FILE – Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., speaks during a roundtable discussion with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other Republicans as they criticize President Joe Biden on the Afghanistan evacuation, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. Peter Meijer is hoping to hold on to his seat after voting to impeach former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Peter Meijer says Republican leaders told him Michigan is ‘not winnable’

Jack Birle November 21, 12:05 PM November 21, 12:05 PM Video Embed

Former Republican Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer said Republicans believe the 2024 Senate race in Michigan cannot be won.

Meijer, who is running for Senate, told Politico the National Republican Senatorial Committee told him he is not a viable candidate and that the Republican base would “not be enthused in the general election.”

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“Let’s see who gets on the ballot. There’s a lot of hypothesizing. It cracks me up. That’s the NRSC’s sphere,” Meijer said. “And when I met with them, they said, ‘Michigan is not winnable.’ I was like, ‘OK, then why do you care?’”

“If I’m dissecting an argument diagram here and putting it into two buckets, each is in contradiction with the other, and each has contradictions internal to themselves,” he added.

The Michigan Republican is one of several candidates vying to win the Senate seat currently held by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), who is not seeking another term. On the Republican side, former Rep. Mike Rogers and former Detroit Police Chief James Craig are among the candidates looking to flip the seat.

Meijer has been a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, who won Michigan in 2016, but is now softening his tone on the former president. In the interview, Meijer positioned Biden as the worse of the two options for president. When asked if he believed someone who puts himself before the Constitution should not be president, he agreed but said both Biden and Trump had done so.

“I say I would largely agree. The challenge becomes if you have two individuals who’ve done so, there’s a lot more shades of gray,” Meijer said.

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Michigan is one of several battleground states where Democrats are on defense in a Senate race. Republicans have mostly focused on West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, and Arizona in their efforts to retake the Senate, but Michigan could also be an opportunity for the GOP.

The Cook Political Report rated Michigan’s Senate race as “lean Democratic,” alongside Montana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The only other seats with a Democratic incumbent rated more favorably for Republicans are Arizona and Ohio, which are rated as “toss-up,” and West Virginia, which is rated “solid Republican.”

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