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'No Michigander Deserves to Be Left Behind': Abdul El-Sayed Makes Final Election Pitch in Fox News Op-Ed
"I’ve sat down with Michiganders from all walks of life, all of whom are hurting... and are hungry for change."
Nov 03, 2026
Michigan Democratic US Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed made a final pitch to voters in an op-ed published by Fox News on Monday.
In his op-ed, El-Sayed discussed his campaign stops throughout rural parts of the state that typically support Republican candidates, while declaring that "no Michigander deserves to be left behind."
El-Sayed emphasized that he has been happy to engage many former supporters of President Donald Trump who have become disenchanted with the state of the economy during his second term.
"I’ve sat down with Michiganders from all walks of life, all of whom are hurting... and are hungry for change," he wrote. "We’re seeing historic momentum in unlikely places. Rural districts, from Escanaba to Port Huron to Cadillac, are showing up and showing out for our campaign. Hundreds of former Trump voters line up for hours to attend our town halls."
The Michigan Democrat then emphasized that he's been hearing the same message from voters across the state about the economy: "It shouldn't be this hard" to get ahead.
"Whether it’s that mom in Escanaba or a farmer in Ithaca or a teacher in Detroit," El-Sayed stressed, "working Americans are struggling to afford gas, groceries, and healthcare while billionaires and corporations grow richer and richer."
El-Sayed put the blame for Americans' struggles directly on Trump and politicians like Mike Rogers, his Republican opponent in the Senate race.
"Experts estimate that the average Michigan household is paying a whopping $5,600 due to Trump’s tariffs, in addition to spending about $20 more every time they fill up a tank as a result of Trump’s dangerous Iran war," he wrote. "The numbers speak for themselves. Working Michiganders are going through hell—and our president isn’t doing a thing to help. He’s just making it worse."
As for Rogers, El-Sayed described him as "just another cog in the political machine that delivers for special interests over the public" who is "running for office to enrich himself at the expense of Michiganders, just as he’s done before."
El-Sayed on Tuesday morning posted a video on social media highlighting his travels throughout Michigan during the campaign, with music from iconic Detroit rapper Eminem playing in the background.
Michigan. It's time. It's up to us to show the country what's possible.The world is watching.Polls are open 7AM-8PM.
[image or embed]
— Abdul El-Sayed (@abdulelsayed.bsky.social) November 3, 2026 at 7:05 AM
"It's time," El-Sayed wrote in a message accompanying the video. "It's up to us to show the country what's possible. The world is watching."
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Two Registered Agents of Israel Are Working for Mike Rogers’ Senate Campaign
One journalist suggested that in order to understand AIPAC-backed Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens' sudden flip to support Rogers, it is worth "following the money into foreign interests."
Nov 02, 2026
When Democratic US Rep. Haley Stevens announced her stunning flip to endorse Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Sunday, she did so with two registered agents of the Israeli government standing behind her, according to a report from Drop Site News.
The person who opened the press conference outside a Detroit church was Abigail Ronson, a spokesperson for the Rogers campaign, whom Drop Site found had registered as an agent working on behalf of the Israeli government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on May 18, 2026.
The registration lists Ronson as a part-time contractor for Clock Tower X, a communications company owned by Brad Parscale, a former campaign manager for President Donald Trump.
In May, Responsible Statecraft and The Intercept reported that through Clock Tower X, Parscale has run a multimillion-dollar operation funded by the Israeli government aimed at influencing American public opinion, which has turned dramatically against Israel amid its genocidal assault on Gaza and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank.
This campaign reportedly involves producing and distributing pro-Israel content aimed at younger Americans, particularly conservatives and evangelical Christians, creating articles meant to influence artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude to give answers favorable to Israeli narratives, and conducting text messaging campaigns to direct Americans toward pro-Israel content.
Ronson, who works for the Republican consulting firm Convergence Media, was one of 14 employees at the firm working on Parscale’s pro-Israel influence operation. Convergence’s chief of staff, Jesse Stokes—who registered as an agent of Israel in October 2025—is also part of the Rogers campaign. The campaign has separately paid millions of dollars to Convergence.
Both Ronson and Stokes have been involved in campaign activities. Ronson helped organize the launch of the astroturfed "Democrats for Mike Rogers" campaign, an alleged "grassroots" coalition of Democratic voters who said they supported Rogers over his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed. The funding for the initiative overwhelmingly came from Republican-aligned sources, as well as Rogers' own campaign, and many of the supposed "Democrats" had long-standing GOP ties, according to a previous Drop Site investigation.
