Local production scene on Delta College.

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Thank you.

I'm Mike Redford, and this is the follow up.

In fact, this is the kickoff show of our 10th season right here in the follow up.

And we've got quite a show for you tonight.

Many political analysts say the upcoming midterm elections could be one of the biggest in our state's history.

Michigan's next governor in the U.S.

Senate seat are up for grabs, plus many other races that could tip the balance of power in both the Michigan legislature on both sides of the aisle, and Congress.

We have two experts waiting to weigh in on this important election.

On this week's show Off the Record, host Tim and Jarret Score, vice president for marketing communications, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

At first.

Don't forget to join us on our social media platforms to help drive the conversation here on the follow up all season long.

If you want to watch any of our past shows, just log on to Delta Public Media.

Okay, now for our guests, Tim Skubick.

He's a long time, a legendary host of cars off the Record.

He joins us by the phone because he had a little bit of a computer crash, and that's okay.

of a computer crash, and that's okay.

The show must go on.

And Jarret Skorup here, thankfully, from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a good friend.

So, Jarret, I'm going to start with you.

There's a lot riding on these midterm elections.

And Tim can follow up both statewide and national.

Terms of political impact.

I think that's why a lot of political insiders are calling this the most important, maybe election in Michigan in many years, if not ever.

Is that over hyping it, or is that telling it like it is?

It's under hyping it.

Were the home of the auto industry.

And that's still very important industry in Michigan.

But maybe we have to add political season as, as a next major industry or media spending or something, because we are a 50/50 state politically.

And in 2026, for the first time in decades, I mean, we have everything up.

We have the governorship, we have a Senate seat, we have the House, we have the Senate, we have ballot proposals, and we have so many competitive congressional seats that Michigan is really the tipping point of where things could be nationally when you have a such a close congressional House and U.S.

Senate, we really are ground zero across the nation.

And it's it's making a lot of a TV people pretty happy because they're bringing the ad revenue.

That's for sure.

That's why we're here.

Tim, can you add to that too much hyperbole or would you agree with that?

Well, per usual, Jarret being from the Mackinac Center had got it right.

The emphasis, the emphasis there is on getting the information right.

First of all, let me point out that people for years have told me you have a face made for radio, and tonight we're proving it.

Okay.

Look at this.

What's really different about this election is the entire atmosphere that we find ourselves in.

I cannot remember a time when the.

The lines were so clear that the division was so loud and the rhetoric was so ugly.

We've always had competitive political races in our state.

That's one of the beauties of Michigan.

The people are politically active.

They do care.

They do participate.

But this one is different because the climate is different.

And there's a very either your for us or your against us.

And that makes for an interesting media coverage.

But there are some people who are just saying to themselves, is this the way that democracy is supposed to work?

Well, you know what?

If that's what it is, that's what it is.

And so all the stuff that you're just not laid down for you perfectly.

These are all races.

Control of the Michigan House could come down to a couple of seats.

The U.S.

Senate race right now is a statistical dead heat.

And so a lot of these races, we still believe it or not, because all of us have been covering this thing now for it seems like 25 years.

Okay.

Just people now are beginning to focus on what's really going on.

And if I see one more TV commercial for the seventh Congressional District, I'm going to find something else to do.

You're right.

The TV industry is really making a bucket of money here.

And it's all because Michigan is competitive.

Well, you know, this midterm election has certainly been highlighted by the U.S.

Senate race and the Democratic Socialists of America movement.

Overall, candidates running with more extreme sort of left liberal point of views.

Right.

And they've had some success nationally.

It's certainly a factor in that Michigan U.S.

Senate race between Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers with El-Sayed sort of leading l So what do you guys make of this movement?

Is it sustainable?

Well, ultimately tip the scales for El-Sayed I think the big question, that that's out there is there's this this background debate in there where, for the most part, people that are more moderate, tend to do better, especially in competitive states.

That's kind of been true.

The states where the president, you know, that state elects the president on one hand and elects a senator, from a different party, and they tend to be more moderate, senators, congressional people.

