Pro-Mike Rogers super PAC raises $5M for Michigan Senate bid

A super PAC backing former Rep. Mike Rogers’s (R) Senate bid in Michigan has raised more than $5 million, a sizable haul in a race that represents Republicans’ best chance at flipping a seat in the upper chamber next year.

The Great Lakes Conservative Fund (GLCF) shared the fundraising total exclusively with The Hill roughly three months after Rogers officially announced his candidacy.

“We are off to a fast start,” Andy Surabian, the super PAC’s president, said in a statement to The Hill. “This puts us on a trajectory to far surpass the $25 million GLCF raised last cycle and help Michigan elect a conservative leader who will put working class families first.”

Rogers is running on the Republican side to replace Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who announced he would not seek reelection. Rogers ran last year to replace former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), losing by less than 20,000 votes to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).

The former congressman secured President Trump’s endorsement in last year’s race, and his campaign has ties to members of Trump’s orbit this time around. Rogers represented Michigan’s 8th Congressional District in the House from 2001 to 2015, serving as chair of the House Intelligence Committee at the end of his tenure.

While Rogers has already earned the backing of top Senate Republicans, effectively clearing his path to the nomination, Democrats in the state are facing the prospect of a messy primary.

Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, Rep. Haley Stevens, former Wayne County health official Abdul El-Sayed former state House Speaker Joe Tate have all entered the race seeking the Democratic nomination to replace Peters.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the Michigan Senate race next year as a “toss-up.”