Just one week ago, Michigan’s primary declared Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Elissa Slotkin the Senate nominees for their respective parties.
In that short time, the key race has already taken a turn for the ugly.
Over the weekend, Rogers sent cease-and-desist letters to a host of local broadcasting stations, demanding they quit running his opponents’ attack ads on him, which claimed the GOP nominee was a carpetbagger and alleged he made his fortune by aiding and abetting Chinese tech companies.
The ad was sponsored, approved, and funded by Slotkin’s campaign for Senate.
“It’s filled with a bunch of lies,” Rogers spox Chris Gustafson said of the ad, which claims that after leaving Congress in 2015, the now-candidate “left Michigan for good,” before flashing an image of Rogers’ Florida home.
“He still lives in Michigan and has lived in Michigan longer than Slotkin,” Gustafson told The Post, reffering to the Florida home depicted in the ad.
“After both Slotkin and Rogers were swatted, I think it is completely inappropriate,” Gustafson said, referring to two incidents this past week in which both candidates were the victim of prank 911 calls.
Politicians have increasingly become the target of these swatting incidents, with the latest victim being Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Given the heightened political tensions and escalated swatting incidents, Rogers’ camp is especially concerned about the ad’s depiction of the previous residence.
Their letter to broadcasters calls on stations to block the ad on the airwaves, citing their legal entitlement not to air misleading political ads.
“You are not required to provide Elissa Slotkin with absolute and unfettered access to your station’s airtime so she can sponsor ads containing false statements about her opponent,” the letter reads.
It goes on to cite the Supreme Court case CBS v. FCC, which ruled that broadcasting stations are entitled to consider political ad requests on an individualized basis.
The race isn’t likely to cool down any time soon. On Sunday, the generally easy-going Rogers channeled his inner Rambo and tweeted a picture of himself wielding a shotgun.
“I know exactly who is waiting for me and I know exactly how to take them on. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again,” he tweeted.
Rogers will need everything in his arsenal to take on Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who has been leading in the polls this summer.
A New York Times/Siena survey of likely voters last week showed the Democrat leading Rogers, 46% to 43%.
