Amash, O’Donnell look to draw inside straight on Rogers in US Senate GOP primary
GOP U.S. Senate candidates (L-R): Dr. Sherry O'Donnell, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers and former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash | Photos by Kyle Davidson, Lucy Valeski and Nick Manes
Updated, 9:58 a.m., 7/31/24
They are in a race that may well determine control of the U.S. Senate, with Republicans making the case that capturing the seat could be a valuable partner to another Trump administration — or at the very least, serve as check on what they say would be four more years of progressive policies bankrupting the country if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.
On Aug. 6, former U.S Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.), physician and former congressional candidate Dr. Sherry O’Donnell and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake) are facing off in the GOP primary — but the latter has emerged as the favorite thanks to former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
“The race is truly Mike Rogers’ to lose at this point,” said GOP political consultant Andrea Bitely. “There’s little doubt in my mind that any of his primary challengers could even come close. Rogers is so far ahead in name ID that there’s no way anyone could touch him.”
But even as Trump has led in most Michigan polls this cycle and the Cook Political Report has rated the open race as a “Tossup,” the Senate race is still considered an uphill battle for the GOP.
The last time Michigan was represented by a Republican in the U.S. Senate, there was no social media, cell phones and cameras were separate items for most people, while “hangings chads” was a phrase widely used in both news coverage and the punchlines of late night comedians.
Ever since now-U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) defeated Republican U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham in 2000, Democrats have had a lock on both Michigan seats in the nation’s upper chamber. But with Stabenow’s announcement that she would not seek another term, Republicans are betting that this is the year they can end that dominance.
While at one time no less than a dozen candidates stampeded into the race for the GOP nomination, only four made the cut to appear on the Aug. 6 primary ballot. Yet only three are still in the race. And while the Advance sent a set of three questions to the GOP candidates, only Amash responded.
During former Trump’s rally in Grand Rapids, the fourth candidate, Grosse Pointe Park businessman Sandy Pensler, made the surprise announcement that he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Rogers. However, Pensler’s name will still appear on the ballot.
“Mike’s going to make a heck of a senator,” said Pensler, who previously called Rogers “an unprincipled career politician,” with a “selfish pattern of using political influence to personally profit from partnerships with the Chinese Communist government against the interests of our country.”
But that was all forgotten Saturday.
“I want you guys to look around the room tonight because everything goes through Michigan,” said Pensler. “The presidency, the Senate, the House, and the state House. Look around and make a pledge to each other. We’re going to fight, fight, fight like hell to save America and elect Donald Trump, Mike Rogers, and the rest of the ticket on the Republican Party.”
The endorsement only further solidified Rogers’ status as the candidate to beat in the primary.
Rogers as the ‘frontrunner’
Rogers leaped to the front of the pack when he secured Trump’s endorsement in March. That’s made him the main target in the race, with other candidates all attacking Rogers’ pedigree as a true conservative.
Rogers retired from Congress in 2015 following seven terms representing his mid-Michigan district, serving as chair of the powerful House Intelligence Committee. He also represented Livingston County in the Michigan Senate from 1995 to 2001.
He later became a cyber security adviser and businessman and moved to Florida.
The Howell native, whose purchase of a home in White Lake created questions earlier this year about where he actually was living, came out of the gate last September with a strong bid to attract Trump voters and place himself atop the field of candidates for the GOP nomination.
That was despite his former service as an FBI agent and CNN commentator, neither of which are popular with MAGA voters, many of whom view the federal law enforcement agency as complicit in targeting Trump as well as the cable news outlet that is often a target of his ire.
In 2018, Rogers said Trump was “fundamentally wrong” in his assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the past, he called Trump’s political tactics “destructive” and flirted with a presidential run of his own, saying he would not commit to supporting Trump for president in 2024 if he is the GOP nominee.
But Rogers was quick to put that record in the rearview mirror and adapt to the political reality of a Trump-dominated Republican Party, essentially echoing Trump’s position that his prosecution on dozens of state and federal felony charges in four jurisdictions was a purposeful political persecution and not based on the rule of law.
Trump has since been convicted on 34 felony counts in New York, while the classified documents case against him in Florida was recently dismissed and is being appealed.
Rogers was also on board with Trump when he encouraged Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to America’s NATO allies in Europe because some of them aren’t meeting spending guidelines. Rogers called it “campaign rhetoric” but essentially backed Trump’s view.
“I think it’s ridiculous that we have to continue to beg them to do what they promised to do already when we have real challenges,” he said at the time.
Bitely said Rogers’ change of heart represents the cold, hard calculus of politics.