Stokes has no official title with the Rogers campaign. But metadata reviewed by Drop Site shows that he wrote the email launching Rogers' Senate campaign in March 2025, about seven months before he registered as an Israeli agent. Since then, he is shown to have written numerous other press releases for the campaign.
In June, after Ronson posted an AI-generated image of a “buff” Mike Rogers on social media, the campaign denied that she was a staffer. But she’s since acted as an official voice of the campaign in comments to several media outlets, including Reuters, Fox News, and The New York Times. In those comments, she defended Rogers’ attacks on El-Sayed’s Muslim background and accused the Democrat of fueling “anti-Israel hate.”
On Sunday, before Stevens (D-Mich.) suddenly abandoned her months of support for El-Sayed to back Rogers, Ronson told NBC News that “Mike welcomes her.”
Questions about the influence of the Israeli government and pro-Israel donors have hung over Michigan's Senate race since it began. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent an unprecedented $30 million in a failed effort to help Stevens defeat El-Sayed in August's Democratic primary, the pro-Israel lobbying group's single largest expenditure ever in a congressional race.
Israel was also at the center of Stevens’ widely reviled decision to flip against El-Sayed less than 48 hours before Election Day. After months of expressing support for her primary rival, Stevens called on El-Sayed to denounce an advertisement by an outside political action committee that blamed rising grocery prices on US support for Israel, which helped to push Trump toward launching a war with Iran. She also called on him to take back other critical statements he’d made about Israel.
Stevens’ fiancé, Jason Turkish, an outspoken pro-Israel Democrat, announced last week that he’d be supporting Rogers and appeared at a Republican Jewish Coalition event with Rogers and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He also accused El-Sayed of fueling “death threats” against Jewish Americans by describing Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a “genocide,” a description that has been used by United Nations experts and leading human rights organizations.
After days of giving behind-the-scenes assurances that she’d continue to support the Democratic nominee, Stevens abruptly shifted her support on Sunday, appearing with Rogers. She said she made the decision after being disinvited to a campaign event with El-Sayed and because of El-Sayed’s association with the pro-Palestine left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who she said was fomenting “hate.”
In a CNN appearance that night, she struggled to explain her decision to endorse Rogers, who has routinely trafficked in explicitly Islamophobic rhetoric during the campaign and whom she’d described months earlier as a “rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda.”
According to a friend of Stevens' who spoke to The Washington Post, the congresswoman's decision came after Turkish had spent days "working her over" to abandon El-Sayed and back Rogers and telling her that she'd "betrayed" Jewish supporters by standing by the progressive Democrat.
Stevens’ romantic relationship with Turkish reportedly began during the Democratic primary, and the two became engaged in May, though the engagement was not announced until after Stevens’ primary loss. One former Stevens staffer told CNN that the congresswoman became increasingly defensive of Israel and AIPAC in May, after her engagement to Turkish, at the expense of other issues such as Michigan’s economy and manufacturing. This was despite AIPAC growing increasingly toxic among Democratic voters and becoming a target of attacks from El-Sayed.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), whom Stevens had reassured on Saturday night that she had no intention of flipping to Rogers, said he was "dumbfounded" by her decision the following day.
"Something doesn’t compute about this whole sequence of events," he said.
On MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” Monday, journalist Pablo Torre brought up the reporting on Rogers’ ties to Israel as a possible factor worth investigating when trying to make sense of Stevens’ reversal.
“This is one of the questions around corruption,” Torre said, noting that Stevens’ own pinned post on X spoke about the importance of “defeating Mike Rogers” at the time she endorsed him.
Torre said it was worth asking “whose country are we actually prioritizing” and examining “whether or not there’s a there there around following the money into foreign interests.”
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Latest Ted Cruz Attack on Abdul El-Sayed Denounced as 'Straight-Up Incitement'
"This is the most nakedly bigoted American political campaign of this century," said one observer.
Oct 28, 2026
Sen. Ted Cruz claimed Wednesday that Americans could die if Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, wins next week's midterm election, prompting a fresh round of denunciation of Republicans' Islamophobic bigotry.
“If Abdul El-Sayed becomes the senator for Michigan, there is absolutely nothing to stop Chuck Schumer from placing Abdul El-Sayed on the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Cruz (R-Texas) said, envisioning a scenario in which Republicans lose control of the upper chamber of Congress and Schumer (D-NY), currently the top Democrat, becomes majority leader.
