Abdul El-Sayed, Mike Rogers in Rare Agreement on Trump Michigan Rally

Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed have spent the fall trading shots over tariffs, health care and who better speaks for Michigan. On whether President Donald Trump should come campaign in the state, they happen to agree. Rogers, a former Michigan representative, wants Trump to energize Republican voters in a state he carried in 2024.

El-Sayed, meanwhile, believes a visit from the president would do half his work for him. "Donald is thinking about coming to Michigan. Donald is going to come and remind everybody that Donald is on the ballot," El-Sayed said at a town hall in Escanaba, a stop on his bus tour through the Upper Peninsula.

"Donald, come. Tell everybody in Michigan that you are on the ballot. Your sh*t tariff war is on the ballot.

Your dumbass war with Iran is on the ballot. Your Medicaid cuts are on the ballot." Asked by MS NOW after last week's debate whether he wanted Trump in Michigan, Rogers said, "Yes, he'd be welcome — I'd love to have him talk to those people and get them fired up."

Whether Rogers would want to appear alongside the president is less clear. Asked directly, he moved on to the next question. He did, however, share a stage with Trump in July at General Motors' proving grounds in Milford.

Trump told reporters last week that he would be "going to Michigan in about a week and a half." NewsNation reported Thursday, citing a source familiar with the itinerary, that the visit is planned for October 25, a day after former President Barack Obama is scheduled to campaign with El-Sayed. The trip has not been formally announced, though Representative Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican, suggested reporters "possibly keep the 25th open."

For Rogers, the numbers present a challenge. Trump has won Michigan in two of his three presidential runs, but his support appears to have weakened. A Mitchell Research & Communications poll for local television stations found that 42 percent of likely Michigan voters approved of his job performance, while 56 percent disapproved.

Rogers needs Trump's base to turn out while also winning over independents who have grown less supportive of the president. Michigan is the only Democratic-held Senate seat that the Cook Political Report rates a toss-up, and Republicans haven't won a Senate race in the state since 1994. Mike Rogers Vs.

Abdul El-Sayed: What Latest Polls Show Most recent public polling has El-Sayed slightly ahead, usually inside the margin of error. He's up 48.4 percent to 45.

7 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. InsiderAdvantage, which surveyed 1,200 likely voters October 9-10, found a 2-point race, 48 to 46, with 5 percent undecided. YouGov's far larger sample of 3,947 likely voters, taken from late September into early October, came out 49 to 48.

Mitchell's October 1 poll of 682 likely voters had El-Sayed up 45.6 percent to 41.4 percent, though the firm warned the race could tighten, perhaps dramatically, citing earlier Michigan Senate contests where Republicans gained late.

Rogers leads in at least one survey, a Tyson Group poll for the conservative Alliance for a Better Future conducted October 5-8, which had him ahead 46 percent to 44 percent. Mitchell's crosstabs showed a wide gender gap, with men backing Rogers 51 percent to 40 percent and women going for El-Sayed 50 percent to 33 percent. Rogers also carried voters 65 and older, 53 to 41, while El-Sayed won those 18 to 29 by a lopsided 45 to 17.

On Trump, Civiqs' rolling tracker puts the president's net approval in Michigan at minus 26. Mitchell found 63 percent of independents disapprove of the job he's doing. Seniors were the only age group to give him positive marks, and barely, 52 to 48.

Biggest Issues Facing Michigan Voters Asked what matters most, Michigan voters keep landing on prices. Likely voters in a CNN/SSRS poll taken August 31-September 6 named the economy and cost of living as their top issue by a wide margin, and by more than two to one said they were worse off than two years ago. Roughly a quarter hadn't firmly picked a Senate candidate.

AARP's August survey found the same top concern in both parties, ahead of threats to democracy, immigration and taxes. Foreign policy, which drove much of the Democratic primary, came in seventh. On tariffs, Rogers has been hard to pin down.

The night before the first debate, he put out an ad saying "we need to end this tariff war now." Two days later, at the Highland barn party, he called the Canada tariffs "overall positive" for the state. He has split with Trump elsewhere, calling this year's ICE surge in Minnesota, during which federal agents killed two civilians, "probably not appropriate" and objecting to Trump's deal to buy Russian diesel.

NewsNation reported he has also called for an end to the Iran war. When Trump went after El-Sayed on Truth Social the day after the debate, branding him "a Jihadist lunatic who hates our Country" and using his middle name, Mohamed, Rogers declined to criticize the president. "I won't speak for the president," he told MS NOW.

El-Sayed would be the first Muslim U.S. senator.

His closing pitch leans on the calendar. "He's going to be there two years, and then he's gone," Rogers said of Trump. "This is a six-year term."

El-Sayed, for his part, has spent the race tying Rogers to Trump on prices, housing and trade. Why the Michigan Race Matters in the 2026 Midterm Elections Democratic Senator Gary Peters' retirement opened the seat, one of two Democratic-held Senate seats in states Trump won in 2024. Republicans count it among their best pickup chances as they fight to keep control of the chamber.

The GOP hasn't held this particular seat since 1972 and hasn't won a non-presidential statewide race in Michigan since 2014. Vice President JD Vance was in Monroe on Thursday, framing the race for a Rogers crowd as a choice between gratitude and grievance. Far to the north, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spent the day on El-Sayed's bus tour through the Upper Peninsula, with stops in Escanaba, Iron Mountain and Marquette, where more than 1,200 people filled an arena at Northern Michigan University.

Obama arrives October 24. If Trump follows the next day, NewsNation reported, it would be his first stop this cycle in a toss-up Senate state he hasn't won in any of his presidential runs. The money race tilts heavily toward El-Sayed, at least on the way in.

He raised about $30.7 million from mid-July through September 30, more than triple Rogers' roughly $9.7 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings reported by The Detroit News and Michigan Advance.

Rogers still ended the period with more in the bank, about $6.5 million to El-Sayed's $3.8 million.

A Detroit News analysis found roughly 35 percent of Rogers' quarterly haul came from donors who had given to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or its allied committees this cycle, a pool whose giving surged after El-Sayed won the August primary. Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, is putting $1 million toward El-Sayed's final push. Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story.

Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas