Michigan’s 2028 Senate race is already in full swing as former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers eyes an opportunity to be the state’s first GOP Senator since 2001.
Winning the race to replace the retiring Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., would help Republicans hold on to their thin majority in the Senate and would be a powerful showing of support for President Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda.
Rogers, who narrowly lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., in 2024, is already touting his door-knocking efforts for the coming election.
“Our campaign is running full steam ahead, and I’m honored to have the early support of these incredible community leaders,” he said in an announcement of over 100 campaign co-chairs spread across Michigan’s 83 counties.
In Washington, Senate Republican Leadership has also been sure to bolster Rogers’ second Senate bid, as Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., endorsed Rogers shortly after his campaign announcement.
This is likely due to the late date of Michigan’s Senate primary, which occurs in August of 2026—just a few months before election day.
Early endorsements, in theory, could give Rogers the extra bit of momentum needed to flip the Senate seat red, since he lost to Slotkin by under 20,000 votes in 2024.
Endorsements might also boost early fundraising for Rogers, who, despite having been outspent by Slotkin in 2024, nearly won a Michigan Senate seat for the GOP for the first time in over a quarter century.
If Rogers were to secure the Republican nomination, he might face off against Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., who represents the state’s wealthiest congressional district in Detroit’s affluent northern suburbs around Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills.
Stevens led Rogers in one May hypothetical matchup poll conducted by Glengariff Group, which showed Stevens at 45.2% and Rogers at 43.8%.
Another possible matchup is against State Senator Mallory McMorrow, who also happens to represent the same area as Stevens.
This matchup is much more favorable for Rogers, who in the Glengariff Group poll holds a 45.9% to 41.6% lead over McMorrow in a hypothetical matchup.
In this matchup, Rogers has been homing in on McMorrow’s image as a coastal elite, referring to her as “New Jersey transplant Mallory McMarxist” and “a glorified influencer.”
McMorrow, who is originally from New Jersey, attended Notre Dame University and later worked in creative design in Los Angeles and New York before moving to Michigan.
She gained some national prominence at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where she slammed a super-sized copy of the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” onto a lectern as she criticized the Trump campaign.
