In January 2025, U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) announced that he would not seek reelection for a third term. The Associated Press's Joey Cappelletti and Isabella Volmert wrote, "Having lost Michigan in the presidential race, Peters’ decision forces Democrats to defend a critical Senate seat in Michigan without the advantage of an incumbent." On August 4, 2026, Michigan held primaries for governor and U.S. Congress. In the Senate race, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary while former Congressman Mike Rogers ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

Rogers' campaign website offers a housing plan and no other published policy proposals; his most recent recorded action on broadband regulation is a 2011 resolution opposing net neutrality rules. El-Sayed's campaign website sets out positions on the economy, trade, taxation, artificial intelligence, data centers, housing, education, and agriculture. Broadband appears in none of them. The candidate who in 2018 proposed the nation's first state-operated internet service provider has published no broadband position in 2026.

Mike Rogers

Mike Rogers is a former seven-term Congressman from Michigan's 8th district. He served in the U.S. Army from 1985 to 1989, followed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1989 to 1994. He was a member of the Michigan state senate from 1995 to 2000, rising to majority floor leader in 1999. While in Congress, he served as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence with jurisdiction over the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Pentagon, and the broader intelligence community. He was also a member of the House Commerce Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and the Office of Emergency Communications in the Department of Homeland Security, among other agencies. 

In 2024, Rogers ran for the U.S. Senate but lost the election to current Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). During the election, Slotkin raised concerns about Rogers' move to Florida after leaving Congress. After Congress, Rogers worked as a key security adviser for AT&T—one of his largest supporters in the telecommunications industry. Since 2016, Rogers has also joined the board of Telefónica, IronNet Cybersecurity and MITRE Corporation, and has become an advisor to Next Century Corporation and Trident Capital. A 2024 Business Insider report noted that Rogers’ post-congressional work in the telecommunications and cybersecurity industries earned him $2 million in income, and his assets grew to $17.5 million since 2016.

Campaign Contributions

Between January 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, Rogers' Senate campaign committee reported total receipts of $2,133,554 to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Roughly a third of the $2,092,138 the committee received in contributions—$721,705—came from political action committees (PACs) rather than from individuals. Of the $1,356,434 that individuals gave, all but $8,029 came from donors contributing more than $200. The committee also reported $14,000 from party committees.

A joint fundraising committee supports Rogers' campaign, Mike Rogers Victory, which reported $647,600 in receipts through July 30, 2026. Joint fundraising committees allow a single donor to write a single check that covers the contribution limits of several participating committees at once.

Rogers has also received money from the telecommunications industry over 19 years. The Michigan Advance reported in August 2026 that Rogers collected nearly $100,000 from telecommunications companies and trade groups while serving in Congress and during his current Senate bid. Financial supporters include companies whose interests aligned with legislation he introduced on government data sharing. Contributors include:

• AT&T, through its federal PAC, gave Rogers $56,000.
• Verizon's PAC and its employee contribution fund made 17 contributions to Rogers' House campaigns and his PAC between 2007 and 2014, totaling $28,500.
• CTIA, the trade association representing the wireless communications industry, began giving to Rogers' House campaigns in 2008 and last contributed to a Rogers-related committee in 2013, the Securing America's Future PAC. The association gave $10,000 over that period.

Broadband Regulation

During a House Commerce oversight hearing on the FCC in 2010, Rep. Rogers said the FCC's National Broadband Plan sent a “shiver of cold” across the investment community. He questioned how then-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski could talk about encouraging private investment in broadband and also propose new net neutrality rules that would prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Internet content. 

Rogers co-sponsored two resolutions in 2010 (H.Con.Res.311) and 2011 (H.J.Res.37) on the FCC's regulation of the broadband industry.

The 2010 resolution, a concurrent resolution with no legal force, stated that "(1) it is the responsibility of Congress to determine the regulatory authority of the Federal Communications Commission with respect to broadband Internet services; and (2) the Federal Communications Commission should suspend any further action on its proceeding to extend its traditional communications regulatory authority to include broadband Internet services until Congress delegates such authority to the Commission." The resolution never received a vote in the House Commerce Committee nor the full House.

The 2011 Congressional Review Act resolution would have overturned the FCC's net neutrality rules adopted in December 2010. The resolution passed the House, mainly along party lines, but was never considered in the Senate.

Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act

Rogers' signature legislative effort in Congress was the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which he introduced in November 2011. The bill would have amended the National Security Act of 1947 to establish a two-way channel for sharing cyber threat information between the federal government and private companies.

