Mike Rogers

Mike Rogers carries a national-security reputation built over a long public career: an Army veteran and former FBI special agent who represented Michigan's 8th District for seven terms and chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 2011 to 2015. That résumé, and a near-miss 2024 Senate run in which he lost to Elissa Slotkin by fewer than 20,000 votes while Trump carried Michigan, give him a durable base among Republicans and security-minded independents. In 2026 he ran unopposed for the Republican nomination for the open seat left by retiring Democrat Gary Peters, and faces progressive Abdul El-Sayed. The discount is twofold: Democrats tie him closely to the president's agenda in a state where that link cuts both ways, and the campaign's turn toward harsher rhetoric strains the statesmanlike image his intelligence-committee years built. Their acrimonious first joint debate on October 8 sharpened the contrast. His floor rests on credentials and name recognition; the ceiling depends on whether a second straight Senate run finally converts that profile into a seat.