“And if I am correct that he is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result," Cruz added.
Cruz wasn't done—he also called El-Sayed a "jihadist leprechaun," an apparent swipe at the doctor's physical stature.
The Texas senator, whose comments came while campaigning for Republican Michigan US Senate candidate Mike Rogers, was excoriated for his remarks, and not just by Democrats.
"There really is nothing Ted Cruz won't say if he thinks there is political benefit to be had," American Conservative senior editor Luke Nicastro said on social media.
Matt Duss, a former top aide to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the current executive vice president at the Center for International Policy think tank, took aim at not only Cruz but also C-SPAN, which aired a clip of the comments.
"This is straight-up incitement, and it’s fucking disgusting that C-SPAN is clipping and promoting it," Duss wrote on X.
The increasingly ugly Michigan Senate campaign has seen President Donald Trump repeatedly target El-Sayed’s name, religion, and alleged political affiliations, as well as his wife. The president has called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and claimed without providing evidence that he belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, while mocking his Arabic name.
Rogers has also questioned El-Sayed’s loyalties, asking whether he is “for America, or... for these terrorist groups overseas?”
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also drew condemnation after making sweeping, demonstrably false claims about Arabs and Muslims during a Monday campaign event for Rogers in Grand Rapids.
"This," opined More Perfect Union's Paul Blest following Kennedy's remarks, "is the most nakedly bigoted American political campaign of this century."
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Rogers Cashes Checks From Anti-Abortion Extremists in Final Days of Senate Campaign
"Michigan voters fought hard to protect reproductive freedom, and these extremist groups want a senator who will help them undermine it in Washington."
Oct 27, 2026
Michigan voters were clear in 2022 when they voted by a 13-point margin to codify the right to abortion care in the state constitution, and the state's Republican US Senate candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers, claimed two years ago that he had no interest in "going back to Washington, DC to undo what the people of Michigan decided to do.”
But a recent campaign contribution from the National Pro-Life Alliance political action committee (PAC) left reproductive rights advocates warning that Rogers has shown throughout his political career that he will fight to stop Michiganders from accessing abortion care—and that extremist groups are counting on him to win the Senate race to ensure abortion is banned nationwide.
Recent filings from the Federal Election Commission show that on October 23, just before Michigan residents began voting early ahead of the November 3 midterms, the National Pro-Life Alliance PAC donated $5,000 to the Rogers for Senate campaign.
The group has lobbied for the passage of the Life at Conception Act, which would ban all abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest, or health risks for the pregnant patient, and previously donated $1,700 to Rogers between 2000-10.
In 2010, when the then-congressman received $1,000 from the group, the National Pro-Life Alliance stipulated that candidates they supported must support the Life at Conception Act.
Shanay Watson-Whittaker, director of Michigan campaigns at Reproductive Freedom for All, told Common Dreams on Tuesday that the "last-minute donation shows how desperate anti-abortion groups are to buy this election—and they’re counting on Mike Rogers to deliver for them."
"His record gives them every reason to believe he will," she added.
"We need someone who will fight for our rights, and Rogers has spent his entire career showing us he won’t.”
Despite Rogers' earlier claims that should he win the Senate seat, he would respect Michiganders' support for the right to abortion care, he spent his 14 years in office backing a constitutional amendment to enshrine "personhood" in the US Constitution, aiming to ban all abortions from the moment of conception, and supporting a national 20-week ban—"still very much a national ban that could carry disparate harm for people experiencing medical emergencies and fetal conditions," wrote Kylie Cheung at Jezebel in 2024.
"I oppose abortion at any time except to save the live [sic] of the mother," Rogers wrote in a candidate questionnaire distributed by the Michigan Catholic Conference, affirming that he supported the Human Life Amendment. He added that he opposed the use of "taxpayer funds for any abortions.”
Rogers was also a sponsor of four fetal "personhood" bills that aimed to ban nearly all abortions nationwide.
Watson-Whittaker urged Michigan voters to keep Rogers' donation from the National Pro-Life Alliance and his record in mind as they go to the polls in the coming week.
"Michigan voters fought hard to protect reproductive freedom, and these extremist groups want a senator who will help them undermine it in Washington," said Watson-Whittaker. "We need someone who will fight for our rights, and Rogers has spent his entire career showing us he won’t.”
