Michigan and Kansas held some of the final major Senate debates of the 2026 midterm elections on Wednesday night. And they were a study in contrasts.
The Michigan Senate debate between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers was bitterly personal and ferociously contested — as befits a contest that could decide the chamber’s majority.
Each candidate had a simple task.
El-Sayed, the former executive director of the Detroit Health Department, needed to pin Rogers, a former congressman, to the deeply unpopular President Donald Trump and his economy — and to assuage questions from moderates about his politics.
Rogers is trying to win in a state currently run by Democrats while dragging Trump’s historically low approval ratings behind him. His only hope is to disqualify El-Sayed as an acceptable senator in the eyes of voters.
The debate in Kansas was a little more genial, with less focus on Trump and plenty of focus on whether Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton would be too allied with the political left — from which he repeatedly sought to distance himself — to unseat GOP Sen. Roger Marshall. And Marshall, much more than Rogers, made a point of overtly appealing to Trump’s voters.
Here are takeaways from the two crucial debates:
Fierce debate over El-Sayed’s loyalty
Rogers raised an extraordinary question: Is El-Sayed, a Muslim who was born in Michigan, really loyal to the United States? The charge came against a backdrop of searing false claims by Trump that the Democrat is a “jihadist.”
Rogers claimed El-Sayed — who would be the first Muslim elected to the Senate — was bought off by the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group founded in Egypt, and that he had donors who supported Iran-backed extremist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know: Are you for America or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?” Rogers asked. “You can grin and you can smile and you can talk real pretty, but I’m going to tell you what: That is a risk to our national security.”
El-Sayed, who has repudiated the Brotherhood, accused his opponent of a “shameful” attack. “To bring into question my commitment to the Constitution is really beneath you. I am proud of America. I’m proud to be an American. I’m proud of our Constitution that guarantees all of us the right to pray as we choose to pray,” he said.
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-‘Pattern of deception’ vs. ‘MAGA bingo’
Rogers also sought to play into the conceit that El-Sayed, as a progressive, is too far to the left of Michigan’s electorate, and he tried to reopen splits that were exposed between rival factions during the Democratic primary.
He claimed that El-Sayed was “aligned” with the Democratic Socialists of America and wants “bigger government and more taxes.” El-Sayed describes himself as a capitalist and is not a member of the DSA, but he is supported by several members of the group, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned with him through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last week.
Rogers also tore at Democratic divides by appealing to disaffected supporters of El-Sayed’s defeated primary opponent. “You’re a Haley Stevens voter, and you came out of this, and you said, ‘Man, I just can’t do it. He’s too extreme’ … well, guess what, you have a home with us,” Rogers said in his closing statement.
Ultimately, Rogers’ attacks on El-Sayed’s loyalties were aimed at advancing a broader argument — that the Democrat simply couldn’t be trusted — and one that implied, as Trump has, that he is not a fully authentic American.
“There is, again, that whole pattern of deception,” Rogers said of El-Sayed’s claim to be in favor of strong border enforcement, using a refrain to which he frequently returned. Pushing back on El-Sayed’s denials that he wants to defund the police, Rogers claimed, “This guy has got new, false information about every 30 seconds.”
El-Sayed countered multiple times that it was Rogers who was being untruthful and said he was playing a classic game of distraction practiced by Trump. He repeatedly said people should be playing “MAGA bingo” at home as they ticked off Rogers’ pre-planned buzzwords. But he warned: “When you are winning MAGA bingo, we are all losing.”
The Trump factor
Rogers, like every Republican candidate in the midterm elections, needs a way to separate himself from Trump’s most unpopular policies without alienating the president’s supporters, who must show up in vast numbers for him to win.
He started with a complex pivot — admitting that the Michigan economy was in rough shape and that people were “hurting” but arguing that if Democrats got control of the Senate they’d make it even worse. This was a long way from Trump’s argument that Americans are living through an economic “golden age.”
