Democrats for Mike Rogers Coalition Is Powered by Right-Wingers
Por Drop Site News — Drop Site News
Story by Tom Perkins
In August, Michigan’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Mike Rogers, stood at a podium in a Detroit front yard with a small group of political and religious leaders who identified themselves as Democrats. Abdul El-Sayed, Rogers’s Democratic opponent, was too extreme, they said, compelling them to take the unprecedented step of supporting a Republican. Rogers called them “courageous.”
“I’m not asking you to be a Republican. I’m asking you for the opportunity to earn your trust,” Rogers reportedly said. “Michigan deserves a senator who will sit down, whether you voted for me or not, and will listen to you. Will treat you with respect. Will represent everybody.”
They are part of a group called Democrats for Mike Rogers, and among their leaders is Michigan State Rep. Karen Whitsett, the treasurer of the Democrats for Mike Rogers super PAC, which has spent about $4.4 million in support of Rogers or against El-Sayed, according to federal filings, and helped fuel the narrative that Democrats are backing Rogers in meaningful numbers.
Whitsett is not a Democrat, however. She formally left the party in 2026 over its support for reproductive and LGBTQ rights. For several years beforehand, she actively worked against state Dems’ legislative agenda, and in early 2025 she fundraised with state GOP leadership.
Several other people affiliated with the Democrats for Mike Rogers coalition are not Democrats, Drop Site News found in a review of social media posts, news articles, Federal Election Commission records, and public statements. They either broke with the party long before El-Sayed was nominated, or have a verified history of supporting Republicans. In some cases, they have downplayed their involvement with the GOP; several Jewish donors who fundraised for Rogers said that they have never fundraised for Republicans, yet federal records show that they have donated thousands of dollars to multiple Republicans across multiple cycles.
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In one campaign video, Rogers featured “loyal Democratic voter” Cynthia Haynes—a Trump supporter since at least 2024. Haynes has long been an active member of social media groups like “Southeast Michigan Conservative Grassroots Movement” and “Donald Trump Supporters.” In December 2025, Haynes praised Trump in a post of a YouTube video titled “Trump Chooses The Military And The Left Erupts” with a thumbnail text reading “Libs Hate This…”
Haynes added, “Thank you President Donald J. Trump ♥️.”
In September, a Drop Site News investigation of 430 self-proclaimed Democratic Michigan Jews who pledged to vote for Rogers found that many were members of the Republican Party, had donated to the party, or were otherwise aligned with it.
Taken together, the findings undercut the narrative that Democrats are abandoning El-Sayed and supporting Rogers in meaningful numbers.
“‘Astroturf’ is probably the word,” said Levi Teitel, a spokesperson for Progress Michigan, which has tracked the race.
“Rogers is basically relying on hearsay and vibes to say, ‘Here’s this thing that’s happening’ that he knows is going to get some attention, and if he just keeps pointing to it, it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t know if that’s how you win an election,” Teitel added.
In the campaign video featuring Haynes, Rogers said that she had voted for Democrats for almost 40 years. “Cynthia from Flint was a loyal Democratic voter. But, something changed and she no longer feels the party represents her values,” he explained. “Like me, Cynthia knows that we have a state to save.”
Even if she once supported the Democratic Party, her social media activity in recent years includes praising Donald Trump, JD Vance, and other Republicans, while repeatedly referring to Democrats as “Demo-Rats.”
In a social media post in October 2024, Haynes thanked Vance “for listening and having a deep conversation with me, concerning Michigan Criminal Justices and Prison Reform Initiatives” during a town hall.
In an August 2024 post, she heaped praise on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had just ended his presidential campaign: “I truly appreciate your honesty and humble presence! You fought an extraordinary good battle against the evil powers to be, and I’m sooo extremely grateful for your respectful classy mannerisms that you have displayed throughout your whole campaign, and your heartfelt unconditional strength is absolutely touching & incredibly remarkable!!! #uprisekennedy #loyaltyiseverything #wereallinthistogether.”
Earlier this year, she declared in a post, “I STAND WITH U Robert F. Kennedy, Jr”.
Whitsett officially left the Democratic Party in March, but since 2023 she has regularly allied herself with the GOP and frequently made media appearances with the controversial, far-right Republican Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall. Her political shift includes a colorful history of torpedoing Democratic priorities and policymaking. She was described by a local outlet as “a thorn in the side of her Democratic state House caucus.”
In March 2026, she told a local news station that she could not remain within the Democratic Party because she opposed reproductive and LGBTQ rights, which did not align with her conservative religious values.
“For me, it is impossible to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ while remaining a member of the Democratic Party as it exists today,” Whitsett said. “That conviction includes the issues I cannot reconcile with Scripture: abortion, the normalization of the gay lifestyle, and the push to redefine gender.”
In 2024, she played a leading role in the GOP’s successful obstruction of the Democrats’ lame-duck legislative blitz. Lame-duck bills can pass with a simple majority, and Democrats, in control of the government for the first time in over 40 years, expected to move legislation that tackled a range of issues, from the environment to affordability and health care. But few of these priorities made it through, in part because Whitsett joined all 54 Republicans in skipping legislative sessions, and the House failed to reach a quorum. She told the media at the time that Democratic House Speaker Joe Tate, a pro-business, centrist Democrat, “would not negotiate in good faith” with Republicans.
In 2023, Whitsett was the lone Democratic committee vote against the Reproductive Health Act, a package of 11 bills that significantly bolstered reproductive rights, primarily by expanding access to abortion. It narrowly passed into law (she supported it during the full House vote).
Earlier this year, the Democratic Jewish fundraisers Hannan Lis and Rob Orley, who both signed the “Michigan Jews Against Extremism” pledge and have been presented as Democrats for Mike Rogers, said they were first-time fundraisers to a Republican. FEC records show that both made thousands of dollars in donations to multiple GOP candidates.
“This is something that none of us has ever done,” Lis told Jewish Insider of bundling for a Republican. “But we feel this is a departure in the direction of the Democratic Party.”
Fonte: Drop Site News