CISPA directed the Director of National Intelligence to establish procedures that allow intelligence agencies to share classified "cyber threat intelligence" with private companies and utilities, and to encourage such sharing. Recipients would have needed security clearances or certification, and could not pass the intelligence along to anyone other than another certified entity or an authorized federal agency.

The CISPA provision that drew nearly all public attention was its authorization of private companies to gather and share "cyber threat information" with one another and with the federal government. The bill defined three categories of company: a cybersecurity provider, which sells security services; a protected entity, which buys them; and a self-protected entity, which secures its own systems. That last category is broad enough to cover essentially any company that runs a network, including internet service providers. Sharing was voluntary, not mandatory, and information sent to the government would have gone first to the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, a civilian hub at the Department of Homeland Security, with other agencies able to request it from there.

The bill's central inducement was legal immunity: companies that gathered or shared threat information in good faith could not be sued or prosecuted for doing so.

The version that passed the House in April 2012 included a set of restrictions added during House consideration. The federal government could use shared information only for cybersecurity purposes, to investigate cybersecurity crimes, to protect people from death or serious bodily harm, or to protect national security. The government would have been barred from affirmatively searching the information for any other purpose. Agencies could not retain information for unauthorized use and had to notify a company if what they sent turned out not to be cyber threat information. The bill specifically shielded library records, firearms sales records, educational records, tax returns, and medical records. The legislation exempted shared information from public disclosure and barred companies from using it to gain a competitive advantage. And the bill required the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community to report annually to the congressional intelligence committees on how shared information was being used, along with recommendations on privacy and civil liberties. Those provisions were not in the bill Rogers introduced in November 2011.

The bill still did not require a warrant, a subpoena, or any court order before a company handed information to the government.

CISPA would also have preempted any state law that restricted or regulated an activity the bill authorized. This provision would have displaced state privacy and data-breach statutes in the areas covered by the legislation.

Rep. Rogers introduced H.R. 3523 in November 2011. The House passed it in April 2012, but it never received a vote in the Senate. He introduced a successor bill, H.R. 624, in the 113th Congress; it cleared the House in April 2013 and met the same fate in the Senate. The two bills were similar but not identical—the description above is of H.R. 3523 as passed by the House.

Civil liberties, consumer rights, conservative, and libertarian groups opposed the bill. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the definitions of cyber threat information were broad enough to sweep in ordinary users' personal communications, that the structure of the sharing authority overrode existing privacy statutes, and that the good-faith immunity left users with no way to challenge over-collection in court. They also argued that once information reached the government, the four permitted uses were sufficiently broad—particularly the national security purpose—to allow onward routing to intelligence agencies.

Rep. Rogers dismissed privacy concerns and defended the liability protections as necessary to get companies to participate at all. He also defended the National Security Agency and other agencies against criticism of their surveillance programs, saying in 2013 that "you can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated."

Data Centers

Polling from May showed that 55 percent of Michiganders opposed building data centers within 25 miles of their homes. That opposition softened somewhat when electricity cost restrictions and other safeguards accompanied the hypothetical developments. 

According to financial disclosures, Rogers holds between $1.7 million and $2.6 million in companies that stand to benefit from tech-friendly policies and a streamlined permitting process for AI-related developments. Rogers holds between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, a private real estate investment trust that has been rapidly investing in data centers. The sector now makes up 29 percent of the trust’s portfolio, up from 1 percent in 2020. Blackstone is currently helping to develop a massive 1.6 million-square-foot data center near Ann Arbor, Michigan, valued at $16 billion.

A.I.

Rogers has noted that AI is already making powerful advancements in medical outcomes, manufacturing efficiency, and agricultural innovation, adding that a consistent national framework gives the US “an opportunity to take it all to the next level.” 

Rogers has endorsed President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence policy framework, which calls on Congress to prevent increased electricity costs resulting from data center construction and to streamline federal permitting for AI infrastructure. 

“We have to make Michigan competitive for new AI-supported jobs and investments that grow our state, while setting a responsible framework for safety and data privacy,” he said. “We need to make sure data centers pay for all their own power usage so that Michiganders aren’t footing the bill in higher rates.” On that point, he and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed seem to agree.

