It’s no secret that midterm elections are rarely kind to the incumbent president’s party, but Michigan gives Republicans plenty of reasons for optimism in 2026, and beyond.

For over a year, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) has had the GOP’s Senate primary to himself; this has allowed him to stockpile resources and further increase his name ID, which he built up during his nearly-successful Senate bid in 2024. 

The Democrats, meanwhile, have been warring amongst themselves for almost as long. Now, the brawl between Democrats is now a head to head between Rep. Haley Stevens (D., Mich.) and Abdul El-Sayed, following the withdrawal for Mallory McMorrow, who was polling somewhere between an asterisk and an afterthought.

But for the state’s other marquee race — that to succeed Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D., Mich.) — is the opposite. Michigan’s Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, has an ostensible primary ahead of her next month, but no one expects it to be close. On the GOP side, Rep. John James (R., Mich.) has the most powerful asset in Michigan politics on his side — the full-throated support of President Donald Trump — yet he is still taking fire in the form of millions of dollars of negative ads — all of which are coming from Republicans.

Well, from one Republican, to be fair. Perry Johnson, a former Trump rival, is trying to defy the odds and win a statewide primary in Michigan while running against Trump’s pick for the job. 

Spoiler alert: it won’t work, and Johnson’s campaign is threatening the GOP’s ability to both flip the state’s governor’s mansion and deal a major blow to any possible Whitmer 2028 conversation.

The Democrats know the stakes in this race and are acting accordingly. Detroit’s popular mayor, Mike Duggan, had been running for months for the role, but he recently dropped out — had he stayed in the race, he would have likely doomed any Democrat’s ability to win statewide by siphoning off tens of thousands of votes in the Democrat-heavy city.

Republicans, on the other hand, are giving Democrats an unnecessary gift by feuding amongst themselves for far longer than is necessary; rather than pretend that the primary is up for grabs, they should unite around James as soon as possible.

This move, unlike what Democrats have a history of doing both nationally in 2024 and in Maine as we speak, is not a coronation of James. It is not doing a disservice to voters, nor is it disrespecting their wishes. James is going to win the primary, and he is going to win handily. A Trump-backed candidate has never lost a statewide federal primary in Michigan. He’s nearly won statewide twice, and he’s more than shown that he’s earning support from voters across the state.

Every Republican in Michigan and in America salivates at the thought of the Michigan Democrats’ Senate primary dragging the party further to the left and deeper into the mud, because they know that it increases the odds of a Senator Mike Rogers.

Michigan Republicans should do what Michigan Democrats are too foolish to do, and give their inevitable nominee all the time he needs to keep the party together and flip the mansion, letting Republicans take back a seat that has been theirs for quite some time. 

Matthew Foldi is the editor-in-chief of the Washington Reporter.