HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Addressing a group of a dozen or so reporters at his campaign event here last week, Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan, joked he might not be the main attraction.
John Kennedy, the Louisiana senator popular on the right for one-liners delivered in a Southern drawl, had just entered the room at a countryside winery and farm north of Detroit. And Rogers quickly gave him the floor.
“It’s like following the baton twirler in the talent show,” Rogers said. “You know you’re never going to win that thing, so I’m going to turn it over to the baton twirler.”
The two-term senator has become one of the most public faces in the upper chamber due in large part to his folksy aphorisms that have been blasted far and wide. He’s become a staple of cable news and social media, where clips of his questioning of individuals before committees frequently go viral.
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Only helping matters is his best-selling book “How to Test Negative for Stupid,” which reached No. 1 on The New York Times bestsellers list and remained on it for nearly half a year.
It’s also turned him into a go-to surrogate for battleground Republican Senate candidates in a tough political environment where an appearance by President Donald Trump might not necessarily help. In recent weeks, Kennedy has stumped for candidates in Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, Ohio and Alaska.
“John is a celebrity senator beloved by Republicans,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) told The Washington Sun. “He draws praise from people who like his politics and those who like him. He’s easy to like. We need more people to like more Republicans. I’m glad he’s on our side.”
Kennedy is also prodigious on another front: fundraising.
One senior Senate Republican aide told The Sun that Kennedy, alongside Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is at the top of the conference in raking in online contributions.
“He’s been raising a shitload of money online for years,” the aide said. “He’s building a bigger presence.”
At his event stumping for Rogers in Michigan last week, Kennedy was greeted with a celebrity-like reception by hundreds of supporters clad in flannel and cowboy hats. Cell phones lit up all over a huge barn as people filmed his speech, which was heavy on Southern expressions and familiar punchlines about liberals.
“You can do what you want, but to me, kale tastes like I’d rather be fat,” he said, eliciting a huge wave of laughter.
Another Kennedy barn burner? “When you pass a ditch here in Michigan, you go, ‘OK, that’s a ditch.’ When we pass a ditch in Louisiana, we see dinner.”
The crowd ate it up, giving him a standing ovation.
But Kennedy also sprinkled in pointed critiques about Washington, where Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress. Those digs at his own colleagues have led to speculation about a potential 2028 presidential run, which he said recently he is considering. He conceded that he’s leaning toward running for reelection, but that could change if the party’s crop of candidates are “a bunch of goobers.”
“Nobody’s coming to save us but ourselves, folks,” Kennedy said in Michigan. “The water in Washington, D.C., is not going to clear up until you get the pigs out of the creek. And you gotta keep the pigs out of the creek.”
Dayne Webb, a college student from Kalamazoo, Michigan, said the 74-year-old senator is popular with young conservatives like himself, including some who are turned off by Trump.
“He’s funny and he seems to capture my generation’s attention, especially on TikTok,” Webb told The Sun. He said the Louisiana senator’s presence on the platform is boosting his popularity. “When he started talking about maybe running for president, people on TikTok were like, ‘I hate Trump, but I love John Kennedy.’”
Kennedy has made waves during other campaign stops. During one in Nebraska to help Sen. Pete Ricketts’ reelection bid, Kennedy mused that he liked the state “better than sex.”
“Not really,” he said to howls in the crowd. “But I love Nebraska.”
One GOP operative who recently saw Kennedy on the stump in Alaska said that his appearance was a “hoot.”
“In an environment where people are so saturated with nonstop negative ads, it was refreshing to hear from somebody who cut through it all with a little humor and a lot of straight talk,” the operative said.
Strategists are also quick to note that there’s more to Kennedy than just endless aphorisms. He attended Oxford University and is considered one of the sharpest questioners on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he has tripped up both Democratic and Republican judicial nominees.
“He’s an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful person. I think people don’t fully grasp that until they pay attention to what he is doing and how he is doing it,” one Louisiana-based Republican operative said.
“Everyone knows the quips, but people take him seriously on the policy side, beyond the Fox News stuff,” added another Republican operative. In addition to his work on judicial nominations, Kennedy has been active on banking policy.
But Kennedy has also drawn sharp criticism from Democrats, who suspect his accent is an act. A photo of his involvement in the bungled “gotcha” attempt on former special counsel Jack Smith by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) at a Senate hearing last month went viral. And Rogers’ Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, lashed out at Kennedy last week after he implied El-Sayed is a terrorist who “sleeps in a bin Laden jersey.”
“That’s rich coming from someone who wears his bed sheets out at night,” El-Sayed wrote in a post on X.
El-Sayed also mocked Rogers for campaigning with Kennedy at a barn last week.
“So it’ll be Kennedy telling jokes to animals and Mike Rogers sitting there? Should be a lot of fun,” he told reporters at an event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
But Republicans are glad Kennedy is on the campaign trail to help turn out voters who have soured on some of the Trump administration’s policies, including the Iran war, which has driven up the cost of gas and groceries.
“Kennedy has used a little bit more finesse than me when he disagrees with the president. He’s the right sort of person to appeal … beyond the MAGA base,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) told The Sun, adding that while Trump supporters enjoy his style, Kennedy also played a key role in the ouster of Kristi Noem from her post as homeland security secretary.
“He’s the right guy to show some independence and really shows some of these candidates that you got to show some independence in the final stretch here, or it’s going to be a referendum on Trump,” Tillis said.
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