DETROIT — The first time Rep. Elissa Slotkin, 48, voted in Michigan was in 2018 — and it was a vote for herself, in her first run for Congress.
The Democrat has branded her Republican opponent in this year’s Senate race, Mike Rogers, a carpetbagger, given his recent Florida residency after he retired from Congress.
But as the race heats up — both in polling and spending — Republicans believe questions about Michigan ties can be turned around on Slotkin.
“Elissa Slotkin lied about being a small-business owner, a farmer and where she lives,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Maggie Abboud told The Post. “The only thing Michiganders can count on Slotkin doing is lying about every aspect of her life.”
The Slotkin-Rogers contest has tightened over the last month. Slotkin herself admits the race is a dead heat and says her polling shows that in Michigan, the Kamala Harris candidacy is “underwater.”
In 2018, during her first congressional run, it was Slotkin who was called the carpetbagger. She had no sooner moved back to Michigan than she announced plans to run for Congress.
After being born in New York in July 1976, Slotkin moved to the Holly, Mich., home where she now lives.
After graduating Cranbrook prep school in suburban Detroit, Slotkin studied at Cornell University, then grad school at Columbia. From there she did stints with the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon. Her time in national security spanned from George W. Bush through Barack Obama.
Slotkin left the government in January 2017, just days before Donald Trump was inaugurated president.
In July that year, she announced her candidacy for Michigan’s 8th District. But the next month, Slotkin still took a homestead exemption on her condo in Washington, D.C. She quit taking it after her opponent called it out.
These days Slotkin takes a farming tax credit at the Holly home — as recently as last month — despite doing no farming there. After years of portraying herself as a farmer and a friend to farmers, Slotkin was passed over by the Michigan Farm Bureau, which gave its 2024 endorsement to Rogers.
Slotkin’s grandfather bought the land in 1956 as a cattle farm. So the tax credit is literally grandfathered in, despite the fact cattle haven’t roamed there since Jimmy Carter was president.
“She sure paid her property taxes in Washington, DC, all those years,” Rogers previously told The Post when asked about the exemption. “She doesn’t take her credit there. But she took one here on the backs of law enforcement and firefighters and schools.”
The agricultural zoning saves Slotkin about $2,700 annually in property taxes.
The nationally watched Michigan Senate race could decide who controls Congress’ upper chamber. Despite its importance, Axios calls Slotkin-Rogers “America’s quietest toss-up Senate race.”
The contest will get louder in the weeks to come, as former FBI special agent Rogers tries to overcome a four-to-one fundraising disadvantage.
The Senate Leadership Fund, controlled by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, will contribute $22.5 million to the Rogers cause, its first investment in Michigan in 2024. Another super PAC, the Great Lakes Conservative Fund, has pledged $8 million to help Rogers.
The Detroit Regional Chamber PAC had endorsed Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, both Democrats, in their 2018 and 2020 races against John James. And it endorsed Slotkin in past House races.
But this time around, with the Senate race tightening, chamber head Sandy Baruah says, “Slotkin or Rogers? Either way, Michigan wins.”
Slotkin and Rogers will debate Oct. 8. Election Day is Nov. 5.
