Republicans to spend $6 million more to help Mike Rogers' Senate campaign

Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News on Aug 11, 2026

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WASHINGTON — A Senate Republican group said Tuesday it’s adding $6 million this month to the $45 million it was already planning to spend on Michigan’s open U.S. Senate race for a total of $51 million to help GOP nominee Mike Rogers flip the seat from Democratic control.

The $6 million represents half of an additional $12 million that the Senate Leadership Fund says it's spending in August on advertising in Alaska, Iowa, and Michigan as part of an effort to define the GOP's Democratic opponents in those U.S. Senate races. The news was first reported by Axios.

The Senate Leadership Fund is a super political action committee affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota that earlier this year announced the $45 million ad reservation as the largest and earliest-ever investment in Michigan, which Republicans consider one of the best pickup opportunities of the fall midterm elections.

That money will kick in after Labor Day and cover Michigan’s entire early-voting period, starting a month earlier than in 2024 when Rogers, a former seven-term congressman from White Lake Township, narrowly lost the Senate race to Democratic then-U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Holly by about 19,000 votes.

"Senate Leadership Fund is unleashing firepower across the Senate map earlier than ever before to define the Far-Left Democrats backed by Chuck Schumer," SLF spokesman Chris Gustafson said in a statement.

"Thanks to the generosity of our donors and the hard work of Senate Republicans under Leader John Thune, SLF is better equipped than ever to defend the Senate Majority."

SLF in Michigan plans to use the money starting Wednesday to run an ad attacking Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed as "dangerously radical." The spot is set to air on linear TV and on digital platforms in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Flint markets, including during the Lions preseason game on Thursday.

SLF is separately running a five-figure social media and search ad campaign in northern Michigan about El-Sayed's recently surfaced comments about Mackinac Island.

The campaign highlights a video clip from a documentary about El-Sayed's unsuccessful 2018 campaign for governor that spread on the internet Friday, three days after he won the primary election against U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham.

El-Sayed was attending the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference, and the footage captured him saying, "I hate Mackinac so much. It's funny because like if we win ... this going be ... the summer home. I'm just going to be like every time I've come here, I've hated it."

In an interview Tuesday with The Detroit News, El-Sayed said his comments were about the conference, not the island.

The Senate seat is open because Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, is retiring after two terms.

National Republicans are bullish on their chances of flipping a seat in Michigan this year. They have noted that the last time the GOP won a Senate race in Michigan, in 1994, when former state Republican Party Chairman Spence Abraham defeated former Democratic U.S. Rep. Bob Carr, was also the last year the state held a protracted, competitive Democratic Senate primary.

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(Politics editor Chad Livengood contributed to this story.)

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