The Detroit News, one of Michigan’s major daily newspapers, endorsed former Republican congressman Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate in a Wednesday editorial, calling him “the prototype of a United States Senator.”
The editorial cited Rogers’ 14 years in the House, where he rose to chair the Intelligence Committee, as well as his service as a U.S. Army officer and FBI agent before entering Congress. Rogers, 63, left the House in 2014, “having been elected to his House seat seven times by his mid-Michigan constituents,” and later worked in the private sector, primarily in cybersecurity.
“He is mature, trustworthy and more than prepared to sit at the table with national and world leaders,” the editorial stated.
The paper contrasted Rogers’ background with that of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, noting that El-Sayed previously served as director of the Detroit Health Department and the Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services but “has never held a political or policy-making position.”
The editorial also criticized El-Sayed for deleting social-media posts that, according to the paper, called into question his views of the United States following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It said he had also removed roughly 100 YouTube videos that portrayed him negatively.
“A candidate who feels the need to hide his past from voters is not someone who can be trusted to be the same person after Election Day as he was on the campaign trail,” the editorial stated.
Alyssa Brouillet, communications director for the Rogers campaign, told JNS that “Mike is grateful for the support as we continue the fight to fix our broken education system, lower housing costs and bring back manufacturing jobs.”
“Michiganders deserve solutions, not slogans—and that’s exactly what Mike will bring to the U.S. Senate,” she said. “We have a state to save.”
The endorsement comes as polling shows a close race. An Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey conducted Sept. 12-14 found El-Sayed with 48% support among likely voters, compared with 46% for Rogers. Some 4% were undecided. The survey of 1,000 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll conducted by the Glengariff Group and released on Sept. 8 found Rogers with 45.8% support and El-Sayed with 44.4% among 600 likely voters. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
