple – join us on team normal.”

North of Detroit, in Oakland County, Rogers thanked supporters at a watch party for “not giving up on politics.” Like Slotkin, Rogers represented a mid-Michigan swing district in Congress, and he similarly positioned himself as the common sense candidate in his speech. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in Michigan since 1994.

With Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in the Senate and Republicans in the House, competitive races like those in Michigan have drawn lots of attention. The state’s status as a key presidential swing state raises the stakes for those seats even higher, with party control on the line from the top of the ballot all the way down to the state Legislature.

Michigan’s open Senate seat is one of a handful of races nationwide that will determine control of the upper chamber in November. With a later congressional primary, Slotkin and Rogers will have a short period to transition from competing against their own party members to appealing to a broader base of voters for the Nov. 5 general election, which may explain why they have campaigned with their eyes on the general election.

National groups on both sides have already reserved millions of dollars worth of advertisements after the primary. Both Slotkin and Rogers, viewed for months as the overwhelming favorites in their primaries, have skipped debates and refrained from holding large campaign events.

Several U.S. House seats with primaries on Tuesday could influence the balance of power in the lower chamber, but there, too, the biggest battles will be fought in the fall campaign.

Slotkin’s entry into the Senate race left her mid-Michigan 7th Congressional District seat open, historically one of the nation’s top battleground districts. Both party candidates ran unopposed in their primaries there, setting the table for a November matchup between Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr. and Republican Tom Barrett.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee’s retirement will leave an open seat in the 8th Congressional District, which extends northward from the outskirts of Detroit and covers areas such as Flint, Saginaw and Midland. First-term state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet, who had been endorsed by Kildee, defeated state Board of Education President Pamela Pugh and Matt Collier, the former mayor of Flint, to secure the Democratic nomination.

On the Republican side, former TV anchor Paul Junge defeated Mary Draves, a former chemical manufacturing executive at Dow Inc., and Anthony Hudson to win the GOP nomination. Junge lost to Kildee by over 10 percentage points in 2022.

Meanwhile, several incumbents in battleground districts now have their November matchups set following Tuesday’s primaries.

U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, who in 2022 became the first Democrat to represent Grand Rapids in decades, will face Paul Hudson, an attorney who defeated Michael Markey Jr. in the western Michigan district’s GOP primary.

A district just north of Detroit will see a rematch between freshman GOP Rep. John James and Carl Marlinga, a longtime Macomb County prosecutor who defeated three other Democrats in the primary. Marlinga lost to James by 1,600 votes, and national Democrats have made the seat a top target this cycle.

Down-ballot races also held primaries across the state on Tuesday. Control of the state House of Representatives will be at stake in November, with all 110 seats up for election. Democrats took control of both chambers and the governor’s office for the first time in four decades in 2022 and will be trying to defend those majorities.

Story by Joey Cappelletti, Associated Press. WDET’s Russ McNamara and Associated Press writer Isabella Volmert contributed to this report.