Republican Candidate Makes Big Gains In Key Senate Race: Poll

Michigan Democratic Congresswoman and Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin remains ahead of Republican Mike Rogers, but her lead has dwindled by 5 points since late August, according to poll results published by The Detroit News on Monday.

The Detroit News and WDIV-TV poll, which was conducted between October 1-4, showed Slotkin at 46.8% among likely Michigan voters to Rogers’ 43.3%. Slotkin’s 3.5-point lead over the Republican in the latest poll is a big drop from her 8.5-point lead over Rogers in a Detroit News poll conducted at the end of August.

The poll suggests that Rogers has picked up significant support from voters who were undecided in late August. In the Detroit News’ August poll, Rogers was at 35% to Slotkin’s 43.5% while 15% of respondents said they were still undecided. In the newest poll, only 5.4% of respondents said they were still undecided as Rogers’ support jumped to 43.3%.

Rogers has also started to close the gap in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, where he is just 3 points behind Slotkin as of Tuesday afternoon after trailing by 5 points in mid-September.

The Rogers campaign is benefitting from conservative political action committees dumping $30 million into the race. The Great Lakes Conservative Fund, a super PAC, spent $8 million on statewide ads last week, Axios reported. That ad buy came after Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund started to spend $22.5 million in Michigan to boost Rogers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Detroit News poll comes shortly after Slotkin warned donors on a call that her campaign’s internal polling shows Vice President Kamala Harris “underwater” in Michigan.

“I’m not feeling my best right now about where we are in Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan. We have her underwater in our polling,” Slotkin said last month.

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Rogers has recently focused his attention on hitting Slotkin over comments she has made on electric vehicles, a major issue for Michigan’s economy. In a new ad, Slotkin pushes back on EV mandates, saying, “No one should tell us what to buy, and no one is gonna mandate anything.” In September, however, Slotkin voted against a bipartisan bill that would have blocked the Biden-Harris administration from requiring two-thirds of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric, Fox News reported.

“Michigan voters understand Slotkin’s lip service in an election year doesn’t match her actions in Washington. Voters recognize Mike Rogers has their back when it comes to fighting the job killing EV mandate, securing the border, and fixing the economy,” Rogers For Senate Press Secretary Kate DeTurk said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire.

The Michigan Senate race, along with the Ohio and Wisconsin Senate races, is considered a “toss-up,” according to Cook Political Report. Republicans are looking to flip the seats from Democrats in all of those races.