Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin faced off Tuesday night against former Congressman Mike Rogers in their first debate in the race to fill Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat.
The candidates clashed over electric vehicles, abortion rights and their political loyalties.
Rogers, the Republican nominee who served in the House from 2001 to 2015, described Slotkin as a Democrat too aligned with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“My opponent has voted 100 percent with the Biden-Harris agenda,” he said during the one-hour faceoff hosted by WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.
Slotkin, who’s been in Congress since 2019, invited Republicans disenchanted with the GOP under former President Donald Trump to cross over and vote for her.
“For Republicans who feel like their party has left them over the past couple of years,” she said, “you will always have an open door in my office.”
The candidates argued over electric vehicle incentives supported by Slotkin.
“It’s either going to be us or China,” she said. “Right now, China is eating our lunch on these types of vehicles and Michigan has had the experience of missing these trends, right? In the 70s and 80s, we said, oh everyone loves their big cars, no one’s ever going to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle and then the Japanese and the Koreans came in and ate our lunch and we’ve never made up that market share.”
Rogers said that is the wrong approach.
“Why that is a good plan when there are other things we can do?” he said. “The electric grid isn’t even ready to handle it. We’ve got to fix that. We’ve got to make sure that hybrids is an interim step here before you get to the next one. You beat China by selling Americans cars they want to buy.”
Rogers and Slotkin agreed that U.S. energy policy should include wind, solar, fossil fuels and nuclear. They both support re-starting the Palisades nuclear plant in southwest Michigan. It would be the first mothballed nuclear plant in the U.S. to resume operations if that happens.
One issue they disagreed on was abortion rights. Slotkin said she would vote for a federal law to restore in law the Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights that was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
She noted Rogers has a record of supporting abortion restrictions throughout his political career.
“Every single time he was casting one of those votes, he was saying something very particular,” she said. “He was saying to women he does not trust you to make your own decisions about your own family planning. Every single time.”
But Rogers said the Supreme Court properly put the question back to states. Rogers said he would not support national laws that interfere with Michigan’s reproductive rights amendment that was adopted by voters in 2022.
Polls show the Senate race in Michigan is within the margin of error. It is one of a handful of races that could determine control of the Senate. There is a second debate scheduled for next week in Detroit.
