When Democrat Elissa Slotkin and Republican Mike Rogers faced off in a Grand Rapids debate, the U.S. Senate hopefuls rarely saw eye-to-eye — but it was their sharp attacks on each other’s national security credentials that cut to the quick.

More than 20 years after U.S. forces first set foot on Iraqi soil, Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who worked alongside U.S. troops during the Iraq War, said there was “no greater fist-pumper” for entering that war than Rogers, who voted in support of the invasion in 2002 while serving in Congress.

During another exchange on Chinese influence in the U.S., Slotkin said it’s “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.”

Rogers, who served in the U.S. Army and FBI and later chaired the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, said information from his opponent’s former employer led Congress to act on Iraq, and he claimed that Slotkin was using CIA “deception training” to distort his past positions now.

“You’re supposed to use that against your adversaries, not Michigan voters,” he said, later suggesting he was “not even sure (Slotkin) could pass the polygraph test in the CIA anymore.”

Both Slotkin and Rogers built their political careers on reputations as no-nonsense, bipartisan public servants who used their national security expertise to solve domestic problems.

But their experience has also been a political liability at times, opening them up to criticism over mass surveillance, foreign wars opposed by liberals and federal law enforcement agencies that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and supporters have come to loathe.

Both Rogers and Slotkin grew up in Michigan and spent time outside the state before representing similar regions in Congress, and both have prevailed in close elections before. Their similar backgrounds haven’t endeared them to one another as they fight to fill an open seat in one of the most competitive U.S. Senate races in the country.

Neither candidate has hesitated to question their opponent’s integrity amid well-funded ad campaigns that challenge each other’s congressional records, credentials, positions on foreign and domestic issues — and where or how long they’ve lived in Michigan.

The Michigan race is considered a “toss up” — recent polling of Michigan voters shows Slotkin with a slight lead over Rogers, though a Quinnipiac University poll found the pair in an even 48-48% split — and could play a role in which party holds majority control of the Senate next year.

High stakes and political disagreements aside, some observers see the Slotkin-Rogers contest as a win-win regardless of outcome.

“The race between Elissa Slotkin and Mike Rogers represents something rare – two exceptionally strong candidates who would serve Michigan well,” Detroit Regional Chamber Sandy Baruah said after the Detroit-area business group declined to endorse in the race.

Calls to service

Rogers, a Howell native, studied criminal justice and sociology at Adrian College before joining the U.S. Army in the 1980s and has said several generations of his family have served in the military.

After completing military service, Rogers became an FBI special agent, recently telling attendees of a Michigan Farm Bureau forum that his dream was to “either chase Soviet spies or go after gangsters…and had the great privilege to get assigned to Chicago for organized crime.”

Eventually, he shifted gears to politics, serving in Michigan’s state Legislature before winning a close race for Congress in 2000. There, he became known as an expert on national and cybersecurity issues, eventually becoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rogers continued his work in the national and cybersecurity space after exiting Congress, working as a television commentator and cybersecurity consultant for technology companies like AT&T and Nokia. At one point, he was considered for the role of FBI director.

He’s said he decided to re-enter politics after a decade away because politics is “broken” and not working for ordinary people, vowing to address high costs of living and improve U.S. economic interests worldwide. If elected, Rogers would be the first Republican to represent Michigan in Congress since 2000.

Slotkin — who if elected would be the youngest woman in the U.S. Senate and only the second woman to represent Michigan in that chamber — has said her career in national security was rooted in her experience witnessing the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City firsthand while attending Columbia University.

A Holly native, Slotkin became an analyst for the CIA after completing school, serving three tours in Iraq as a militia expert. That role led to positions in the administrations of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, most recently working as acting assistant secretary of defense for national security affairs.

She returned to her family’s Holly farm after Trump took office and launched her first Congressional campaign a year later, highlighting her work under both Republican and Democratic presidents and promising bipartisanship.

Slotkin was part of a wave of Democratic women, many of whom with national security experience, who saw success in Republican-leaning districts in 2018 as suburban and moderate voters veered away from Trump.

National security approach

Since her first campaign in 2018, Slotkin has proudly cited her national security background in advertisements and on the campaign trail and says it informs how she treats any political issue, whether foreign or domestic.

“In national security…you literally look at the facts very coldly, very objectively, and you make decisions based on the facts, what’s in the best interest of the mission and the country,” she recently told reporters.