“Mike Rogers has done everything he possibly could to get that Donald Trump endorsement,” she said. “He’s kissed the ring, if you will, he spoke at the [Republican National] Convention. He’s done everything short of getting a spray tan to reflect Trump as much as possible. Whether you like it or not, that’s what it comes down to. He is Trump’s candidate here in Michigan.”
Concurring with that assessment is GOP strategist Dennis Darnoi.
“I think it was Mike Rogers’ race to lose. He had the endorsements and all of the support in the areas that he needed to,” he told the Advance. “Obviously, Sandy Pensler had a lot of money. He had the potential to spend as much as he felt was necessary, but I don’t think that anyone looking at the polls, looking at where the race stood today, thought that there was going to be that second-place horse catching and passing the leader.”
While the 67-year-old Pensler, founder of the private investment firm Pensler Capital Corp., spent $5 million of his fortune in a failed U.S. Senate bid in 2018, that wasn’t the case this election.
The latest fundraising filings with the Federal Elections Commission show Rogers with a commanding cash lead. As of June 30, he has more than $2.5 million in cash on hand, while Pensler had a little over $1 million. Amash was next with just over $400,000, and O’Donnell with about $46,000.
Darnoi says Pensler saw the writing on the wall and concluded the race in November was going to come down to what most people at the start of the campaign thought it would be: Rogers vs. U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly).
Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who currently represents a congressional seat similar to the one Rogers did, is facing actor Hill Harper of Detroit in the Democratic primary. Like Rogers, she is considered the frontrunner in her race.
And Rogers’ opponents have often tried to paint him as being similar to Slotkin, even accusing him of being a “deep state operative.”
It was Pensler who made the greatest effort to try and halt the Rogers’ machine, making a major ad buy in January that directly attacked the former congressman’s tenure leading the House Intelligence Committee.
“9/11, 2012. Four Americans killed by terrorists in Benghazi, Hillary Clinton’s worst scandal. Congressman Mike Rogers helped Hillary [Clinton] cover it up,” claimed one Pensler ad which referred to the conclusions of a 2014 report by the committee that there was “no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support,” during the attack nor was there an “intelligence failure prior to the attacks.”
That report largely deflated GOP efforts to try and blame Clinton, who served as secretary of state at the time, as well as the Obama administration, as trying to cover up the details of the attack.
Amash runs as an outsider
When former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.) announced in February that he would seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat he, like Rogers, came into the race with considerable anti-Trump baggage.
Amash, who left the Republican Party in 2019 to become a Libertarian, joined Democrats in voting to impeach former president Donald Trump in the same year. After considering a bid for president, he retired from Congress in 2020 and was succeeded by former U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Grand Rapids). Meijer lost his 2022 reelection bid and had also been seeking the Senate seat before dropping out in April.
When asked what he saw as the main issue facing Republican voters in the primary, Amash said it was a government not working for its citizens.
“We have an oligarchy of elites. A few people at the top make all the decisions, and our representatives and senators are sidelined,” answered Amash. “We need a Congress that fulfills its original mission, to serve as a body of legislative discovery. All representatives and senators must be allowed to read, amend, and debate legislation. Only then can important issues like spending, immigration, foreign policy, and privacy be addressed in a way that reflects, within the bounds of the Constitution, the consensus of the public.”
Amash also says he would be the best candidate to defeat the Democratic candidate in November.
“My conservative record makes me the clear choice for Republicans, but my principled and transparent approach also appeals to others—and I have a history of outperforming the top of the ticket in general elections,” he said. “In a matchup with Democratic frontrunner and former CIA analyst Elissa Slotkin, I’m uniquely positioned to win votes from liberals, progressives, and independents — and Michigan’s sizable Arab American community — who are repulsed by Slotkin’s commitment to endless wars, unconstitutional spying, and weaponized government.”
And if elected in November, Amash says his top priority would be “to defend liberty, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law.”
To do that, Amash says he would use all of his leverage as a senator “to fix the broken legislative process that is denying the American people a genuinely representative government that works for them.”
Unlike Rogers, Amash has not bothered to court Trump, and instead has focused on attacking Rogers as someone antithetical to small government.
“Mike Rogers is what you get if you take [GOP U.S. Sen.] Lindsey Graham but make him even more enthusiastic about huge spending bills, the military-industrial complex, and the surveillance state,” Amash posted to social media earlier this month.
“My opponent Mike Rogers has always been absolutely clear about his agenda: More endless wars. More warrantless surveillance. More weaponized government,” he writes in another post.
