COMPILED BY JN STAFF
Michigan voters will
elect a new U.S.
senator this year.
The two major party
candidates resond to
questions from the JN.
DECISION
2024
W
hen Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced her retirement, she left her
seat up for grabs in this election cycle. Two candidates are vying for her job:
former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who represented Michigan’s
eighth district from 2001 to 2015, and current Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, who
represents Michigan’s seventh district and has served in the Congress since 2019. The
winner in November will serve in the Senate for six years.
The Jewish News sent each candidate a slate of questions, asking only that
they didn’t say anything negative about their opponent. Here are
their answers.
8 | OCTOBER 24 • 2024 J
N
ELISSA SLOTKIN
Representative Elissa Slotkin serves the residents of Michigan’s
Seventh Congressional District, which includes all of Ingham, Livingston,
Shiawassee and Clinton counties, as well as parts of Eaton, Genesee and
Oakland counties.
After earning her undergraduate degree at Cornell University, she
attended graduate school at Columbia University in New York City, arriving
on campus just days before the Sept. 11 attacks. That experience started
her on the path to a career in national security, and after grad school, she
joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an intelligence analyst.
At the CIA, she worked alongside the military during three tours in
Iraq. In between those tours, she held various defense and intelligence
positions under President Bush and President Obama. In 2011, she took a
senior position at the Pentagon and rose to serve as an acting assistant
secretary of defense until January 2017.
She has served in Congress since 2019 and is the proud owner of two
rescue dogs, Rocky and Boomer.
MIKE ROGERS
After graduating from Howell High School and Adrian College,
Rogers served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Following his time
in the Army, he served in the FBI, taking down organized crime and
public corruption in Chicago.
In 1994, he ran for the Michigan Senate. As a state senator, he
wrote the legislation that created Michigan’s 529 College Savings
Program.
In 2000, he ran for U.S. Congress and won. On the House Energy
and Commerce Committee, he worked to secure our nations’ energy
independence and unleash American-made energy. As chairman of
the House Intelligence Committee, he was among the first to sound
the alarm on the economic and national security danger posed by
China.
He retired from Congress in 2015 and entered the private sector.
He is married to his wife, Kristi, and has two grown children.
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