With less than four weeks to go until the Nov. 3 election, the candidates for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat − former Wayne County and Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers − will get their chance tonight to test their campaign pitches and attacks in front of one another in their first live, televised debate.
Moderator Rick Albin will run the show for WOOD-TV8 in Grand Rapids in a historic showdown between El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee from Ann Arbor and a firebrand progressive who stands to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, and Rogers, a Republican former congressman from White Lake Township making his second run for the office in a state that hasn't elected a GOP senator since Spencer
Abraham 32 years ago.
The hour-long debate begins at 7 p.m. and will air via livestream onfreep.com, as well as on Channel 8 in Grand Rapids, woodtv.com, and on WOOD's partner TV stations around the state, including WLNS in Lansing, WWJ CBS Detroit, WJRT in Flint, and WWTV/ WWUP/ WFUP in Traverse City. The Detroit Free Press will also have a running live blog of the key moments and exchanges from the debate, as well as instant analysis.
The debate is one of two scheduled in the race to replace Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, who is stepping down after two six-year terms, with the second debate to be held by WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) in Detroit on Oct. 21.
The race has received national, and even international, attention, with El-Sayed becoming perhaps the most liberal candidate to ever win a U.S. Senate nomination in Michigan and running on a platform of lowering prices, reducing corporate influence in politics and supporting a single government-run health care program to cover all Americans. Rogers, meanwhile, lost a close election to now-U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin two years ago and has been generally supportive of President Donald Trump's agenda, having received Trump's endorsement twice.
While Democrats are believed to have a significant edge nationwide in the upcoming midterm election and need to pick up four additional seats to gain majority control of the Senate, Michigan, especially after the nomination of El-Sayed, was seen as a potential Republican pickup that could protect the GOP majority. As such, the party and its allies have been flooding the state with campaign ads.
Political handicappers, however, consider the race either a tossup or give a slight edge to El-Sayed, who has been hammering Rogers and the Republicans on fuel prices, the war in Iran and the cost of everyday goods.
Both have called the other out-of-step with Michigan's values and needs. Rogers has labelled El-Sayed "extreme" and "dangerous." El-Sayed has said that Rogers has slavishly followed Trump's agenda and that a recent call for the war with Iran to end quickly is disingenuous given Rogers' earlier support.
El-Sayed, who defeated U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham in the Democratic primary in August, leads the race according to polling averages by a little over 3 percentage points and has come out ahead in every poll taken since the middle of September, though within the margin of error in many. Rogers had no opposition in the Republican primary.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: U.S. Senate candidates El-Sayed, Rogers debate in Grand Rapids tonight
