Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers speaks at a Burn Party campaign event at Hoffman Farms Winery on October 9, 2026 in Highland Township, Michigan.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers sat at a local bar with a bottle of Canadian Labatt Blue Pilsner in hand and delivered a message that was unimaginable just a few weeks ago.
“Here in Michigan, we know Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now,” Mr. Rogers told the camera in the ad released Oct. 7.
He never mentioned the man who started it, President Donald Trump.
It’s a dramatic reversal for Mr. Rogers, who has spent months defending President Trump’s tariffs, saying in September that “Mr. Trump is right to put America first” by imposing tariffs. But in Michigan, where farms, factories and tourism rely on Canadian trade, Trump’s trade war and Ottawa’s retaliation have created a political quagmire with an election three weeks away that will decide control of the Senate.
Mr. Rogers is in a dead heat with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Cook Political Report with Amy Walter calls the race a mixed bag, with neither candidate being a clear favorite. Fifty Plus One, a polling company, has Mr. El-Sayed leading Mr. Rogers by 4 percentage points.
And Mr. Rogers’ exclusion of Mr. Trump, echoing earlier ads calling for an end to the Iran war, reflects broader Republican anxiety heading into the November election. Despite President Trump’s call for voters to “pretend it’s on the ballot,” many Republican lawmakers in battleground states barely mention him in their general election ads, and some are using their ads to implicitly break with Trump’s billboard policies.
According to a CNBC analysis of AdImpact data, 57 of the 1,324 ads for Republican candidates that ran during the election period mentioned Trump in 4.3%, down from 47.1% during the primary election. The analysis counts individual ads, not air frequency, and includes spots scheduled through the end of October.
Democratic candidates are far more likely to quote President Trump. He appears in 20.9% of general election ads, nearly five times the rate for Republicans.
“Republicans needed to stick to the Trump line to win over their base in the primaries, but they need independence to get through November,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and partner at ROKK Solutions.
Mr. Rogers breaks up with Mr. Trump
According to the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Michigan does about $80 billion in trade with Ontario annually. Canada is also Michigan’s largest export market, purchasing $23.2 billion worth of goods last year, or about 39% of the state’s total exports, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.
This relationship is especially important for automakers, whose parts routinely cross national borders before final assembly. Detroit Three – general motors, ford and Stellantis – According to a CNBC analysis of corporate financial disclosures, total tariff-related costs are reported to be approximately $6.5 billion in 2025.
“You can’t put a tariff on goods that cross that bridge without immediately raising the cost of every vehicle that rolls off the assembly line in Michigan,” said Richard Zuba, founder of Michigan polling firm Glengariff Group.
President Trump escalated the trade war with Canada again in August. After negotiations broke down, the U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, hitting steel, aluminum and manufacturing inputs on top of existing tariffs on lumber and autos. Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs.
The new task came at a time when Michigan was already feeling strained. Michigan’s agricultural exports to Canada fell 12.3% in 2025, according to a state report, but Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration estimates that Michigan households will pay about $1,000 a year on average in tariffs.
“Republicans in close races like Mr. Rogers are generally avoiding Trump’s priorities or breaking with him, especially on tariffs, because the cost of living is such a big issue,” said Erica Franklin Fowler, a Wesleyan University professor and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising.
A WDIV/Detroit News poll conducted by Glengariff Group in early September found that 64.2% of likely Michigan voters opposed President Trump’s tariffs on Canada, and nearly 62% said they would harm the state’s economy.
Against this background, Rogers changed direction. After calling tariffs “necessary” in late August, he went on television in October to demand an end to the fight to “lower prices.”
“Mike Rogers was a free trade Republican until being a free trade Republican put him at odds with Mr. Trump,” Tuba told CNBC. “He’s now going back to basics, as Michigan voters have made it clear how much they hate Canadian tariffs.”
Mr. Rogers’ campaign did not respond to requests for comment on whether he has changed course on tariffs or Iran or whether he is seeking more distance from Mr. Trump.
Even though Mr. Rogers lost his previous Senate bid, Mr. Trump’s position leaves him with little margin for error in a state that the 2024 president won by just 1.4 percentage points. A September poll by Emerson College and Nexstar Media found that 55% of likely Michigan voters disapproved of President Trump’s performance, and 47% said the economy was their top issue.
That leaves Mr. Rogers walking the tightrope of energizing Trump’s base while convincing swing voters that he can protect them from the economic fallout of the Trump administration’s policies.
“When voters are feeling cramped at the pump and at the grocery store, they’re going to vote for tariffs and wars overseas,” Bonjean told CNBC. “As the daily costs of conflict rise, battleground candidates find it harder to defend them. This cycle has created a storm.”
