Senate vote: Paths to victory for Rogers, Slotkin offer hope, peril in Michigan

• Both Mike Rogers and Elissa Slotkin rolled to easy victories in U.S. Senate primaries
• The race is likely to be close, and results show both may have gaps to overcome
• The Democrat Slotkin lost in Detroit and Flint, while the GOP’s Rogers underperformed in west Michigan

As expected, Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Elissa Slotkin rolled to easy victories Tuesday in primaries for the U.S. Senate, and results offer both hope and warnings for their hotly anticipated November matchup.

Rogers and Slotkin both carried all 83 counties, often by significant margins, but turnout was down from 2022 and 2020, and both underperformed in some regions, according to a  Bridge Michigan analysis.

Experts say, in many respects, the Nov. 5 general election race will be defined by the presidential showdown between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Slotkin, a three-term U.S. representative from Holly, may have gotten a boost when President Joe Biden — whom she has not campaigned with in recent months — dropped out of the race. Rogers, a former U.S. representative and cable television personality from Livingston County, will likely rise or fall in November with Trump, experts say.

“Rogers, for all intents and purposes, is going to be tethered to Trump's performance, so how Trump does in the state will matter,” Republican strategist Jason Cabel Roe told Bridge. 

Related:

• Michigan primary: Who won, who lost, what to know as November matchups are set
• What Michigan’s primary portends for Trump, Harris presidential election
• Michigan elections FAQ: Primary recap, Slotkin-Rogers and walk-up songs

The general election will determine who succeeds longtime U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing. 

Stabenow, who had held off on endorsing during the primary, now supports Slotkin, scheduling joint campaign events in Grand Rapids and Lansing this week, according to the Slotkin campaign.

Current polls show Slotkin leading Rogers by about 6 percentage points, but the Cook Political Report rates the race as a toss-up. Michigan has favored Democrats in recent statewide elections, but Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 and wasn’t far behind Biden in 2020. 

Here’s a look at the paths to victory — and potential pressure points — for both Rogers and Slotkin.

Slotkin lost two big cities. Problem?

An Oakland County native who now represents mid-Michigan, Slotkin has told Bridge in May “it's on me to show up, introduce myself, listen, and then keep coming back” to the city’s biggest Democratic stronghold, Detroit.

She made more than 90 visits there through May, but still lost the city overwhelmingly to Hill Harper, a Detroit business owner and an actor who’s been on “The Good Doctor” and “CSI: New York.” 

Harper won the city, 59% to 41%, carried Flint 57% to 43%, and came close in Saginaw, where Slotkin edged him 54% to 46%.

Detroit turnout also lagged the state: 15.8% in the city compared to about 24% statewide (which also was down from 2022.)

Trouble for Slotkin? Not necessarily, observers say.

“With Kamala Harris being at the top of the ticket, and not Joe Biden, I believe enthusiasm and turnout will be higher,” said Michael Griffie, a Detroit attorney and consultant who in 2022 ran for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.

He added that, “Harper winning Detroit doesn’t really say much, because really that’s the only place he campaigned.”

Detroit, Flint and Saginaw are all staunchly Democratic, with Biden winning 94% of the vote in 2020 in Detroit as he rolled up a 228,050-vote margin in the city over Trump. Biden won the state by over 154,000 votes.

Past elections show that a vast majority of Detroit Democrats vote straight-ticket for Democrats. 

In 2022, 80% of voters who supported Democrat Gretchen Whitmer did so by voting straight-ticket. In 2020, 82% of Biden’s Detroit supporters voted straight-ticket.

Rogers crushes GOP field, but not in west Michigan

Likewise, Rogers is well-known in southeast and central Michigan, but perhaps less so in west Michigan, where he didn’t do as well.

Rogers romped in central Michigan, much of which he represented from 2001 to 2015,  getting over 70% of the vote in 19 counties, including vote-rich Oakland (71%) Livingston (78%) and Genesee (74%).

In some west Michigan counties, Rogers fell short of 50% of the vote in a three-person race against former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, a Grand Rapids native, and physician Sherry O’Donnell, who is from Berrien County.

Donna Felten, a Cascade Township resident who ultimately voted for Rogers, said Amash was “principled, and what he believes he believes, and he’s not going to compromise.”

"When you're in the Senate, you have to be able to compromise in some way," Felten said. 

Amash, who had campaigned on protecting individual rights and opposing “reckless spending and the weaponization of government,” turned off some voters who were concerned about his previous break with the party and his 2019 vote to impeach Trump.

Jake Stoutjesdyk, a west Michigan voter who picked O’Donnell in the GOP primary, said his main priority in a Senate candidate was that they were “not Justin Amash.” He said he appreciated O’Donnell’s doctor credentials and anti-abortion stance: “she stands for things that I think are important.”

As with Slotkin in the Democratic primary, most of those Republican voters who chose someone other than Rogers are expected to support him in November.

Democrats got more votes than GOP candidates. Landslide coming?

Don’t take that bet to Vegas.

Overall, Slotkin and Harper got just over 913,297 votes combined in the primary, compared to nearly 860,218 for Rogers and his challengers.

But you can toss those numbers out: The motivation to vote in a primary varies widely, from the candidates on the ballot to local issues or, like in Ottawa County, who’s running for county commissioner.

Take 2014. Then-U.S. Rep. Gary Peters got 504,000 votes in an uncontested Democratic primary for the open U.S. Senate seat, and Republican Terri Lynn Land got 588,000 in the uncontested GOP primary.

That November, in an election when Republicans picked up seats across the country, Peters crushed Lynn Land, 1.7 million votes to just under 1.3 million, rolling up a 13-percentage point win.

Absentee trends

The results also show that Republican voters are embracing no-reason absentee voting after avoiding it for years, in part because of criticism from Trump himself. 

Voters approved the method in 2018, and since then, Democrats have largely voted absentee in far greater numbers than Republicans. 

In Macomb County, which went for Trump in 2016 and 2020, just 32% of Republicans voted using absentee ballots in the August 2022 primary, compared to 50% of Democrats. 

On Tuesday, the county reported that 59% of Republicans had voted absentee, and another 4% voted early in-person — a total of 63% before Election Day. For Democrats it was 72% absentee and 3% early.

That’s a far narrower gap than in 2020, when Trump was criticizing absentee voting. 

Even though the state sent an absentee ballot application to all voters, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, just 46% of Republicans voted absentee in Macomb, compared to 72% of Democrats.

In Kent County, 39% of all voters in 2022’s general election voted absentee — it wasn’t available by party. 

But in this primary, 65% of county Democrats and 55% of Republicans voted either absentee or early, in-person, while the percentage of absentee Republican voters in Genesee rose to 50% from 40% in 2020.

Observers cautioned against reading too much into primary election absentee voter trends, noting that primary participation differs from general election trends. 

But Republicans are hopeful their voting base is warming to the idea, which could overcome variables like bad weather that depress Election Day voting.

“Republicans are and should be tired of getting their asses kicked because we're not deploying all the tools in the toolbox,” said Roe, the Republican strategist. 

— Bridge reporter Simon D. Schuster contributed