Rogers and his wife, Kristi Clemens Rogers, own stock and investments in a variety of tech companies that are leveraging AI to build their businesses. These include cybersecurity firms Qualys, Inc., NowSecure, and Constella Intelligence, as well as quantum computing firm D-Wave Quantum, Inc. He also owns stock in and serves as a board advisor for venture capital firm Forgepoint Capital, where his wife also serves on the Advisory Council. Forgepoint is invested in at least 49 tech companies that use AI, and Rogers is invested in two Forgepoint private equity funds. In June, the Detroit Metro Times reported that six of the companies Forgepoint is invested in — Attivo Networks, Bayshore Networks, BehavioSec, CyberCube Analytics, NowSecure, and ReversingLabs — received more than $6.1 million in federal contracts while Rogers served as a board advisor to the firm. According to his financial disclosures, in 2024, Rogers was invested in the six companies, all of which use AI in some form.

Abdul El-Sayed

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a physician and epidemiologist, serving as Director and Health Officer at Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services. In this role, he has led several major "Well Wayne" health initiatives, including building a comprehensive air monitoring network to address asthma and other air-related illnesses; deploying 100 Narcan vending machines countywide to tackle the opioid crisis; and forgiving up to $700 million in medical debt. 

Dr. El-Sayed earned a Doctorate in Public Health from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He also holds a Medical Degree from Columbia University, where he was a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Medical Scientist Training Program Fellow and Soros New Americans Fellow. Before public service, he was Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He holds academic appointments at Harvard's FXB Center for Health & Human Rights, the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy, and American University. 

Dr. El-Sayed also served as Health Director for the city of Detroit, appointed in 2015 to rebuild the Health Department after its privatization during the city's bankruptcy. He was the youngest health official in a major American city. He was awarded “Public Official of the Year” by the Michigan League of Conservation Voters and "40 under 40” by Crain’s Detroit Business.

Campaign Contributions

Between January 1, 2025 and July 15, 2026—the close of the last reporting period before Michigan's August 4 primary—El-Sayed's campaign committee, Abdul for U.S. Senate, reported total receipts of $14,514,336 to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Individual contributors accounted for $14,408,058 of the $14,479,903 the committee received in contributions. Roughly 29 percent of that individual money—$4,142,626—came in amounts under $200, the threshold below which the FEC does not require a committee to identify the donor. The committee reported no contributions from party committees, no transfers from other campaign committees, no loans, and no money from the candidate himself.

The remaining $71,845 in contributions came from other political committees, including leadership PACs affiliated with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); from a committee organized around Medicare for All; from No Dem Left Behind PAC; and from the political fund of the Office and Professional Employees International Union.

One contribution came from a committee with a direct telecommunications connection. The Communications Workers of America's political fund gave $500 in March 2026. CWA represents workers at AT&T, Verizon, and other carriers and participates regularly in FCC proceedings. This is the only telecommunications-related contribution El-Sayed's committee received during the period.

None came from a corporate PAC. El-Sayed has pledged not to accept corporate PAC money, and the filings for this period are consistent with that pledge.

Internet For All

In 2018, Dr. El-Sayed ran for governor of Michigan on a progressive platform, earning over 340,000 votes to finish second of three in the Democratic primary. A plank in his platform was his "MI-Fi" plan to make broadband available to all Michiganders. He said internet access wasn't originally a top priority for him, but "when we were talking to people, whether they were in urban communities and could not afford the WiFi that was available, or rural communities, who just didn’t have access to it at all, because the corporations that we rely on to provide it just haven’t laid the infrastructure down."

“Broadband is the electricity of the 21st century," said Dr. El-Sayed. "Access to fast and reliable internet services is essential to economic growth, education, healthcare, and quality of life.” 

He argued that all Michiganders deserve access to affordable, fast, and reliable internet service. He proposed the first state-operated internet service provider in the country called MI-Fi, saying it was the best way to close Michigan’s digital divide and provide every resident with access to high-speed internet. The focus would be expanding access in rural and urban communities across Michigan.

"Big corporations and internet monopolies like Comcast are more interested in their bottom line than making sure that Michiganders have access to the affordable internet that they deserve. They have become the biggest lobbyists in Lansing and D.C., taking home millions of dollars in salary and pumping millions more into corporate politicians that sell out the public," Dr. El-Sayed said at the time.

The plan read in part:

In his current run, El-Sayed has not focused on broadband. Instead, data centers and AI have taken priority.

Data Centers

There are 79 operational data centers in Michigan, according to the U.S. Data Center Map. However, two more are under construction, and 16 more are planned. Three of those on the way have capacities that are magnitudes larger than anything that's currently functioning in the state.

Dr. El-Sayed supports restrictions on building data centers. Noting the growing public sentiment against them, El-Sayed has said  people "really effing hate data centers." In July, El-Sayed appeared at an anti-data center rally in Saline Township, where a new  hyperscale facility is under construction on 250 acres of farmland and is expected to eventually demand 1.4 gigawatts of electricity, roughly as much as 1 million homes. El-Sayed said the democratic process was sidestepped in the handling of the Saline data center. "The community here opposes this data center, and if the community here opposes this data center, then I do," he said.

