The Republican primary field for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat is starting to take shape with former one-term Congressman Peter Meijer entering the race. The scion of the family-owned Meijer superstore chain joins former Congressman Mike Rogers and former Detroit Police Chief James Craig as the most likely, viable candidates in the primary. While only a handful of Michigan Senate polls have been conducted to date, they suggest the race for the GOP nomination is wide-open, with much of the electorate undecided.
Meijer and Rogers, both “moderates”, have several advantages out-of-the-gate. Each has a degree of political name recognition and established campaign infrastructure from their time serving in Congress – as well as pre-existing donor networks. However, both candidates also face the problem of being viewed as anti-Trump by an increasingly pro-Trump Republican electorate.
Mike Rogers, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee while in Congress, originally contemplated a 2024 presidential primary challenge to former President Donald Trump before opting for the Michigan Senate race instead. “Trump’s time has passed” according to Rogers, who believes the former President’s continued influence over the GOP is “clearly disruptive.”
The aggressively anti-Trump Meijer’s candidacy may be an even harder sell to Michigan Republicans. While in Congress, Meijer was an outspoken critic of Trump and voted to impeach the former President over the January 6th riots at the U.S. Capitol. In 2022, Meijer faced a voter backlash over his impeachment vote and lost his congressional seat in the Republican primary to John Gibbs. Democrat Hillary Scholten would go on to defeat Gibbs in the general election.
Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, while largely a political unknown, is the only of the three candidates running as a pro-Trump candidate. Craig, who served as Detroit’s ‘top cop’ from 2013 until 2021, has made some waves with his tough-on-crime campaign message and a mid-October poll showed him leading the primary with 30 percent to Mike Rogers’s 19 percent. Craig’s lack of political experience, however, may prove a problem for his campaign. He attempted a 2022 run for Governor of Michigan but failed to gain enough valid petition signatures to appear on the ballot – his subsequent attempt at a write-in campaign was met with little enthusiasm.
