In 2022, one of the reasons why the Republicans struggled in so many competitive Senate races is that they simply did not run good candidates. Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania, Blake Masters of Arizona, and Herschel Walker of Georgia all had their own unique liabilities and shortcomings, and they all ended up falling short on election day. The party seems poised to make some similar mistakes in 2024 – Eric Hovde of Wisconsin, Kari Lake of Arizona, and even Bernie Moreno of Ohio all revealed themselves to be flawed candidates that will make Republicans’ quest to retake the Senate much more difficult than it needs to be. 

One of the few exceptions to this rule is Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee in Michigan. A former congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chair, it’s hard to find a much more generic Republican than Rogers, so much so that primary opponent Justin Amash referred to the Trump-endorsed candidate as “an establishment stooge.” The intraparty attacks didn’t amount to much, however, and Rogers won the August primary in commanding faction, setting up a race between himself and Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. 

Much like her opponent, Slotkin is about as generic a member of her party as you could hope to find. Swept into the House during the 2018 blue wave, she held onto her Republican leaning district in Central Michigan (which Rogers used to represent) throughout the more red-leaning years of 2020 and 2022 (her second reelection bid would be the most expensive House election in the country) by leaning on her national security experience and positioning herself as a moderate who would enthusiastically defend the Affordable Care Act instead of supporting Medicare for All. 

In a political era defined by outlandish personalities and celebrity candidates, Michigan’s Senate race, while still crucial, is so ordinary it’s almost quaint, with the Rogers campaign choosing to focus on Slotkin’s support for Joe Biden’s liberal fiscal policy and the Slotkin campaign criticizing Rogers’ lucrative post-House career, during which time he moved to Florida before moving back to Michigan in 2023. As such, the fundamentals of the race are more likely to loom large, and there are already some trouble points for Slotkin. While leftward shifts in key suburban counties like Kent, Ottawa, and Macomb were key to Biden winning Michigan in 2020, Democratic Senator Gary Peters underperformed the president’s margins in those same areas in that same year, relying on big turnout numbers in Democratic strongholds like Wayne and Washtenaw counties to help him eke out a 1.68% margin of victory over Republican John James. 

Unfortunately for Slotkin, she may not be able to match Peters’ margins in Wayne, which is home to large Arab and Muslim American communities like Dearborn and Hamtramck that have been harshly critical of the Biden Administration and the rest of the Democratic Party’s policy towards Israel and Gaza. As a CIA analyst stationed in Iraq during the War on Terror who also happens to be Jewish, there isn’t much in Slotkin’s background that’s likely to appeal to Arab and Muslim voters upset with the current administration’s handling of the War in Gaza. Given the recent fracas over the lack of a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention, nearly all Democrats’ quest to maintain their high-levels of support in Wayne County have just gotten a lot more difficult.

If Slotkin’s speech at the DNC is any indication, her strategy to mitigate this likely drop in Arab and Muslim support seems to mirror that of the party as a whole – wrap yourself in the flag and hope that it attracts enough swing voters to make up for the erosion of the more dovish, left-leaning base. If you’re prone to believe the polls, then this strategy has worked so far – Slotkin has led in nearly every public survey released, with margins ranging from one to ten points. Her resilience is an important reminder that, unlike its swing state brethren, Michigan is typically loath to send Republicans to the Senate. In fact, it hasn’t done so since electing Spencer Abraham during the Republican Revolution of 1994, a result that itself broke a GOP drought that went all the way back to 1972. Of course, similar statements could have been made about Democrats in Arkansas and North Dakota before their wipe outs in the 2010s – but as long as Harris remains competitive in Michigan, and as long as Rogers is unable to completely separate himself from Trump, Slotkin has a chance to pull through.