A debate between Representative Elissa Slotkin, the Democrat running for Michigan’s open Senate seat, and former Representative Mike Rogers, her Republican opponent, turned bitter on Tuesday night as the candidates sought to disqualify each other with attacks over their voting records in the House.
Ms. Slotkin, a third-term lawmaker, hit Mr. Rogers, who retired in 2015 after 14 years in the House, for his stance on abortion, pointing to his dozens of votes in favor of legislation that would have banned the procedure or restricted access to it.
“Do not trust him,” Ms. Slotkin said, calling Mr. Rogers “unilaterally pro-life” and warning voters not to believe his promise that he would not jeopardize Michigan’s constitutionally guaranteed right to an abortion.
Mr. Rogers sought to tie Ms. Slotkin to Biden administration policies he said had been bad for Michigan, including supporting emissions standards that would require two-thirds of new cars sold to be electric vehicles by 2032.
“My opponent has multiple times supported E.V. mandates, trying to pick the cars that our companies have to build and the cars that you’re going to have to buy,” Mr. Rogers said.
The back-and-forth highlighted the increasingly hostile tone of the race between Ms. Slotkin and Mr. Rogers, one of the few Senate races considered a tossup in the upcoming election, in which control of the chamber is up for grabs. Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who is retiring, has held the seat since 2001, and the party must hold it to have a chance of winning its uphill battle to hang onto the majority. Recent polls have shown Ms. Slotkin with a slight edge in the contest.
The matchup is between two candidates with somewhat similar résumés. Both served in the House, representing neighboring Michigan districts, though not concurrently; Mr. Rogers was elected in 2001 and left four years before Ms. Slotkin arrived in 2019. Both also have national security backgrounds: Ms. Slotkin was a C.I.A. analyst before being elected to Congress, while Mr. Rogers was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
“The good news is we both have records,” Ms. Slotkin said early in the debate, adding that voters would “be able to see very clearly not just what we say we’re going to do, but what we’ve actually done.”
Both tried to weaponize those records.
Early on, as the moderator posed a series of questions related to Israel’s war in Gaza, they pivoted to argue about each other’s positions on the Iraq war.
“In the run-up to the Iraq war, there was no greater supporter, there was no greater fist pumper than Mike Rogers in leading us into that war,” Ms. Slotkin said.
Mr. Rogers, who voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion, retorted by insinuating that Ms. Slotkin had been responsible for the bad intelligence that the spy community presented to lawmakers to make the case for the war — and accusing her of distorting his position.
“Listen, I get it, the C.I.A. has deception training; my opponent clearly went through that,” he said. “But you’re supposed to use that against your adversaries, not Michigan voters.”
Later, when the debate turned to domestic policy, Ms. Slotkin criticized Mr. Rogers for voting repeatedly to privatize or cut Social Security and Medicare.
“It’s all on the record,” she said. “Just check the facts.”
Mr. Rogers rejected that charge too, though he did support Republican budget plans that called for doing so over his years in the House.
“I’m not even sure she could pass the polygraph test in the C.I.A. anymore,” Mr. Rogers said. “When you look at what we have to do to protect it, fear and scare is not going to get it done — nor did I do the things that she suggested.”
The most protracted spat came when, during the discussion about manufacturing electric vehicles in Michigan, Mr. Rogers accused Ms. Slotkin of signing a nondisclosure agreement to help a company that has been accused of being affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party build a plant in Michigan.
Ms. Slotkin categorically denied ever having signed such an agreement. Last year, The Detroit News reported that an aide to Ms. Slotkin did so in order to be able to view details of the project; a Fox News report said Ms. Slotkin did as well.
“It’s a lie,” Ms. Slotkin said on Tuesday. It was Mr. Rogers, she said, who had helped the Chinese when he served as a consultant to AT&T after his departure from Congress.
The post Slotkin and Rogers Attack Each Other’s Records in Michigan Senate Debate appeared first on New York Times.