Rogers walked a fine line on tariffs, arguing that some were working to bring jobs home from Mexico and China, but that the trade war with Canada — a huge issue in Michigan’s border-state economy — was not well thought through. Rogers argued that Democratic control of Congress would cause higher taxes and higher costs, including for gasoline.
El-Sayed had an easier task given huge public dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the economy; he claimed Rogers and the president stood “hip to hip.” He said that voters should send him to the Senate to ensure “money is going to be spent on you and your kids, rather than dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids.”
He narrowed in on Rogers’ biggest vulnerability after the Republican said all his opponent did was say “Donald Trump” over and over again. El-Sayed countered by blaming the president’s decision to go to war with Iran for making the cost of living worse.
“Yes, I am going to blame Donald Trump because this is Donald Trump’s economy. We are living in it,” El-Sayed said. “We are paying more for gas, more for groceries, defunding the Department of Education.”
“We need to turn the page on Donald Trump, but that means we need to stand up to Donald Trump.”
Kansas debate was more about Schumer than Trump
Several states away, another Democratic Senate candidate was taking a very different approach.
In red Kansas — a state Trump carried by 16 points — the name of the game for Hamilton was less about tying his opponent to Trump than assuring he’d be a candidate from the political middle.
In fact, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer earned more mentions than Trump, as Marshall repeatedly sought to pitch Hamilton as enabling and supporting the New York Democrat’s agenda.
When asked how he differed from the Democratic Party, Hamilton said former President Joe Biden’s border policies were a “disaster” and that he’s “not somebody who favors the Socialist Party.” He said he didn’t support Medicare for All or the Green New Deal, though he liked “parts” of the latter.
“We’ve heard Chuck Schumer mentioned, I don’t know, 50 times? … Maybe 20 times so far,” Hamilton said. “I find that interesting. I’ve already said I wouldn’t support Chuck Schumer for Senate majority leader if the Democrats [were] to control the Senate.”
On the other side, Marshall distanced himself from Trump far less than Rogers has in Michigan. In fact, Marshall mostly bear-hugged Trump.
When asked about Trump being unpopular even in Kansas, Marshall turned his response into an appeal to Trump supporters.
“I’ve had multiple times when I’ve objected to the president before, but I do want to emphasize: We need the Trump voters to come out,” Marshall said. “And that would be my appeal tonight to people: If you want the Trump agenda to continue, if you want secure borders, if you want a strong military, if you want lower taxes … you need to come out, because we delivered on those things.”
He also said later in the debate that Trump’s “tariffs are working.”
When pressed again in his differences with Trump, he said he disagreed with ICE’s tactics in southwest Kansas — which many local Republicans recently objected to — and Trump’s plan to import beef.
ICE was the big issue — and it got a little personal
The ICE issue made for some of the most interesting portions of the debate, with Hamilton clearly seeking to turn it to his advantage.
Marshall pitched the topic as an example of his ability to get Trump and his administration on the phone when he disagrees with something that’s happening.
“The first thing I did when I saw what was going on in southwest Kansas (with ICE raids), I picked up the phone, called (Homeland Security) Secretary Markwayne Mullin and said, ‘Hey, I don’t think this is quite right. What’s going on?’” Marshall said.
Marshall also signaled that there could be a broader conversation about immigration reform now that the border is more secure. He noted he has delivered many babies to undocumented parents.
Hamilton pounced on that remark to cast the deportations that are currently taking place as heartless.
“With all of those undocumented children that you delivered, did you also call ICE and ask them to be taken away?” Hamilton said. “What did you do with these people? You had compassion for them in delivering these children, but then you support quotas.”
He said when he was in Hutchinson, Kansas, “There was a preschool teacher arrested in front of her children. That’s just not OK. We militarized and politicized ICE as opposed to them doing the important job they’re supposed to do, and that is protecting Americans from dangerous, dangerous people.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
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This article originally appeared on CNN at https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/21/politics/michigan-kansas-senate-debates