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'I'll Be Senator Mohamed to You, Bro': El-Sayed Hits Back at Trump's Islamophobic Attacks
“I don’t care how he pronounces my name,” the Michigan Democrat said. “Because he can just go on and call me senator after November.”
Oct 26, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan, remained undeterred on Sunday night after President Donald Trump and his supporters ramped up their overt attacks on his Muslim faith at a rally earlier that day.
Continuing to refer to the former public health official by his middle name “Mohamed,” Trump told a frothing crowd in Port Huron on Sunday afternoon that El-Sayed—who would be the first Muslim elected to the Senate—was a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member,” escalating the false attacks made by his Republican opponent, former US Rep. Mike Rogers.
"I get that the president takes personal offense to my first name," El-Sayed said at his own rally in Grand Rapids later that evening. "He doesn't mind as much when it's the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law's private equity. Doesn't seem to mind as much when it's the Qataris who are giving them a $400 million private jet. He just seems to have trouble pronouncing it when it's my name."
"I don't care how he pronounces my name. I don't even care that he remembers my whole name. Because he can just go on and call me senator after November," he continued. "I'll be Senator Mohamed to you, bro."
The continued attacks on El-Sayed’s name and Muslim faith were part of a barrage of racist and Islamophobic remarks from Trump and his allies at the rally, which several observers on social media, including the prominent left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, compared to a “Klan rally.”
Portraying El-Sayed as a terrorist, Trump said the Democrat should not be allowed to fly on airplanes and, if elected, should be required to pass through a metal detector when entering the Senate.
Contrasting El-Sayed with Rogers, whom he described as American as “apple pie,” Trump said that El-Sayed, who has frequently emphasized his commitment to religious pluralism on the campaign trail, wanted to impose Sharia on the United States.
He also directed his ire at Jewish voters who may vote for El-Sayed, a frequent critic of US support for Israel.
“Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump said, again invoking the antisemitic trope that Jewish Americans hold dual loyalty to both the US and Israel. “I’m polling 99% in Israel, and I cannot understand how anybody who’s Jewish can even think about voting for this guy.”
Trump compared stopping El-Sayed to stopping the 9/11 hijackers. Underscoring the point, he brought out David Beamer, whose son Todd died fighting the hijackers aboard Flight 93, to deliver more blood-and-soil invective.
"Mike Rogers is an American. Abdul has a birth certificate. The birth certificate says he's a citizen of America," Beamer said. "A birth certificate doesn't make you an American."
"He has a birth certificate, but he's not an American," he said of El-Sayed, who was born and raised in Michigan. "He had the choice. He had the choice to be an American or not. He has chosen otherwise. He has blood that's red. However, he has chosen to remove any strain of the white and blue part in his blood."
"We cannot, cannot allow this man to invade and occupy our country," Beamer said.
Though Rogers has attacked El-Sayed’s religious background relentlessly in the final months of the campaign, an average of polls from FiftyPlusOne shows El-Sayed with roughly a three-point lead just over a week before Election Day.
Rogers has struggled to defend Trump’s unpopular record as El-Sayed has hammered him over inflation, corruption, and the Iran war. El-Sayed, meanwhile, has stayed focused on a three-part pitch to Michiganders: “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for All.”
Joining El-Sayed in Grand Rapids, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suggested Republicans were resorting to Islamophobia because they had nothing of substance to offer voters on the economy.
“Mr. President, instead of slandering Abdul and his family, what are you going to do about the healthcare crisis in America? What are you going to do about the housing crisis? What are you going to do about income and wealth inequality?” Sanders asked. “These guys have nothing to say about the real issues impacting working families, and all they can do is foment hatred and divisiveness.”
"The reason that in many respects this race here in Michigan is... the race that people all over the world are looking at, is whether or not the people of Michigan are going to stand up to that vile racism," Sanders continued. "And I have every confidence in the world that's exactly what you're going to do."
Republican attacks seem to have alienated some of the Arab American voters who unexpectedly broke for Trump in 2024 over the Biden administration's support for Israel's genocide in Gaza.
"The remarks are out of line and crazy," said Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump. "I mean, no sane individual would say these things."
"They are crossing a red line. They are racist," Bahbah told The Associated Press. "The president of the United States saying that about a person because of his religion, that is just not acceptable. And people are going to remember that on November 3."
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'A Vote for Rogers Is a Vote for the Trump Agenda' Says El-Sayed as Rogers Hedges in Interview
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers twice dodged questions about his support for President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.
