ROGERS

MARQUETTE — The first of the candidates covered in our senatorial candidates series is Mike Rogers, a former FBI special agent and senator for the state of Michigan.

He is one of many candidates running to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate after incumbent Gary Peters declined to seek re-election for a third term. Rogers, a former U.S. Army lieutenant who served as the representative for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District from 2001 to 2015, ran for U.S. Senate back in 2024, backed by an endorsement from President Donald Trump, before narrowly losing to current Senator Elissa Slotkin. He says that the policies that inspired him to run the first time are still here today, and deciding that the state is still winnable influenced his decision to run for a second time.

“The good news is that the policies that drove us to do this – my wife and I – the first go around are still here and still face average Michigan families…it was an open seat and then this became an open seat and you can imagine, our phone blew up and so we thought, ‘Well, for all the people that we asked to do hard things like give up some pieces of their Saturday and their evenings, helping us make phone calls and do doors and people who sent us checks and people who were encouraged by how close we came for the first time in 30 years going after this seat,” said Rogers. “We decided to look at it and say, ‘Is it winnable and can we make a difference from Michigan when we go back to the United States Senate?’ And the conclusion for both my wife and I was yes. I mean, it’s hard doing it once. It’s really hard doing it twice, I have to tell you. We believed it was so important, we just think we’re the right fit to be an advocate for all of Michigan, from the Leelanau Peninsula to Iron Mountain to Houghton to all the way down to Detroit. That’s why we decided to get back in.”

Rogers says his campaign strategy will be a bit different this time around, since his team didn’t really have a “robust” television campaign and he had announced his candidacy a bit later in the race. Going into 2026, Rogers plans to build an extensive team and resource network alongside making sure his message is communicated to everyone.

“Our opponent got in pretty much January of the year before and really didn’t have much of a primary to speak of. That gave them, the Democrats, a huge advantage throughout that whole process, so we thought, ‘okay, let’s get in early. We can fix that problem.’ And can we generate excitement early? I will tell you, we thought we would have all our counties covered with co-chairs by December of this year. We had that done by June of this year. It’s just huge for us. It just shows a level of excitement, I think, and difference. And here’s the one, the big one that people don’t factor in. We got so many Republican votes more than any other Michigan office in the history of our state Republicans, like 300,000 votes. So if you do the math, if we get 85% of those folks to show up for us in November, that’s about 51% of the vote we (got,) and so that’s a very different race,” Rogers explained. “We’re still going to go after coalition voting, and and going to go after just some franchise Democrats, and there’s a bunch of those we’re meeting. So all of that looks pretty good for us. It’s just now a matter of continuing to build out the team, build out the resources. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to define ourselves as the Democrats had a free run at trying to tell people who we were. We think that us getting out and around early, having resources to get up on TV, is going to allow the people to know who we are, and I think we’ll win that.”

If he is elected into office, Rogers plans to serve the people of Michigan by bringing Michigan values to Washington, D.C., focusing on creating opportunities in the state’s job market and continual improvement of the economy.

“So many times, people go to Washington, D.C. – and I watched it happen – and get sucked into the place. They forget about the state that they represent. They worry more about their party or they’re filling the blank, their own parochial issues, D.C. issues. I will absolutely be a Michigan first advocate, and that comes down to jobs and opportunity. I’ve seen a lot of people who, with tears in their eyes, explain how their kids or grandkids had to leave the state because there just wasn’t the opportunity here,” Rogers said. “I get that being a lifelong Michigan guy, and so we’re going to turn that around. We’re going to present some things to get the job opportunities here turned around. Obviously, the economy is important. We need to continue to improve it. But it’s not just the economy in general. It’s about, ‘How does Michigan benefit from this new kind of made in America approach that the Trump administration has taken?’ We’ve lost some 30,000 manufacturing jobs. Those are middle class jobs, every single one of them. Can we do some things to help bolster and have a Michigan Renaissance in manufacturing? I think so. Focus on education, so jobs, the economy, education, and then a strong national defense are the key kind of upfront. We have policies that will help support all of that and we’ll introduce (them) throughout the course of the campaign.”

Rogers has a set list of priorities and messages that he wants to communicate with voters over the course of his campaign, most of which are focused around retaining the next generation of Michiganders and making sure there are opportunities for them to work and live within the state.

“Jobs and opportunity are going to be (the) number one (priority.) Education is going to be number two. I get there based on the fact that I think I’m a unique candidate in this sense – I served in the military, served in the law enforcement, but I’ve also worked in the factory. I’ve punched a time card in my life and that was important work for me. I’ve signed the back of the check and I have always been grateful to be able to do that. I’ve also, in the last 10 years after I voluntarily left Congress, worked in the private sector trying to help build small cybersecurity companies. So I’ve signed the front of a few checks, and that gives me a unique perspective to how we should get back,” Rogers shared. “It’s not just about going there and fighting the good fight…It’s about walking in (and) saying, ‘What can we get done for Michigan?’ Can we make sure the Soo Locks project is done? Can we make sure that we secure the pipeline so that we continue to get natural gas, but it’s more environmentally friendly to do it by casing the concrete and putting it under the water instead of on the bottom of the lake? Can we help with the wolf problem? Can we help with opportunities in the U.P. that just aren’t there today with manufacturing, use the former Air Force base? All of those things we’re going to be able to talk about in a way that shows people, I believe, that I’ll have their interests at heart. That, to me, is really, really important. I’m going to worry about Michigan and what we can do to get Michigan back being part of the arsenal of democracy and providing opportunities so kids don’t have to leave the state. That is going to be my laser focus when I’m there.”

More information on his senatorial campaign can be found on his website at rogersforsenate.com.

Abby LaForest can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 548. Her email address is alaforest@miningjournal.net.