GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Loud cheers and fiery speeches mean yet another rally in hotly contested Kent County.
Many were in attendance waiting to hear from Republican Senate Candidate Mike Rogers on issues hitting close to home this election cycle.
Since becoming the official republican nominee in August, it’s been all hands on deck.
“My wife is, by the way, on the other side of the state, giving a speech right now,” US Senate Candidate Mike Rogers said.
“So we're, you know, we're doing double duty.”
He spends most of his days onthe campaign trail.
“The person who's most upset is our Labradoodle Daisy,” Rogers said.
“She doesn't like it if one of us isn't around.”
Another night away from home, Rogers sat down with us following his last stop of the day at New Vintage Place in Grand Rapids.
“I don't even know how many events you've had today, but I'm feeling sitting right here right now, energized,” Rogers said.
Energized, perhaps by the latest polls showing the race narrowing in recent weeks, a near dead heat between Rogers and Slotkin.
Two days removed from his final debate in Detroit, he’s focusing on those last undecided voters.
“B voters are peeling away from the Democrats, and they're looking at Republicans,” Rogers said. “Auto Workers are defecting from the union leadership in numbers I've just never seen in my lifetime.”
The economy was brought up multiple times to rallygoers during this visit, a topic Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra said he should prioritize in the final days of this elections.
Gun control proved to be a point of contention between the two on the debate stage in Detroit.
“To me, we have to, as Democrats and Republicans, gun owners and non-gun owners, go after the number one killer of children in our communities, in our schools,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin said.
Mike doubled down that mental health is the root cause of school shootings we’ve seen in Michigan.
“Owners of guns should be responsible for the safekeeping of those weapons," Rogers said.
“We got to we got to figure out what's driving these kids to such mental distress in their schools,”
Both candidates pressed on their stance on EV mandates, and new proposed EV plants across the state. Rogers believes the Biden Administration is trying to do too much, too fast.
“Auto dealers say there are mandates, and it's killing their business- 2400 layoffs at Stellantis, 1000 at General Motors,” Rogers said.
The Harris administration has done to business, 1.6 trillion in new regulation”
Rogers adding that he’s against it all.
The two candidates have two very different visions for the future.
“I try to avoid the polar coaster because there's it's quite a ride,” Rogers said.
“You don't want to be on that thing.”
Both putting their campaigns into overdrive as we close in on the election.
SEE THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE:
We also spent some time on the trail with Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, who's running against Mike Rogers.
You can see our story with her below.
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