To help a Republican candidate in South Carolina, President Donald Trump on Thursday told supporters on a tele-rally, “I hope you can pretend I’m on the ballot and go out and vote.” The day before that, he told Republicans in Montana, “You have to pretend that I’m running, please.” And last week in upstate New York, President Trump said, “Please pretend I’m on the freaking ballot, will you?”
On Thursday, a candidate in Michigan — a state Trump flipped two years earlier — echoed the president’s message. “Donald is going to come and remind everybody that Donald is on the ballot,” he said. “Donald, come. Tell everybody in Michigan that you are on the ballot.”
But that invitation wasn’t from a Republican. It was Michigan’s Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed. A former local health official, El-Sayed has held a consistent, though narrow, lead in public polling of the race and sought to cast the race as a referendum on the current president.
Speaking at a rally in the Upper Peninsula, El-Sayed said that Trump’s “s— tariff war is on the ballot,” as are “your Medicaid cuts” and other policies.
But hours after El-Sayed’s invitation, Vice President JD Vance spoke at a Republican rally just outside Detroit for nearly half an hour, and didn’t mention Trump at all, according to a Straight Arrow review of video from the event.
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Public polling shows Trump with among the lowest job approval ratings of his time in office. The polls also show voters frustrated with high gas and food prices are directing their ire at Republicans, who have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress since the start of Trump’s second term last year. Republicans were already bracing for a difficult midterm election, since the party that controls the White House historically loses congressional seats in the midterms.
Six of Michigan’s 13 House seats are held by Democrats running in noncompetitive races, compared with four for Republicans, according to the latest analysis from the independent Cook Political Report. Republicans currently hold all three of the state’s House races that Cook classified as toss-ups.
As Straight Arrow reported earlier, some Republicans have erased their online connections to Trump. Others appear uneager to discuss him at all.
At a sports complex in Monroe, Michigan, Vance focused almost exclusively on the Senate race, and described the outsized impact it will have on the country. The race is “a battle between grievance and gratitude, between politicians obsessed with foreign causes.” Throughout his roughly 30-minute speech, Vance mentioned El-Sayed’s first name more than a dozen times.
Vance opened his remarks with a joke about the rivalry between Michigan and his home state of Ohio next door. The crowd reacted audibly after Vance mentioned Michigan rival Ohio State University. “Oh, man. A hardcore Republican crowd just gave me about 45 middle fingers,” he said to a round of laughter.
“That’s okay. You all can make fun of me on Buckeye football all you need, so long as we get out there and make Mike Rogers the next senator from the great state of Michigan,” Vance said.
The event was livestreamed, but the initial video and audio connection were inconsistent and missed a portion of the remarks delivered by the Republican Senate candidate Vance came to support, former congressman Mike Rogers. Video of his remarks began when he was already onstage attacking his opponent. In the roughly three minutes of Rogers’ speech that was captured on video, he said his opponent’s name eight times and did not mention Trump.
“You cannot afford Abdul El-Sayed, and we certainly cannot risk his dangerous ideology in the United States Senate,” Rogers said toward the end of his remarks. “Michigan was once the envy of the country. We can get there again, but we can’t do it alone.”
He added, “There is no other option but victory, faith, family, freedom. Let’s get this done. Let’s win for the country. We’re going to win. Thank you, everybody.”
In August, Rogers and Vance spoke at a rally in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Rogers did not mention Trump during his five-minute speech. During a 28-minute speech, Vance referred to the “Trump administration” once, and twice referred to “the president.”
Thursday’s events in Michigan also served as a potential preview for the 2028 presidential race. Vance is widely expected to enter that race, and the Democrat who joined El-Sayed on the campaign trail in the Upper Peninsula, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has acknowledged she is considering it.
Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday said supporting El-Sayed was part of a larger agenda.
“If working people come together across geography, race, difference and fight so that we can guarantee healthcare in America … and we all take on these monopolies that are driving up our prices and making our lives impossible, then we can have a better world,” she said.
She added, “Once you elect one person like that, people will then catch on, and we will start electing more people like that.”
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