Michigan's Senate race has moved outdoors after both candidates agreed to settle their dispute over loyalty by walking the full length of the Capitol lawn in Lansing, followed by a procession of volunteers carrying copies of the Constitution, campaign staff said on Friday.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers each set out from opposite ends of the lawn at dawn. Organizers said the route was measured with a surveyor's wheel and marked with 1,130 white flags, one for every question that had been raised on television about either candidate's family or faith. Rogers reached the midpoint first and stopped to answer each flag aloud.
"I wore the uniform of the United States, and I will keep walking until the flags stop," Rogers said at the halfway marker, according to a campaign aide. El-Sayed responded that he had no objection to being measured, provided the surveyor was a journalist, a request that Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier accepted by walking the line himself.
State officials said the event has already required the closure of Capitol Avenue, the relocation of a farmers market, and the training of two hundred volunteers to read the Constitution aloud in shifts. Election officials confirmed that the Nov. 3 vote will proceed as scheduled, though some precincts report that voters are now asking to be measured as well.