Oct 25, 2026
In another indication that the cratering popularity of President Donald Trump and his policies is making GOP midterm candidates nervous, Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers stammered before saying there was something wrong with his earpiece when asked if a vote for him was "a vote for the Trump agenda."
The moment came during an interview with Kristin Welker on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday morning.
"I'm apologizing, I'm having some difficulty in my earpiece, but, 'Is a vote for you...' I'm not sure, I'll tell you what a vote for me is, it's a great day for the state of Michigan," Rogers said.
His midterm opponent, Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, shot back on social media: "Lemme pick that up for him: Yes, yes it is. A vote for Rogers is a vote for the Trump agenda."
Lemme pick that up for him: Yes, yes it is. A vote for Rogers is a vote for the Trump agenda.
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) October 25, 2026
Throughout the interview, Rogers hedged on his relationship to the president and the MAGA movement that put him in power. In his extended answer to the first question, he mentioned that there were things that he disagreed with Trump on, namely some of the Canadian tariffs and the Iran War, but argued that a Republican majority was better placed to "work with" Trump on those issues rather than "just go back to poke him in the eye." He did not say why a Republican Congress had not been able to make progress on either ending the war or mitigating the tariffs to date.
However, when Welker then asked him if he would vote to repeal some of Trump's tariffs, Rogers also sidestepped the question, saying, "The best way to do this is walk in and say, 'Can we work this out?'"
Toward the end of the same interview, Rogers also would not answer directly when Welker asked, "Big picture: Do you consider yourself to be a MAGA Republican?"
Rogers responded by calling the question "a little bit disgusting" and spending the rest of the interview talking over Welker about Democrats who had told him they would not vote for his opponent El-Sayed.
Oh my goodness -- for nearly 3 minutes, Mike Rogers refuses to answer Kristen Welker's repeated questions about if he considers himself to be "a MAGA Republican" https://t.co/q4uSP5hgam
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 25, 2026
"He’s too afraid to admit he’s a MAGA Republican and he’s too afraid to admit he’s not," writer and director Andy Ostroy wrote on social media. "Mike Rogers is a weak, feckless coward who has nothing to offer Michiganders except outrageously racist lies about @AbdulElSayed, and the good people of Michigan know it. Which is why Abdul is going to win…"
Rogers' flailing came days after Trump's net approval ratings fell to a new career low of 31%, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
Social media account The Measured Take noted that "Mike Rogers has tied himself to Donald Trump for years. With nine days until the election and Trump’s approval rating in the low 30s, he sees the writing on the wall and is trying to distance himself."
The interview reflects a growing trend of Republican midterm candidates tepidly and belatedly criticizing some of Trump's policies, especially the war with Iran, without taking any real action to back up their words.
El-Sayed had previously slammed Rogers for reversing course on the war in late September.
“You’ve spent your entire campaign supporting the war in Iran," he said. "Liar, coward, fraud.”
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What the 2026 Election Could Mean for the Climate Crisis
Americans are already paying an enormous price for climate disasters. They deserve to know which candidates are prepared to confront the crisis and which continue to obstruct meaningful action.
Oct 23, 2026
On July 4, 2025, catastrophic flooding swept through the Texas Hill Country, killing 137 people, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. Families who sent their children to summer camp would never see them alive again. The floods caused an estimated $22 billion in damage and economic losses.
Now, Texans face two US Senate candidates with dramatically different records on climate change.
Republican Ken Paxton earns just 21.25% on Vote Climate U.S. PAC's 2026 National Climate Change Voter's Guide. As Texas attorney general, Paxton repeatedly challenged climate regulations, fought efforts to make fossil fuel polluters pay for climate damages, and opposed federal fees on methane emissions.
The question this November is whether we will continue electing politicians who compound the climate crisis or choose leaders prepared to confront it.
His Democratic opponent, James Talarico, earns 71.25%. Talarico acknowledges climate change and supports investments in renewable energy and emerging technologies. However, he has moderated his climate positions, defended Texas's fossil fuel industry, and has no clear position on requiring carbon polluters to pay for their emissions.
Neither candidate earns a perfect score. But the difference is substantial—50 points.
North Carolina: $59.6 Billion in Devastation
On September 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, killing at least 107 people and damaging or destroying more than 73,000 homes. The storm caused an estimated $59.6 billion in statewide damage, economic losses, and recovery needs.
In this year's US Senate race, former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper earns a 92.5% Climate Calculation, compared with just 28.75% for Republican Michael Whatley.
