GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin and GOP former Rep. Mike Rogers clashed repeatedly here Tuesday over who would best represent their purple state in the first debate of their hotly contested Senate race.
The tone during their hourlong debate, hosted by NBC affiliate WOOD, was mostly civil. But there were several hostile moments, with both candidates accusing the other of lying about and misrepresenting their records.
Rogers, noting Slotkin’s background as a CIA analyst, said he was “not even sure she could pass the polygraph test [for] the CIA anymore.”
And after Rogers accused Slotkin of “huffing at the microphone” during a particularly contentious exchange about China, she fired back.
“It’s just sad that a guy who considers himself a national security guy can’t see that we need to work together on this issue — not lie, repeatedly,” Slotkin said. “Let’s get to work, man.”
The debate, the first of two scheduled in the final weeks of the race, comes as mail-in balloting is underway in Michigan. Slotkin and Rogers are competing for the seat opening with the retirement of longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Recent polls have found Slotkin leading, but within the margin of error.
Both candidates cast themselves Tuesday as sufficiently bipartisan for a swing state that is one of the premier battlegrounds in this year’s race for the presidency and control of the Senate.
“We’re a very purple state — lots of Democrats, lots of Republicans,” Slotkin said. “I was voted the 14th most bipartisan member of Congress.”
Rogers, who served in the House for 14 years, said he “will look for every opportunity to be bipartisan.”
Their sharpest disagreements centered on matters of foreign policy and national security, economics and abortion.
“He was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in the run-up to the Iraq War,” Slotkin said of Rogers. “There was no greater supporter. There was no greater fist-pumper than Mike Rogers in leading us into that war.”
Rogers responded by questioning Slotkin’s integrity.
“That information that was given to Congress was based on the CIA at the time that my opponent was in the CIA doing analytical work,” Rogers said. “And listen, I get it, the CIA has deception training. My opponent clearly went through that. But you’re supposed to use that against your adversaries, not Michigan voters.”
Slotkin, according to her campaign, did not join the CIA until late 2003, after the Iraq invasion.
Asked whether she would support Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposal to offer $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, Slotkin punted, saying she would “like to see the details of that program.”
Rogers turned her answer into an opportunity to question her bipartisan bona fides, noting how frequently she has voted in accordance with President Joe Biden and Harris’ agenda.
“My opponent has voted 100% with the Biden-Harris agenda — 100% — and if you think about what that means, that means that she’s likely to go in and vote for this $25,000 [proposal] and every other scheme that will only increase the cost of housing,” Rogers said.
Another tense moment came during an exchange about Medicare and Social Security.
“He voted to raise the retirement age,” Slotkin said, referring to Rogers’ votes on conservative House budgets. “That’s in his record. It’s public. I’m not sure he remembers. He’s been down in Florida for a few years, but your record when you vote in Congress is public.”
Rogers responded with a shot at Slotkin’s “very wealthy family.”
“We came from a middle-class family here in Michigan,” he said. “We counted on Social Security. We count on Medicare. My father had cancer. I had cancer when I was 19. These issues are big and they’re personal, and I will do everything to protect Medicare and Social Security.”
Both Slotkin and Rogers have sought to frame the other as a carpetbagger out of touch with Michigan values. Democrats highlight how Rogers, after he left Congress a decade ago, moved to Cape Coral, Florida, where, until he returned to Michigan to prepare his Senate bid, he lived in a home valued at nearly $1.7 million. More recently, local media coverage has focused on how Rogers isn’t living at the address where he is registered to vote — a situation that his campaign attributes to a township’s delay in connecting his newly built home to a municipal sewer system.
Republicans note that Slotkin returned to Michigan seven years ago — after jobs in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations — to run for office.
Slotkin made another Florida-related jab toward the end of the debate, when both candidates were asked about how Michigan voters in 2022 codified abortion rights in the state constitution.
Rogers acknowledged that Michiganders “voted overwhelmingly to make abortion legal and a part of the state constitution of Michigan” and vowed he would “do nothing when I go back to Washington, D.C. … that would change” that.
Slotkin countered by noting that Rogers had often voted for legislation to outlaw abortion in Congress — and that he wasn’t a Michigan resident when the 2022 ballot measure passed.
“To me,” Slotkin said, “every single time he was casting one of those votes, he was saying something very particular. He was saying to women he does not trust you to make your own decisions about your own family planning every single time.
“I was here in Michigan, and I voted ‘yes’ on Proposition 3,” Slotkin added. “You were in Florida. You voted in Florida. You weren’t here.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
