Experts Weigh In After Mike Rogers Skips Detroit Debate With Abdul El-Sayed

Mike Rogers’s decision to skip a scheduled Detroit debate has political analysts talking about what candidates risk when they choose not to show up and face their opponent head-on.

What Happened At The Fox 2 Town Hall

Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed showed up alone Tuesday for a televised town hall hosted by Fox 2, after his Republican opponent Mike Rogers declined to participate. Rogers maintains he never actually agreed to that particular town hall format in the first place.

Rather than joining El-Sayed on stage, Rogers instead sat down with CBS News Detroit that same evening to make his case directly to voters about why he believes he’s the better candidate for the job. When asked about the missed town hall, Rogers stayed vague but confident, simply telling viewers to stay tuned because a debate would eventually happen.

El-Sayed, meanwhile, expressed no hesitation about eventually facing Rogers in a real debate setting. He suggested that Rogers wouldn’t have much of a defense once pressed on his record, which El-Sayed didn’t hold back in criticizing as poor.

Why Debates Matter, According To Political Scientists

CBS News Detroit reached out to two political science professors on Wednesday to get their take on the situation, and both agreed that debates serve a purpose that goes far beyond simple political theater.

Peter Trumbore, who teaches political science at Oakland University, compared debates to a kind of extended job interview for candidates. He explained that voters rarely get genuine opportunities to watch candidates think on their feet, defend controversial positions, or justify decisions they’ve made throughout their campaigns. A well-run debate, he said, gives voters exactly that kind of unfiltered access.

Trumbore also pointed out a less obvious downside to skipping a debate altogether. When a candidate doesn’t show up, they lose their chance to speak directly to voters on their own terms. Worse, that absence hands their opponent free rein to define them however they like, often in the most unflattering way possible, without anyone there to push back.

The Shrinking Role Of Debates In Modern Campaigns

Aaron Kall, a professor at the University of Michigan, noted that debates simply don’t happen as often as they used to. Getting two campaigns to actually agree on debate terms can drag out for months, full of back-and-forth negotiations over format, timing, and rules.

Still, Kall emphasized that when debates do happen, they can have staying power well beyond the actual event. He described how a single debate performance can end up dominating news cycles and political conversations for days or even weeks afterward, depending on how memorable, or damaging, it turns out to be.

He pointed to one particularly striking example: the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, which ultimately played a major role in Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race entirely. Kall used that moment to illustrate just how consequential a single bad debate performance can be, and why some candidates might now feel increasingly nervous about stepping onto a debate stage at all.

What Comes Next For El-Sayed And Rogers

Despite the tension surrounding this particular skipped town hall, both campaigns have confirmed that El-Sayed and Rogers are scheduled to debate each other next month in Grand Rapids. Whether that face-to-face matchup shifts the race’s momentum, or simply becomes another moment analysts dissect for weeks afterward, remains to be seen.