Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed clashed Wednesday night in the second and final debate of Michigan’s increasingly bitter U.S. Senate race, a neck-and-neck contest that could help decide which party controls the Senate after the November 3 midterm elections.
The debate, hosted by WXYZ-TV in Southfield, was somewhat tamer than the candidates’ first faceoff earlier this month, which featured insults and interruptions in nearly every answer. But it was still testy, with each man questioning the other’s loyalties, according to CBS News and the Associated Press.
“A sock puppet for the man”
El-Sayed, a progressive former health official, spent much of the night tying his opponent to President Donald Trump. He called Rogers’ platform a “MAGA vision” and said the former congressman would “stand hip-to-hip with Donald Trump on all of his worst policies, the policies that are raising the price of your gas, making it impossible to afford your groceries.”
“He’s going to bend to Donald Trump because he is a sock puppet for the man,” El-Sayed said. At one point he invited the audience to play “MAGA bingo” with Rogers’ attack lines.
Rogers fired back: “He wants to make this about Donald Trump. The bingo game ought to be: ‘How many times can he put Trump in any answer?'” Asked by reporters afterward whether he would attend Trump’s Michigan rally on Sunday, which El-Sayed had brought up, Rogers said he would go but didn’t yet know all the details.
“A pattern of deception”
Rogers accused El-Sayed of not being honest about his platform and of engaging in a “pattern of deception.” He argued that “there are so many Democrats who are coming out today and saying they can’t vote for Abdul El-Sayed because he’s too extreme,” and claimed he is “doing exceptionally well with Jewish Democrats who are literally afraid,” a reference to some community members’ reluctance to back El-Sayed, a frequent critic of the Israeli government.
The Muslim Brotherhood exchange
One of the most contentious moments came when Rogers again tried to link El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood and suggested he had the same supporters as terror groups like Hamas, allegations El-Sayed has vehemently rejected. Earlier this month, several outlets reported on social media posts by El-Sayed’s half sister suggesting his mother had supported the Islamist group, which was founded in her home country of Egypt. El-Sayed has disavowed any connection and noted he was not raised by his birth mother after his parents divorced when he was young.
“You can grin and you can smile and you can talk real pretty, but I’m going to tell you what, that is a risk to our national security,” Rogers said. After the debate he told reporters he questions whether El-Sayed could get a security clearance if elected.
El-Sayed called the allegations “shameful.” “He keeps raising this question about this association with an organization I’ve never been a part of, because of my mom, who’s a nurse in Missouri?” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s actually really quite beneath you, Mike.”
Iran, health care and tariffs
El-Sayed blamed the Iran war for high consumer prices and cast Rogers as a hawk with “a war for everything.” “We need a War Powers Resolution, rather than a senator who is going to stand hip-to-hip with Donald Trump on this war that made no sense when it started and certainly makes no sense now,” he said. Asked whether Iran is a significant threat, El-Sayed said “there’s no doubt that Iran has posed a threat” but argued it had been contained by the Obama-era nuclear deal that Trump ended in his first term.
Rogers, who has called for the war to end, said Iran is “absolutely” a threat and warned that gas prices could climb even higher if Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz or builds a nuclear weapon. He called El-Sayed’s previous answers on Iran “an absolute nonstarter.”
Rogers also hammered El-Sayed’s support for Medicare for All, arguing it would require major tax hikes: “Money in your pocket? You’ll be lucky to have a damn pair of pants when you’re done.” El-Sayed replied that “the folks pulling the money out of your pocket are the big corporations who are buying his campaign,” and later argued the plan would cost less than today’s health care system.
On trade, El-Sayed criticized Trump’s tariffs but said he is open to some import duties: “You don’t give all the chemo all at once, all at the same time.” Rogers called the president’s tariffs a “mixed bag,” questioning the trade war with Canada while saying the “reshoring of manufacturing is underway.”
Why it matters
Michigan is one of the nation’s most closely watched races. Democrats hope to capitalize on Trump’s unpopularity and frustration over inflation and the Iran war, while Republicans are pressing divisions between progressives like El-Sayed and more moderate Democrats on the Middle East and Medicare for All. With less than two weeks until Election Day, Wednesday’s debate was the candidates’ last scheduled chance to make their case side by side.