DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin and GOP former Congressman Mike Rogers took the debate stage on Monday night for the second and final time before the Nov. 5 election.
The debate, hosted by WXYZ, covered the usual topics people have come to expect in a debate like this, including the economy, funding foreign wars, and lowering inflation.
Reproductive rights and Title IX.
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However, Rogers used a question about abortion and reproductive rights to pivot towards Slotkin’s support of allowing men to compete in women’s sports.
“If you care about all women, this is a great time to talk about Title IX,” Rogers said. “Where my opponent said I’m not protecting girls in sports and I’m not protecting girls by allowing men into women’s lockers.” Rogers said Slotkin aligned with the Biden administration on the Title IX changes. “If you want to protect women there are other ways to do it. That is an outlier in this debate and it certainly doesn’t put you on ‘team normal.'”
What about inflation?
At another point during the debate, the moderators asked how the specific policies of both candidates would help working families in Michigan.
“[Rising costs are] the number one issue I hear about,” Slotkin said. “If there was silver bullet that could have been fired to solve inflation, it would have been fired.” Instead, Slotkin said she focuses on several pieces of that puzzle, including bringing the supply chain home, attacking the costs of healthcare, childcare, and housing. In addition, Slotkin said she would support a tax policy that helps the middle class.
Rogers took aim at Slokin who is serving her third term in the U.S. House. “Clearly this is where my opponent and I differ,” he said. “Voting for increased taxes on the middle class doesn’t help the middle class. Talking about supply chain coming back but doing nothing about it doesn’t help the middle class.” Rogers added that Slokin’s voting on “every big spending bill has cost us all of this.”
Foreign aid.
The Biden-Harris administration continues to allot more funding for Ukraine, but the answers from candidates on foreign aid to Israel took up much of the response time. Michigan is home to a large percentage of Arab-Americans and Muslims, and has a strong Jewish presence as well.
“These conflicts have been roiling Michigan communities and these issues have come home,” Slotkin said. “We need a negotiated cease fire. Iran has complicated that,” she said.
Rogers responded with, “You cannot have a cease fire until you get the hostages back,” he said, referring to the terrorist attacks by Hamas on more than 1,200 Israeli citizens last year. “Hamas doesn’t want that. They want to continue to fight. We need to pivot to the real problem in Middle East, Iran, [since] they are funding Hamas.”
Election season in Michigan.
Early voting in Michigan starts in some communities this weekend, while others will start seeing polls open by the end of the month. Michigan new voting laws now require at least nine days of early voting. Absentee ballots have already started hitting mailboxes. Election Day is Nov. 5.
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