Mike Rogers, center, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, meets with local residents in the Marquette area on a swing through the Upper Peninsula earlier this week. (Journal photo by Dreyma Beronja)

MARQUETTE — Republican candidate for United States Senate Mike Rogers stopped in Marquette to connect with Yoopers on his campaign tour.

Rogers stopped at Rippling River Resort Monday night to meet with Marquette residents.

He said stopping in Marquette was “a great place” to get in touch with people from the east and west sides of the Upper Peninsula.

“We wanted to get up and talk to people who are living, earning a living, working and raising families right here in the U.P., and Marquette’s an important part of that,” Rogers said.

He said the U.P.’s tourism and small business community are important in the state.

“We wanted to talk to people, get their concerns about grocery prices, energy prices and all of the things that are preventing them, or at least keeping them, from sleeping at night,” Rogers said. “And have those conversations and talk about solutions.”

Those conversations and solutions have already been discussed in Mackinac County, Luce County and in Houghton. Monday night gave Marquette County residents the same chance to have those conversations.

“The one thing that has stuck out to me so far is just how important energy prices are here,” Rogers said. “They’re important all over the state, and we hear it, but when you look at the propane usage and how the government is trying to cut off or make it more difficult to get propane gas, and the prices are going up, it has an outsized impact on the citizens of the Upper Peninsula.”

He said in more rural areas, driving is important.

“So these gas prices have a huge impact on your family budget. It is the economy but sometimes the issue of what might be an economic issue in southeast Michigan feels a little different up in the U.P.,” Rogers said. “But it still boils down to what the economic policies that are causing them.”

Another issue Rogers said he has heard during his time in the U.P. is the “sheer discontentment of electric car mandates.”

“People up here know that the government mandating what kind of car they can drive and the infrastructure that it would take to actually make it work up here, they’re not married up,” he said. “And so people are really concerned about these government EV mandates. There’s just a better way to get carbon taken out of the air.”

Rogers’ background brings a few things to the table. He served in the U.S. military, worked as an FBI agent working organized crime in corruption and has been in the U.S. House of Representatives, chairing the House Intelligence Committee.

“I have realized that everything looks broken and there is just no Michigan common sense left in either Lansing or Washington, D.C. And so with all these big problems, when you think about crime, the border and the economy, you look at the opportunity to send a guy who on the very first day has the experience to start work and get things done. There’s no on-the-job training for me. And I can take those Michigan values to Washington, D.C., and be a great spokesman for the people of Michigan.”

For more information, visit rogersforsenate.com.

Dreyma Beronja can be reached at 906-228-2500 ext. 548. Their email address is dberonj@miningjournal.net.