Rogers’ shift towards total fealty to Trump over Michiganders clear as he pushes election denialism claims he used to condemn
LANSING — Breaking reporting from The New York Times reveals that corrupt multimillionaire Mike Rogers is prioritizing “loyalty to Trump” after “Trump convinced him to get back on the campaign trail,” including pushing false claims of stolen elections that he used to condemn.
According to The New York Times, Rogers said at a campaign event that he decided to run again only after “The president called and said, ‘Mike, I need you to do this. I need you in the Senate.’” Since then, Rogers has done Trump’s bidding at the expense of Michiganders, including suggesting that “further scrutiny of the 2020 election was warranted” and “voting irregularities sank his first Senate bid two years ago,” while pledging to rubber stamp all of Trump’s cost-raising policies.
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New York Times: Michigan Senate Candidate, a Former Trump Critic, Shifts Toward Election Skepticism
[A]s he aims to return to Washington, in a Senate race considered key to control of that chamber, Mr. Rogers has become an election skeptic. Minutes after the president’s recent speech filled with outlandish accusations about voting fraud — including a debunked claim about Michigan ballots — Mr. Rogers weighed in, suggesting that further scrutiny of the election was warranted.
“I am thankful for President Trump’s commitment to transparency,” Mr. Rogers said on his social media accounts. “The news coming out of the White House tonight is deeply troubling — especially that of a voter fraud scheme right here in Michigan.”
Mr. Rogers has also suggested that voting irregularities sank his Senate bid two years ago — based on an unproven claim about late-arriving Detroit ballots that Mr. Trump has amplified and that echoed accusations made by election deniers in 2020.
[…] “Now he’s toeing the MAGA line,” said former Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who served with Mr. Rogers in the House and calls him a friend. “I don’t want to speculate on his motives for talking about the 2020 election, but that election is over. The 2024 election is over.”
[…] Mr. Rogers’s campaign did not provide any evidence to back up his claim about his 2024 defeat.
Mr. Rogers now faces the newly minted Democratic nominee, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official from the left wing of his party, in the November election. Mr. Trump said earlier this week that Dr. El-Sayed had “a real shot” in a state he claimed was riddled with voter fraud. “Get ready for another Rigged Election,” he said.
[…] The editorial board of The Detroit Free Press reported in June 2024 that when it asked the Senate candidate whether Mr. Biden won the 2020 election, he refused to answer — a sign of Mr. Rogers’s newfound loyalty to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Rogers won the primary two months later but narrowly lost to Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, even as Mr. Trump carried the state. Weeks later, an aide to the president-elect quashed speculation that Mr. Rogers was under consideration for F.B.I. director amid a backlash from MAGA influencers, who saw the former intelligence official who had worked for CNN as part of the loathed “deep state.”
But after Senator Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, announced his retirement in January 2025, Mr. Rogers said Mr. Trump convinced him to get back on the campaign trail.
“The president called and said, ‘Mike, I need you to do this. I need you in the Senate, and here’s the only thing I’m going to ask you: win,’” Mr. Rogers told a Republican group in Muskegon, Mich., in October 2025, according to video reviewed by The Times.
At that same event, Mr. Rogers cast doubt on the legitimacy of Ms. Slotkin’s victory, referring to a van carrying ballots that “showed up” in Detroit the morning after the election. He gave the same account at another event earlier that month and said those ballots had “swung the election.” His comments about the van were previously reported by The Detroit News.
“Mike Rogers knows better,” said Christopher Thomas, who served as Michigan’s elections director for more than three decades before becoming an adviser to voting officials in Detroit. “Mike Rogers knows no one stole the election from him in 2024, and he knows full well no one stole the election from Trump in 2020.”
This year, Mr. Rogers is running not just with the president’s endorsement but also with the help of many of his closest associates. His current campaign team includes Chris LaCivita, a co-manager of Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign; Katie Walsh Shields, Mr. Trump’s former deputy chief of staff; and Tony Fabrizio, a pollster and senior adviser to the president.
[…] Linda Lee Tarver, a Republican activist in Michigan who backed Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, said she did not blame Mr. Rogers for opposing those efforts six years ago. “He didn’t have all the information,” she said. Ms. Tarver also suggested that Mr. Rogers’s view of that vote might have changed after his loss in the 2024 Senate race.
“We know in our hearts that he won,” said Ms. Tarver, who is serving on Mr. Rogers’s campaign coalition of religious leaders. “Tell me, how would you feel about losing by 19,000 votes in a state with illegal voting? That had to have changed his view.”
[…] Mr. Trump remains fixated on voting fraud and has seized on Mr. Rogers’s claim about his defeat in the 2024 Senate race. In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club in January, the president asserted Mr. Rogers “won” a Senate seat two years ago and said, “I think they took that away from you last time.”
“They rigged the election on you,” he added.
Mr. Rogers posted the president’s remarks on X and featured them in a fund-raising appeal.
When the two men campaigned together last month in Michigan, Mr. Trump said, “I happen to think he won last time.”
[…] Mr. Trump then called up John James, a Republican candidate for governor, to the stage. “Thank you Mr. President for coming back to Michigan, where you’ve won three times,” Mr. James said. (Mr. Trump carried the state in 2016 and 2024 but lost in 2020.)
Mr. Rogers stood to Mr. James’s right, his hands clasped.
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