Her priorities include addressing the “over the top” costs of child care, education, housing, health care and prescription drugs, noting that “if you’re not talking about the economy and the future of work and the middle class, you’re only having half the conversation.”

She’s vowed to continue seeking bipartisan opportunities in Congress if elected, though critics have questioned the sincerity of those claims.

During the Oct. 8 Grand Rapids debate, Slotkin cited an analysis from the Lugar Center at Georgetown University that ranked her the 14th most bipartisan member of the U.S. House in 2023, based on sponsorship and co-sponsorship of bills.

By another measure that Rogers cited, Slotkin was a reliable party-line vote for Democrats: She voted for 100% of bills Biden supported in 2021 and 2022, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, which stopped tracking votes in 2023.

Supporters of Slotkin say her record of bipartisan service is comforting, also noting that she has been willing to take strong stances on issues like health care and reproductive rights.

“Politics is so male centric that they don’t always remember the policies that affect women, especially when it comes to their rights,” said Kimberly Barrington, a Byron Center Democrat who’s supporting Slotkin. “She will remember us.”

Though Slotkin dominated the Democratic field in fundraising and endorsements for the Senate seat after announcing her candidacy, the support wasn’t universal.

Her opponents in the Democratic primary, actor Hill Harper and business executive Nasser Beydoun, argued that her national security background wasn’t the right fit for Michigan voters concerned about U.S. foreign policy shortfalls amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Slotkin occasionally faced public criticism in her past roles as well.

In 2014, then-Sen. John McCain chastised her during a congressional briefing on the Obama administration’s efforts to fight terrorism in Iraq, telling her: “We learn more from The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal than we do from any briefing we ever had with you.”

Return from retirement

Rogers was widely regarded as a bipartisan operator during his Congressional tenure, particularly for his work on the House Intelligence Committee.

In 2012, he led an investigation into the terrorist attack at U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, which debunked claims of intelligence failures or “stand down” orders delaying emergency response.

Those claims were revived during the Republican primary when then-opponent Sandy Pensler accused Rogers of helping Hillary Clinton “cover up” the attacks (Pensler later suspended his campaign and endorsed Rogers).

Another one-time competitor, former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, attacked Rogers’ record on individual liberties and recently suggested his past support of surveillance programs will be a “huge liability” among primary voters.

Rogers more recently raised eyebrows for aligning with Trump and accepting his endorsement after previously denouncing Trump and his allies for attempting to overturn 2020 election results.

Many observers in Michigan saw Rogers’ shift toward Trump — and the endorsement that came with it — as a necessary step to unite a fractured state GOP.

Lisa Ellison, a Grand Rapids voter, told Bridge Michigan she didn’t know much about Rogers going into the 2024 election cycle, but she supports Trump and believes Rogers will support “good policy proposals — not just words, not just empty words.”

Rogers told Bridge in a May interview that despite their past differences, he and Trump were in line on key issues like the economy and border security and said their alliance made sense “if you want to beat Democrats.”

That support extended to criticism of his former employer.

Rogers argued in September 2023 that the Department of Justice is “corrupt” and that he “worked for the FBI back when our focus was actually taking down violent criminals and drug offenders — not carrying out the political bidding of the President.”

But his embrace of Trumpian talking points diverged from the path of many former intelligence officials of both parties, who have long viewed the former president as a threat to the democratic system.

Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and NSA and one of hundreds of former national security officials who endorsed Harris over Trump in September, recently weighed in on the Michigan Senate race in a social media post, calling Slotkin a “good person” and questioning his previous perception of Rogers.

“I thought I knew Mike Rogers. But I was wrong,” he wrote, responding to a Rogers ad accusing Slotkin of being in ‘Communist China’s pocket.’ “He retired once. He should’ve stayed there.”

What comes next

Voters statewide will choose between Rogers and Slotkin in the Nov. 5 general election, though absentee voting is well underway. Early in-person voting begins statewide Oct. 26.

A second debate between the candidates is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at WXYZ-TV in metro Detroit.

This article is being republished through a syndication agreement with Bridge Michigan. Bridge Michigan is Michigan’s largest nonprofit news service and one of the nation’s leading and largest nonprofit civic news providers. Their coverage is nonpartisan, fact-based, and data-driven. Find them online at https://www.bridgemi.com/.