WASHINGTON — Republican Michigan Senate hopeful Mike Rogers said that an internal model has him up by almost seven points with early votes in the critical contest.
“The returns, you can’t tell how they’re going to vote, but you can tell by our models, would they vote for us or not — likely,” Rogers told reporters Saturday.
“Well, we’re ahead on the early returns so that’s very good for us — almost by seven percent,” he added.
“And normally, Democrats are ahead in returns and Republicans show up on Election Day.”
At the moment, Democrats are leading the early count vote in Michigan 51% to Republicans’ 39%, with 10% independents or third party, according to data compiled by NBC News.
Details about the internal model Rogers cited are not immediately clear.
As Rogers noted, there is no data available on how people who cast early ballots voted, but their party affiliation and voting history are known.
Throughout his campaign, Rogers has bragged about the ground game his team built up, going house to house and getting insights on how people there might vote.
Rogers’ Democratic foe, Abdul El-Sayed, has a 3.5 percentage point edge over him in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls.
The polls had overestimated El-Sayed’s support in his Democratic primary, which has given Republicans hope that they can still flip the Dem-held Michigan Senate seat.
El-Sayed held a 10 percentage point edge over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich) just before the primary in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls. But he only won by one percentage point.
Stevens shocked the Dem establishment — and El-Sayed — by showing up to campaign for Rogers and endorsing him on Sunday following a massive falling out.
Stevens and El-Sayed were supposed to do a unity event in Detroit on Sunday after drama between the two. That fell apart — leading Stevens to defect.
Before that, Stevens’ fiancé, Jason Turkish, came out in support of Rogers amid concerns about what an El-Sayed victory would mean for Jewish Michiganders.
Stevens then released a backhanded statement demanded that Al-Sayed more forcefully condemn an ad against Rogers released by the uncle of far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, which critics said was antisemitic.
El-Sayed then clapped back at Stevens in a remarkable display of Democratic Party infighting so close to Election Day.
“[O]ur people-powered campaign defeated a historic $70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens,” he said in a statement, knocking her in response.
“Now the stakes are even higher—defeating Trump’s hand-picked candidate, taking back the Senate, and defending our democracy.”