Rogers initially called President Trump’s decision to attack Iran “the right thing to do” and hailed the conflict as the best opportunity for peace in the Middle East in his lifetime. But as the war dragged on and energy costs rose, his tone changed.
Michigan’s highway diesel reached $6.71 a gallon in September, while off-road diesel used by farmers hit $5.95 for Sept. 21 delivery, the Michigan Farm News, published by the Michigan Farm Bureau, reported, citing fuel distributor Crystal Flash. Nationwide, agricultural fuel costs are expected to rise 29% this year, and fertilizer costs are expected to rise 15%, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture projections.
Rogers had called for an early end to the war by late September, saying, “Families in Michigan are suffering the costs of everyday life.” Again, Trump’s name was not in the ad.
“Grocery prices are too high,” he said. “We have to bring the price down.”
Former U.S. president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers shake hands as Rogers takes the stage to speak during a campaign rally at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Michigan, on October 26, 2024.
Drew Angerer | AFP | Getty Images
Will it work?
One Republican strategist said Mr. Rogers’ late shift could mean it’s too late for him to see the light of day after months of aligning himself with Mr. Trump.
“This is a dangerous practice with no safeguards,” Bonjean said. “Voters already have a clear impression of this administration, and a sudden reversal of their stance on Trump in the final weeks looks more like self-preservation than true reform to many.”
Republicans have the money to test strategies. Republicans spent about $200 million more than Democrats on Congressional ads in September, from $597 million to $398 million, according to AdImpact.
That advantage extends to Michigan, where Republicans held a $15 million advantage in the Senate ad race through September 30, according to AdImpact. Mr. Rogers and the National Republican Senatorial Committee spent $12 million on coordinated advertising, according to AdImpact.
Democrats face another test
Mr. Rogers is also trying to move the race to a friendlier position by attacking Mr. El-Sayed over transgender rights.
“Abdul thinks soccer is bad, but he thinks men playing women’s sports is good,” Rodgers said in an August attack ad. “Common sense and insanity. That’s Michigan’s choice.”
About 1 in 9 ads run by Rodgers’ campaign, the NRSC, and the coalition since the primary deals with transgender issues, accounting for nearly $800,000 of the $14.4 million in Michigan Senate ad spending expected through the end of October, according to a CNBC analysis of AdImpact data.
Nationally, anti-transgender messages accounted for nearly one-fifth of pro-Republican Senate air ads from Sept. 8 to Sept. 27, second only to taxes and inflation, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 67% of Americans support banning transgender girls and women from girls’ school sports.
“Republicans are looking for ways to take their focus off the economy,” said Meredith Kelly, a Democratic strategist and partner at Declaration Media. “Pocket money issues like gas, groceries, and medical expenses are not popular.”
Mr. El-Sayed has largely refused to engage with transgender issues, instead steering the conversation back to affordability. But when asked, he said decisions about gender-affirming care for minors should be left up to patients, parents and doctors, and told Fox News that sports governing bodies should set eligibility rules.
“You never asked me about the issues that Michiganders actually care about,” El-Sayed told host Jesse Watters, citing the cost of gas, groceries and prescriptions.
This approach would put El-Sayed on one side of a Democratic debate that remains unresolved beyond 2024: whether to directly counter Republican attacks on transgender rights, make concessions on certain policies, or change the subject.
El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment on its strategy to respond to the Republican attack. El-Sayed will receive a high-profile boost from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will campaign with her across Michigan on Thursday and hold additional rallies around Detroit on Friday.
Meanwhile, some Democratic politicians are moving to the right. In neighboring Ohio, longtime Democratic congresswoman Marcy Kaptur recently ran an ad declaring that “boys shouldn’t play in women’s sports,” drawing the ire of LGBTQ+ advocates and some party allies. Some argue it will only spark the culture war that Republicans want.
“There’s no one strategy, it’s different from country to country,” Kelly told CNBC.
But there is evidence that silence comes at a cost. Democrats’ post-election autopsy found that attacks on former Vice President Kamala Harris over social issues in 2024 were “highly effective.” A subsequent examination by the centrist think tank Third Way found that Democrats suffered about an eight-point penalty for not responding, but that penalty was largely erased by direct rebuttals.
“When the Republican Party launches a cultural attack, we can’t just stay silent,” said Ranae Erickson, senior vice president of social policy, education and politics at Third Way, a centrist think tank. “Changing the subject doesn’t solve the problem. It gives Republicans the freedom to define themselves.”
But in Michigan, analysts say the economy may make it harder for cultural issues to have an impact in the final weeks of the year.
“If Mr. Rogers wants to bet on cultural grievances to drown out economic pain, that’s a big bet,” Zuba said. “We can talk about sports all day long, but when swing voters are paying $6 for diesel, it’s hard to overcome the dinner table issue.”