Cooper has made climate action a governing priority, advocating climate resilience, opposing offshore drilling, and protecting North Carolina's air and water.
Whatley criticized President Joe Biden's decision to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, accusing the administration of siding with "climate alarmists." He has not clearly acknowledged the scientific consensus that climate change is human caused.
Michigan: Tornadoes and a Stark Political Divide
On May 7, 2024, a tornado packing 135-mile-per-hour winds tore through Portage, Michigan, causing approximately $50 million in damage. It was part of a multistate outbreak producing more than 165 tornadoes, killing three people, and causing approximately $6.6 billion in damage.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed earns a 92.5% Climate Calculation, while Republican Mike Rogers receives just 21.25%.
El-Sayed calls climate change an immediate crisis and advocates a pathway to 100% renewable energy through investments in solar, wind, battery storage, and modernization of the electric grid.
Rogers has not clearly acknowledged the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. He has attacked Democratic energy policies and voted for a congressional measure declaring that a carbon tax would harm the US economy.
Georgia: Hurricane Helene's Deadly Toll
When Hurricane Helene struck Georgia in September 2024, it killed 37 people and caused an estimated $6.46 billion in agricultural and forestry losses alone.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms earns a 92.5% Climate Calculation, compared with 28.75% for Republican Rick Jackson.
As Atlanta's mayor, Lance Bottoms testified before Congress about climate threats, including flooding, extreme heat, and tree canopy loss. Her administration also worked to reduce fuel consumption and pollution.
Jackson has not clearly acknowledged the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. His energy proposals emphasize lowering gasoline and utility costs rather than reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Florida: A $109.5 Billion Hurricane and a Climate Zero Candidate
On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian devastated southwest Florida, killing 150 people in Florida and causing an estimated $109.5 billion in damage. In Fort Myers Beach alone, 900 structures were destroyed.
Yet Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds earns an extraordinary 0% Climate Calculation.
Donalds has questioned the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change and co-sponsored a congressional resolution opposing a carbon tax.
His Democratic opponent, David Jolly, earns 92.5%.
Jolly acknowledges climate science and advocates expanding renewable energy, strengthening rooftop solar policies, and investing in climate resilience to protect Florida's vulnerable coastlines.
In a state facing rising seas, coastal flooding, and increasingly costly hurricanes, the contrast could scarcely be more consequential.
Climate Change Is on the Ballot
These comparisons come from Vote Climate US PAC's 2026 National Climate Change Voter's Guide, which evaluates incumbents and challengers for the US House, US Senate, and governorships.
Unlike traditional congressional scorecards, our guide evaluates incumbents and challengers, candidates without congressional voting records. Our Climate Calculations examine incumbents' positions, votes, and leadership where applicable, and support for requiring carbon polluters to pay for their emissions. Scores range from Climate Hero to Climate Zero. Detailed research and sources are available by clicking the green plus button beside each candidate's name.
The guide also identifies candidates' positions on Roe v. Wade. In all five races examined here, the Democratic candidates support Roe, while their Republican opponents oppose it.
No single hurricane, flood, or tornado can be attributed solely to climate change. But scientists have established that human-caused warming intensifies many forms of extreme weather, particularly heavy rainfall, extreme heat, and coastal flooding associated with rising seas.
Americans are already paying an enormous price for climate disasters. They deserve to know which candidates are prepared to confront the crisis and which continue to obstruct meaningful action.
Visit VoteClimatePAC.com to examine candidates' Climate Calculations and the research behind them.
The question this November is whether we will continue electing politicians who compound the climate crisis or choose leaders prepared to confront it.
The climate crisis will not wait for political convenience. Neither should public accountability.
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'He's in Bed With Big Insurance': In Final Debate, El-Sayed Targets Rogers' Votes Against Healthcare
"Nobody knows more about taking away your health insurance than he does," Abdul El-Sayed said of former Rep. Mike Rogers.
Oct 22, 2026
In the final debate of Michigan's critical US Senate race late Wednesday, Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed targeted his Republican opponent's record of voting against healthcare expansion and promoted his own vision of a country in which everyone receives coverage as a right.
Asked whether he would work to "expand, modify, or roll back policies of the Affordable Care Act," El-Sayed reiterated his support for Medicare for All, which he characterized as "building on the incredible success" of the 2010 law. The Democratic candidate pointed out that former US Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) voted against the ACA and repeatedly opposed earlier efforts to expand health coverage for children in low-income families.
