Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers is working to expose how his Democratic challenger is “intentionally deceiving Michigan voters over her longtime support for EV mandates.”
Rogers is facing off against U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow in a race that has focused heavily on the state’s auto industry, and Slotkin’s support for a taxpayer-subsidized EV battery component plant in Michigan with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
In a video posted to X on Thursday, Rogers took aim at Slotkin’s claims in recent campaign ads to set the record straight about her time in Congress.
Congresswoman Slotkin is lying straight to your face about her record on EVs. Here’s the truth 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/0F2r6QUwPy
— Mike Rogers (@MikeRogersForMI) October 3, 2024
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“I’m Elissa Slotkin, I live on a dirt road nowhere near a charging station,” Slotkin said in one ad, “so I don’t own an electric car.”
The rebuttal from Rogers: “Well, that’s not true. There’s an EV charging station just nine minutes from the home she inherited and claims to live in,” a narrator in the Rogers video said.
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“No one should tell us what to buy, and no one is going to mandate anything,” Slotkin continued.
“This is insulting,” the narrator countered. “Slotkin is lying. She voted to force EV mandates in September of last year, and just three weeks ago voted again to keep them in place.”
The Sept. 24 vote centered on whether to disapprove of Biden-Harris EPA emissions standards the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers contend are “going to feel and function like a ban” on gas-powered vehicles.
The EPA standards would effectively ban all current models of gas vehicles, permitting only EVs and five plug in hybrid vehicles, according to the American Petroleum Institute.
Slotkin was among 190 Democrats and one Republican who voted against disapproving the EPA standards, though the measure passed the lower chamber 215-191.
Slotkin also voted against the “Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act” on Dec. 6, and against a “Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act” in September 2023. Both aimed to ensure gas-powered vehicles remain available for consumers, and both cleared the House.
Those bills are now pending in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Rogers’ new video continued with a clip of from Slotkin’s campaign ad: “Here’s the thing. If there’s going to be a new generation of vehicles, I want that new generation built right here in Michigan, not China,” Slotkin said.
Narrator: “Slotkin has taken thousands of dollars from Chinese foreign agents, and the EV mandate that she voted for will take 200,000 jobs away from Michiganders.”
The Rogers for Senate campaign notes Slotkin has voted with the Biden-Harris administration 100% of the time.
“Slotkin voted three times, including last month, to let the EPA and liberal states ban gas cars that are made in Michigan, she signed a secret agreement to help a Chinese corporation take Michigan auto jobs, and fully backs Harris’ job-destroying EV mandates,” Rogers communications director Chris Gustafson said. “Just like an EV, no one is buying her lies.”
Michigan is projected to lose more than 37,000 auto manufacturing jobs as a result of regulations from the Biden-Harris administration that will require two-thirds of new vehicles to be electric by 2032, according to a recent report from the America First Policy Institute.
The Biden-Harris EPA rule to implement new emissions standards “effectively forces automakers to shift production to electric vehicles, which do not directly use fossil fuels or emit carbon dioxide (although the power plants from which electric vehicles draw electricity typically do),” according to the report. “The Biden-Harris Administration estimates that, under the rule, conventional gas-powered vehicles could make up no more than one-third of newly built vehicles by 2032.”
The report notes Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, previously sponsored a Zero Emissions Vehicles Act as a senator that would have required 100% of new car sales to be emissions free by 2040.
“If EVs rise to 67% of U.S. vehicle sales the model estimates that almost 123,000 net auto-manufacturing jobs will be lost,” according to the report, which explains EVs require roughly 40% less labor to produce. “If the government completely bans the sale of conventional gas-powered cars and hybrid vehicles – as policymakers like Vice President Harris have previously proposed – the model estimates 191,000 auto manufacturing jobs would be lost.”
A breakdown of the best case, two-thirds scenario in Michigan shows job cuts would likely include 13,599 in motor vehicle assembly, 11,243 workers in gas engines and parts, and 12,179 workers involved in transmission and power train parts.
Recent polling shows the Rogers-Slotkin matchup continues to be a tight race, with different polls in September giving both the lead. The most recent, a survey of 709 likely voters conducted by Mitchell Research & Communications on Sept. 30, puts Slotkin up by five percentage points, 49% to 44%. Another involving 1,086 likely voters conducted by the Trafalgar Group Sept. 28-30 has the race at even, with both candidates at 47%, according to FiveThirtyEight.