Former U.S. Representative Justin Amash stated that Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers would be "more dangerous" in the U.S. Senate than his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed.
Amash, who announced he did not vote for either candidate in Michigan's Senate contest, elaborated on his reasoning in a series of posts on X. He wrote that while he has significant disagreements with both candidates, he believes El-Sayed would be "far less dangerous in practice than Rogers."
Rogers, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, faces El-Sayed in a closely watched Senate race. Amash, who has a history of challenging party lines, including voting to impeach President Trump and switching parties multiple times, explained his voting principle is to only support a candidate if one genuinely desires them to hold office.
Amash drew a parallel between El-Sayed and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., noting Sanders's endorsement of El-Sayed. He argued that while Sanders, like El-Sayed, supports policies he believes are detrimental, the structure of government limits Sanders's ability to enact them. In contrast, Amash asserted that Rogers "is extraordinarily bad on all the issues on which an individual member of Congress may be the deciding vote," citing war powers, surveillance, privacy, freedom of speech, criminal justice, and government oversight as areas of concern.
"In this world — the real world, not the imaginary one that partisan pundits on the right and left live in — Rogers poses a far greater threat to individual liberty and the Constitution than Sanders," Amash wrote. He added that Sanders is "actually much better on these issues than the median member of Congress."
Amash, who served in the House from 2011 to 2021, most recently as an Independent before switching to Libertarian, lost the 2024 Michigan U.S. Senate primary to Rogers. Rogers subsequently lost the general election that year to Democrat Elissa Slotkin. Earlier this year, Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., who lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed, endorsed Rogers, a move that surprised some observers.
Neither the Rogers nor the El-Sayed campaigns immediately responded to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.