"He's in bed with Big Insurance," El-Sayed, the former executive director of Detroit's health department, said of Rogers. "Nobody knows more about taking away your health insurance than he does."
Rogers said the ACA "needs reform"—without spelling out what that would entail—and attacked El-Sayed's support for Medicare for All, which the Republican falsely said would "destroy Medicare for seniors." A study published in August by experts at Yale University found that a single-payer system like the one proposed in Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) Medicare for All Act would save around 68,000 lives and $650 billion per year compared to the status quo.
Survey data released last week by Progress Michigan and Public Policy Polling shows that the cost of insurance is the top healthcare-related issue for Michigan voters heading into the midterm elections, as ACA marketplace premiums surge as a result of congressional Republicans' decision not to extend enhanced subsidies.
Families in Michigan and across the country are also losing care in large numbers due to unprecedented Medicaid cuts included in the GOP's 2025 budget law. Rogers celebrated that law as "a monumental victory for working families."
"Michiganders are taking note and are getting fed up with the mess that Republicans created," said Justin Mendoza, executive director of Progress Michigan. "This is further proof that we need a single-payer universal healthcare system, where insurance costs don’t constantly increase and leave families struggling. In the short term, lawmakers must act to help Michigan families afford the healthcare they need."
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Mike Rogers Helped Silence Black Voters in the 90s; He’s Still Doing it Now
Mike Rogers was willing to give up any ounce of principles he may once have had to stand up to Trump’s lies just to get cool with the MAGA crowd. If you think he has the best interests of Black Michiganders in mind, I have a bridge to Canada to sell you.
Oct 21, 2026
I was in the classroom for enough years to spot a bully from a mile away. At first glance, Mike Rogers doesn’t seem too threatening, but as you get closer, you realize that he’s just another Donald Trump wannabe. Rogers has been actively working to disenfranchise and demean Black Detroiters for decades.
Folks across the city are fed up over the conditions of our schools; closures due to excessive heat are now regular. These conditions can be traced back to the mismanagement that unraveled when Mike Rogers served as the state Senate majority floor leader and PA 10 became law, the legislation that allowed the takeover of Detroit schools. He bears responsibility as an architect of this educational breakdown.
I started my career in 1998 teaching second and fifth grades at John Lynch Elementary School on the east side. It was just before the Detroit public school system changed dramatically; the democratically elected school board had their power taken from them while the state installed unaccountable bureaucrats to make decisions on behalf of Detroit families’ futures. The result? Our votes and voices got ignored, while a $100 million operating surplus turned into a $200 million deficit.
We don’t need another leader representing us in Washington who is trying to trample over our rights as Black folks.
Rogers’ disregard for Black Detroiters didn’t stop there. He’s no moderate; he’s a radical whose campaign has numerous ties to Christian Nationalists while parroting Trump’s racist attitudes about our city.
His record is all there. In just the past few years alone, Rogers fundraised with a former state legislator who made racist remarks about African Americans, had someone on his student outreach team who defended a group chat filled with praise of Hitler and slurs, and defended Trump making the city of Detroit a scapegoat. Not to also mention that one of his largest financial backers is a Texas oil tycoon’s PAC associated with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
They say you are the company you keep. And what does that say about Mike Rogers?
Rogers has long stood in the way of Black Detroiters’ full participation in democracy, and that started when he was first a state legislator in the nineties. Some argue he was just a standard, Bush-era neoconservative back in the day who supported DeVos school voucher schemes, but today he’s transitioned into a full-on MAGA mouthpiece.
Consider how Rogers has changed his tune on the Big Lie. We all remember how in 2020 Trump claimed the election was rigged partly based on conspiracies around ballot counting in Detroit. At the time, Rogers tried to distance himself from the soon-to-be impeached president, so much so that he wrote a Washington Post opinion piece on the eve of the January 6 insurrection urging Republican lawmakers to uphold the will of the people.
Now, Rogers is a full-on election denier. Not only has Rogers claimed that his loss in the 2024 US Senate race was “stolen” despite an audit confirming it was completely fair, he’s now promoting the worst of Trump’s voter intimidation tactics against Black voters.
At an April 17, 2026 Kalamazoo County GOP meeting, Rogers described recruiting off-duty or retired police officers as poll watchers in Detroit, saying, "Try to intimidate them, please," and, "All you got to do is open your jacket and you see the badge on the belt.” Not only is voter intimidation a federal crime, but calling for this in the largest majority-Black city in the country reeks of racism.
