Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

Vice President J.D. Vance was back in Howell Tuesday, campaigning for Michigan's Republican candidates head of next week's midterm elections.

The biggest battle is between Senate candidate Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, in a race many believe will determine which party controls the upper chamber moving forward.

"Michigan is the most important election in the United States of America," Vance told the crowd at Livingston County's Spencer J. Hardy Airport. "Because more than any other state, it highlights the clash between competing visions of the far-left against common sense American values."

Vance also came to Howell in September, 2025, touting the administration's efforts to restore U.S. manufacturing.

On Tuesday, he addressed Rogers as a "powerful personality," referencing his opposition to some Canadian tariffs and other policies.

“I don’t want Mike Rogers, a servant of the administration,” Vance said. “I want Mike Rogers, a servant of the people of Michigan.”

Vance also touched on the economic decline of Michigan and his home state of Ohio, where middle class workers once drove the country to prosperity through the automotive and other industries. That prosperity bred complacency, which bred indifference to those same Midwestern communities, Vance said.

He later blamed Democrats for setting the stage for high gas prices, without mentioning the Iran conflict, or the ongoing struggle over the Strait of Hormuz.

"Each time a foreign leader in the Middle East throws a tantrum” and that Democrats’ policies curtailing domestic oil and gas development are to blame for high prices," he said.

Tuesday marked Vance's second visit to Michigan to stump for Rogers. He was in Monroe earlier this month.

President Trump campaigned for Rogers in Port Huron this past Sunday.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders stumped for El-Sayed in Ann Arbor Monday.

After Vance's speech, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel released the following statement:

"Today, JD Vance came back to Michigan to brag about the very policies that have driven up costs and left Michigan families worse off. Mike Rogers, John James, Tom Barrett, and Michigan Republicans have fully enabled and endorsed Trump and Vance's corrupt, cost-raising agenda—from reckless tariffs and the Iran war to devastating healthcare cuts that funded billionaire tax breaks.

Michiganders are fed up with the higher costs and rampant corruption fueled by this administration, and a week from now, they will reject Trump and the Michigan Republicans who enabled him at the ballot box."