This election is all about the economy. GOP candidate in crucial Senate race explains why.

It’s well known that Michigan will be key to the presidential election in November. It seems like not a day goes by without a visit from a presidential or vice presidential nominee.

That’s not the only race that matters here in my state, however. Michigan holds one of the few open U.S. Senate seats this year, with longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow retiring. A Republican hasn’t won a Senate race in Michigan in three decades.

Former Congressman Mike Rogers, a Republican, is facing off against Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat. It’s one of the most competitive Senate races in the country, as Republicans seek to win back that chamber.

The Cook Political Report has rated Michigan’s race as one of only three toss-ups in this election.

It also promises to be an extremely expensive race, with tens of millions of dollars expected to be spent.

Rogers served seven terms in Congress, rising to chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He’s a former FBI agent, and he has spent time in the private sector after leaving Congress in 2015.

Now, he's ready to get back into politics.

I spoke with Rogers recently about the campaign and what he sees as the biggest issues facing Michigan – and the country. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Your race is one of the most-watched in the country and is considered a toss-up. How are things going from your perspective?

You know, good. I think at the end of the day, this is going be an economic race.

I met a woman the other day, with four kids, talking about what her challenges were. She broke down sobbing. She has to go to a food pantry the last four days of the month to feed her children. She’s never done that in her life. Both her and her husband work, but prices have just far exceeded their paychecks. They haven’t had a raise in a while and people are hurting, and they know that policies out of Washington, D.C., have made their lives harder. For all the talk of hope and joy, they’re struggling with their car payment.

They’re ready for a change, and I think that’s why Michigan is competitive this year. They understand that my pitch for real solutions to your problems is selling.

Americans keep saying that they are most concerned about the economy and inflation, illegal immigration and crime. Is that what you're hearing on the ground in Michigan?

Absolutely. So the border and illegal immigration is a big issue here for two reasons. One, the crime that comes with it. And the other one’s the cost that comes with it.

So let me talk about crime first. You’re in southeast Michigan. We have an organized crime group that is from Chile, came across the border illegally. They’re all illegal immigrants operating a very sophisticated burglary operation in southeast Michigan.

Who's Kamala Harris? Vice president steals another idea from Trump. Now she wants to build the wall – no joke.

They’re very efficient, very good and very organized, and that money goes back to the drug cartel bosses, and so that's a huge problem. We lost 3,000 citizens to fentanyl last year because that stuff is so dangerous, even in small amounts, and the open border has just poured that up through here. We lost Ruby Garcia in the west part of Michigan. She was killed by an illegal immigrant. We had a sexual assault of a minor child by an illegal immigrant. I mean, this just keeps going and going and going. People know it. And here’s the thing. We know it's preventable if we close the border, secure the border, focus on legal immigration.

And then the cost of it. So $450 billion is an estimate for the last year of paying for room and board, health care, phones, debit cards for illegal immigrants. That’s enough money to pay for every Michigan state trooper and every Michigan teacher for 15 years.

Everyone's talking about the high price of groceries, up 25% the last few years. I know you've made this a big point in your campaign, and we've heard from Kamala Harris, who's talking about price controls. What ideas do you have that would translate to savings for families?

Let me just talk about price controls. First of all, you don’t have to look too long ago in history where price controls have brought poverty, just grinding poverty, Venezuela being the greatest example of all. Now they don’t have food on their shelves.

Price controls do not work. They’ve never worked, and it’s dangerous to a U.S. economy.

Harris has a 'Bidenomics' problem: Trump’s ‘Comrade Kamala’ insult is a bit much, but price controls really are an awful idea

So the things I'm talking about on the campaign trail ? that outrageous spending that the Democrats, when they were in charge, all of those trillion dollar bills. Remember too much money came into the economy, too few goods and services. Guess what? Everything gets more expensive. Your groceries get more expensive. Your gasoline is more expensive. So what we’ve said is that we have to stop that wild and wasteful government spending. We can’t afford it. It’s dangerous for our economic future.

I argue you unleash American energy. Sending money overseas to countries that don’t like us very much makes no sense to me whatsoever. Again, lower our dependence on anyone else so that we don’t have to be entangled in the world.

And lastly, for the first time in the history of this country, we imported more food than we exported, and I’m a national security guy at heart, so you start thinking about how we can't feed ourselves. This is a huge problem. When I talk to farmers, it is the regulatory regime coming out of Washington, D.C., that makes it difficult for them to even compete. We’re going to stop that regulation.

China has become a flashpoint in this election. A Chinese-affiliated company wants to bring a plant and more than 2,000 jobs to Michigan. Can you talk about the concerns you have about the Gotion EV battery parts manufacturer in Michigan?

We found the incorporation papers that clearly show they’re affiliated with the Communist Party of China. So you’re bringing a Chinese company to Michigan with Chinese engineers coming to Michigan. And it’s up in the north, it’s in this idyllic farm country that’s just gorgeous, and the community is not real thrilled about it.

And they took $175 million in Michigan money to pay them to locate in the state. And why do you have to do that? This is what I think angers people because the government’s saying you have to drive an electric car, they’re telling the car companies the kind of car to build and now they want to pay a Chinese company to show up, to build those batteries.

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And the problem here is so many-fold. It’s a national security issue. It’s an economic security issue. This is terrible if the Democrats get their way on these EV mandates. What does that do to a state like Michigan? I mean this is devastating, and I don’t think they are thinking this through very well.

You recently signed a pledge that you would help protect women's sports at an event with Riley Gaines and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Why is this an important issue for you?

So my wife is a bit of an athlete. My daughter participated in sports when she was growing up. This is just about fairness. It’s not about the LGBTQ community or the culture war. The reason we had Title IX is so that women could get the same benefit that men were getting out of competing in sports. Sportsmanship, how to win, how to lose, how to work together as a team, when to lead, when to follow – all of those things happen in sports and athletics. Now they have to compete and lose to a biological male. It doesn’t make sense to me, and again, it’s an issue of fairness.

Does having Kamala Harris now as the Democratic presidential nominee change things at all for you?

I think it does raise the intensity in certain communities around the state. There seems to be a little more excitement about that, but there is no less excitement for people who love Donald Trump because they know that their life was better four years ago than it is today.

Donald Trump and JD Vance will spend a lot of time in Michigan leading up to November. Does that help you?

I think it does help. I mean, it keeps the excitement up on the base, it keeps them understanding how important Michigan is and how important it is to get out to vote. And so at the end of the day, I think it’s a good thing.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will GOP control the Senate? Michigan race could be deciding factor