Mike Rogers would be a reliable vote for Donald Trump’s agenda if he’s elected. That means Republicans will be closer to passing the SAVE Act, which are plainly Jim Crow-like tactics that disenfranchise voters by requiring people to show documents like a birth certificate or passport to vote that are inaccessible for many.
Mike Rogers was willing to give up any ounce of principles he may once have had to stand up to Trump’s lies just to get cool with the MAGA crowd. If you think he has the best interests of Black Michiganders in mind, I have a bridge to Canada to sell you.
We don’t need another leader representing us in Washington who is trying to trample over our rights as Black folks. Now, it’s on us to show up to the polls on or before November 3 to make our voices heard.
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Mike Rogers' Wife Hands Out $10 Gas Cards, Begging Michiganders to Vote for Her Husband
One commentator called it "a cheap-ass bribe"—since Trump's Iran War caused prices to soar, $10 is now barely enough to buy two gallons of gas in Michigan.
Oct 15, 2026
As President Donald Trump's Iran War drives up gas prices, the wife of Michigan's Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers was seen resorting to a desperate—and legally dubious—tactic to persuade voters to tick the box for her husband: handing out $10 gas cards.
Kristi Rogers, the wife of the former GOP congressman, was filmed Wednesday strutting around the parking lot of a Freedom Fuel station in Detroit, wearing a red pantsuit, black stilettos, and a large "Mike Rogers for Senate" sticker on her lapel, approaching lucky drivers with the gifts.
One interaction, captured by the Detroit journalist Sam Robinson, shows Rogers telling a driver who'd just finished filling his tank: "You should have gotten me before you filled up. I've got a $10 gift card!"
Other videos show Rogers attempting to sell voters on her husband's proposal to suspend state and federal gas taxes, which she claimed would save voters about $10 per fill-up.
However, she did not appear to address the primary reason fuel prices have shot up in the first place: the unpopular US-Israeli war with Iran that her husband has supported before abruptly reversing his stance as the election approached.
As of Thursday, $10 is barely enough to buy two gallons of gas in Michigan, according to data from the American Automobile Association. Gas prices in the state have reached $4.58 per gallon as of Thursday, up from just $2.85 before Trump launched the war—an increase of about 61%.
Rogers' Democratic opponent, former Detroit public health official Abdul El-Sayed, has savaged Rogers on the campaign trail for supporting the war, tying it directly to voters' affordability struggles.
The message seems to have resonated: A late-September poll by The New York Times and Siena College showed about three-quarters of Michigan voters disapprove of Trump's handling of gas prices and the overall cost of living. In that same poll, El-Sayed was shown with a five-point lead over Rogers in the race for the US Senate, which could determine whether Democrats retake the chamber.
Under federal law, paying someone to register to vote or cast a ballot can carry a potential penalty of up to five years in prison. Michigan law suggests the handouts could constitute illegal vote-buying if they were intended to induce people to register to vote, cast a ballot, or support a specific candidate.
None of the videos show Rogers directly telling card recipients that the gift was conditional. However, recipients told Robinson that Rogers asked them to "consider voting for my husband." Along with the gift cards, drivers were also given campaign literature promoting Rogers and bashing El-Sayed.
For at least one man who received a card, the message was clear: "Vote Mike Rogers on voting day!" he shouted to the camera.
The Rogers campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about who purchased the cards or whether voters were told they needed to do anything in exchange for them.
At any rate, it's unclear whether $10 will make the difference on Election Day. A Fox News poll published Wednesday showed that 50% of registered voters nationally were "extremely" concerned about gas prices and 58% were extremely concerned about inflation.
In the same poll, voters said they trusted Democrats more than Republicans to handle high gas prices by a margin of 12 points and on inflation by a margin of 16 points.
Trump has been criticized for being out of touch with how his policies affect voters. He's emphasized that he didn't think about Americans' financial hardships "even a little bit" when prosecuting the Iran War, and he's suggested higher gas prices were a good thing. Earlier this month, he told voters at a rally that higher gas prices are "a small price to pay for keeping the world safe."
Political commentator and activist Charlotte Clymer suggested that Rogers' apparent wealth could make her stunt backfire.
"Weirdo ethics here aside," Clymer wrote on social media, "the optics of wearing an expensive outfit and shoes while handing out $10 gas cards—two gallons in Michigan—kinda undermines the whole effort."
"Not only is it illegal," another commentator remarked. "It's also a cheap-ass bribe."
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