O’Donnell stresses contrasts with Rogers
While Rogers got the coveted Trump endorsement, O’Donnell has racked up a list of far-right personalities endorsing her run, including Trump’s former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, musician Ted Nugent, and former GOP national Committeeman Dave Agema, perhaps best remembered for comparing gays to alcoholics and claiming they want free health care because they’re all dying of AIDS.
O’Donnell, a physician and former congressional candidate who is also an ordained pastor in the Assembly of God Church, is the medical director of Herbie Medical Clinic, located in Niles, Michigan inside the Wesley United Methodist Church.
She is a proponent of the “medical freedom” movement which fought against masks and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic, something she once referred to as the “plandemic,” a debunked conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was purposely created by powerful elites to enrich themselves on vaccine profits.
When O’Donnell filed her petition signatures in March to appear on the GOP primary ballot, she also took aim at Rogers.
“Michigan deserves a senator who will fight for the Americans gotten by Mike Rogers and D.C. elites,” O’Donnell said.
“I look forward to beating Mike Rogers on the debate stage proving that I, as an accomplished female physician, I am the only candidate that will beat Elissa Slotkin in November,” O’Donnell said.
However, while there have been some forums during the GOP primary featuring some candidates, there has not been a formal debate.
O’Donnell also told reporters at the time that despite Trump’s endorsement of Rogers, she would win the nomination based on her support from grassroots Republicans, pointing to a social media post from U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that called Rogers a “never Trumper, and a card carrying member of the spy state that seeks to destroy Trump.”
Where Trump goes, so, too. do GOP voters
While Amash and O’Donnell have tried to distinguish themselves from Rogers, Darnoi believes the race, for all intents and purposes, ended when Trump endorsed Rogers.
“We’ve seen it be the case that Republican primary voters will follow where Donald Trump goes for the most part,” said Darnoi. “He has faced some endorsements that haven’t panned out, but for the most part, if [Trump] gives his support to a candidate in the Republican primary, that’s where Republican voters are going to go.”
That proved to be the case in the 2022 GOP gubernatorial election, in which Trump endorsed right-wing commentator Tudor Dixon, which helped propel her to victory over four opponents. He also gave his blessing that year to Matt DePerno and Kristina Karamo, who both defeated their more well-known Republican opponents for attorney general and secretary of state, respectively, at the Michigan GOP convention.
Darnoi adds that in tracking absentee ballot voters in Republican primaries, what he’s seeing is what would be considered traditional Republican primary voters in terms of age and demographics.
“That’s probably why Sandy Pensler and Justin Amash didn’t find the traction that they thought they might find because there really wasn’t a lane there,” said Darnoi. “Maybe in theory, it looked like, ‘I can attack them from this side’ or ‘I can make the case that I’m a business person’ or whatever it may be, but the lane to squeeze into a primary victory just wasn’t there. I think once that [Trump] endorsement came, most people looked at it and said, ‘Game over, there’s no oxygen for the others to survive off of.’”
Looking to November
With President Joe Biden’s shocking decision last week to withdraw from the race, and quickly endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Darnoi believes the general election for the U.S. Senate has been reset. More than ever, it will come down to turnout.
“Back in 2016, total turnout was about 4.9 million, and then we jumped four years later and it was 5.5 million. The way things were headed, given the sort of lack of enthusiasm for Joe Biden and the impact that had on independent voters and disaffected Republicans, we were setting a model at around 5.1, 5.2 [million], and that obviously favors the Republican candidate,” said Darnoi.
But he says with Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket, there might be turnout more like it was in 2020, which he said would be a more challenging environment for Republicans.
“If you can keep it closer to the 2016 turnout, then all of a sudden you start to say, ‘This is how Trump can win’ and if Trump can win, is there going to be a down ballot effect?” he said.
“I think with Biden dropping out, it makes Mike Rogers’ [general election] race a little bit harder.”
As for what kind of a primary win Rogers needs to have to signal a strong start on the general election campaign, Darnoi says he’ll be looking at a victory margin to at least match that which Trump set in Michigan’s presidential primary in February, when he got just over 68% of the GOP vote, while his then-rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, polled 26.5%.
Darnoi says while many people were speculating that having almost 27% of Republican primary voters not support Trump indicated signs of trouble within the party, he doesn’t think that will necessarily apply to Rogers.
“I think you will find people who are supportive of Nikki Haley, but who are also going to be supportive of Mike Rogers, so I don’t know that it’s a direct translation there, but I think that’s kind of what I’m going to be looking at,” said Darnoi. “If Mike Rogers gets, from a percentage standpoint, less support than Donald Trump, I do think you have a legitimate question of how he is going to bring in those voters during a contested presidential election.”
Correction: This story originally mischaracterized Rogers’ position after leaving Congress.