"The tradeoff here is hard to explain to the broader public," El-Sayed contends. "And we're doing this in a deeply unregulated era. There is no regulation that is real. Meanwhile, because all of these corporations are so deep in the pockets of all the politicians who should regulate it, it looks like we're going to move forward with zero regulation. I just think it's a pretty crazy thing that this is a bipartisan consensus almost that we should be building these things and that they're good for us," he added, "except for the broader public in a bipartisan way generally doesn't agree."

El-Sayed's 2026 platform includes specific proposals on data centers:

The terms of engagement outline rights for individuals and communities:

• No electricity rate hikes. Data centers must pay for their own energy demand—costs cannot be passed onto ratepayers.
• Community transparency. Communities must have a meaningful say in project approvals and community benefits packages.
• Energy reliability guarantees. Energy reliability cannot worsen because of data center projects. Projects must include enforceable commitments from utilities to improve energy reliability, funded by data center revenues.
• Jobs guarantee. Data centers must create the local jobs they promise, or face penalties, and must be built by Michigan contractors with apprenticeship programs.
• Water protection. Data centers must commit to closed-loop cooling systems to avoid stressing or polluting local water resources.
• Community benefits agreements. Projects should include binding agreements that deliver real benefits, including local infrastructure investments, improvements to the electrical grid, burying power lines, and upgrading water treatment facilities and piping.
• No clean-energy loopholes. Utilities cannot use data center projects to weaken or sidestep clean energy laws.
• Enforceability. All agreements must be enforceable through actionable penalties.

A.I.

“There’s literally not a conversation that I have, not a stop that I make, where data centers and AI don’t come up,” Dr. El-Sayed told CNBC. “It’s an issue that I’m hearing about everywhere, and it’s one of those issues that, as usual, D.C. has been slower to pay attention to than the rest of the country.”

Dr. El-Sayed says government decisions around world-changing technology like artificial intelligence (AI) should not be left to unaccountable corporations. "Rather than replace us, AI should be a tool to enhance our lives," he said. His concern is that AI is being deployed too quickly and without transparency, opening the door to serious risks.

Dr. El-Sayed supports legislation to establish guardrails on when, how, and for what purposes AI is deployed, and he opposes efforts to preempt state action without federal legislation in place. He said he supports exploring income protection programs such as wage insurance and basic income, worker investment through unions, adjusting the tax system to stop penalizing human employment and rewarding automation, and investing in small-business revolving loan funds. 

"I believe we must develop clear 'rules of the road' for AI development that governs which hands this technology falls into and requires us to better test and understand the models being developed," he said. He includes clear safety testing standards for frontier models; liability and incident reporting standards; compute controls, including “know your customer” requirements for compute providers; and the creation of an independent technical agency with real enforcement power, like a Food and Drug Administration, for AI. 

In June, Dr. El-Sayed called specifically for public ownership of AI firms and endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) proposal for partial public ownership. “The federal government would have the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company’s board, to block decisions that hurt our citizens and to push for policies that help them,” Sanders wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times. Sen. Sanders called for a “direct ownership stake” in the country’s biggest AI companies through a one-time, 50 percent tax that AI firms would pay with stocks. President Trump, whose administration has already taken financial or equity stakes in various companies, has also expressed interest in a public-private partnership between the federal government and AI firms, saying the idea of a scenario where “the American people can benefit from the success of AI” is “very interesting.”  

Expected Issues for the New Senator

Michiganders will decide the race for U.S. senator on November 3. 

Whoever wins will be sworn in in January 2027 and will face a set of telecommunications questions that neither candidate has addressed publicly.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which subsidized broadband bills for over 940,000 Michigan households, exhausted its funding in June 2024. El-Sayed's 2018 case for MI-Fi rested on the claim that Michiganders could not afford service already available to them. Neither candidate has said what, if anything, should replace ACP.

The Universal Service Fund is the most immediate. For the past few years, a bipartisan, bicameral working group has been evaluating the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund (USF) to develop a forum to guide education, awareness, and policymaking. The working group is expected to propose reforms to the USF in the coming months. Senators will get to weigh in on any proposals.

Rogers served on the House Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC and NTIA. Neither candidate has said whether he would seek a seat on the Senate Commerce Committee, where these questions are decided.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people in the U.S. have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. We believe communication policy - rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity - has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities.

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