And so but the big bet now is can candidates race so much attention and the money that comes from that and is our society.

So partisan that you're going to get your side of the pie and then it's okay.

Is it about driving more people that are excited about my campaign, or is it about convincing people that maybe would normally vote for the other party, and which comes out on top?

And that's the big question.

I think Michigan and a couple of these other states that are up is going to answer what matters more convincing people or getting your people more excited to come out and vote.

(Tim) - Well, in particularly in the U.S.

Senate race, this will be very interesting.

El-Sayed today a did a really masterful job of corralling the so-called progressive wing of the party, which heretofore has been pretty much sort of there, but not there.

But they rose up in large numbers.

Now, here's the key point.

Most of those are young people.

And you guys know from experience that young people do not have a steady record of showing up at the polls on Election day.

They may get a hyper about what's going on.

But sometimes, and this has happened in the past, there are no shows at the election time.

So the question is, can he keep this progressive wing together and get them to the polls and then appeal?

As we all know, the people in Michigan decide these races are independents really are not associated with either party.

They vote the candidate, they look at what they stand for, and then they make a decision.

And so you give 35% of Republicans will vote for the Republicans.

For the most part, this is over simplification and the same number for Democrats.

So it's a people in the middle that are uncommitted, that are independent, that will decide the election.

And so this turnout becomes a major factor.

And in this regard, and correct me if I'm wrong, guys, the polling data suggests that right now the Democrats are more geeked to vote than Republicans.

In fact, the speaker of the House here told me weeks ago, he said Skubick, our problem is getting the Trump voters to vote.

They cannot assume that they're going to vote.

And if that happens, Katie bar the door, because that's a major problem.

So they've got two they got two efforts underway to generate.

Thats why Mr.

Trump was in for John James down in Oakland County, to get that base ginned up so that they're going to show up.

And once they've got that secured, then they have to try to go after the independent voters.

And for some, that could be a tough sell.

You know, there's this famous phrase called all politics is local and you do a lot of it Tim on your show, which means, of course, a lot more people really don't care about anything except what's happening in their own backyard.

Right?

Whatever's happening in their own communities.

I'm not so sure this applies to this election, whether it's a statewide election or national election.

It seems like to me the local stuff isn't being talked about, but the national stuff.

When it comes to the war in Iran, high gas prices, ICE immigration enforcement, the sort of growing unpopularity of President Trump.

Have we lost local politics in this election?

Yeah, I you know, I, I think when the Ann Arbor City Council is debating, we got to weigh in on Israel and Gaza, and you have people running for local county commissioners that are trumpeting their political partizan political background.

I mean, that tells you that it's a signal to people.

He's he's one of us.

He's one of the people that I agree with.

She's one of us.

And I think that's unfortunate because one local government should be doing local government things and focus on the things that matter to people at the local level.

And I don't think it tells you a whole lot of what, you know, if the types of Supreme Court justices they might support, I mean, we want them building the roads, worried about our water system, telling us about what kind of zoning rules matter.

And and for a lot of things, if you think about like, this is a, a high price election and inflation election, how, how much things cost.

Well, local governments affect that.

They affect your local property taxes, your school taxes.

They are determining your zoning rules that set how how high a price might be.

Can you can you actually build apartments in your town?

Those are local issues, and often they are bipartisan things, and we're losing that.

If they're all running towards what's going on in the national environment.

(Tim) - I would add, with just one exception, data centers.

I think data centers, I think, are one of those local issues which are driving people nuts.

The latest survey data that I saw headed in the high 60s, maybe 70%, people are saying we don't care about the jobs, and it's a double edged sword.

It's not only opposition among many people to the data center itself, but what happens in the data center could theoretically put some of the people in that community out of work.

So it's a double edged sword, and I think this one is ginning up some support in the electorate.

Although you're absolutely correct, it's been nationalized.

All of the people who have written about it, I love this one with folks come in from The New York Times and The Washington Post.

And I don't want to sound parochial, but I will anyway.

You know, you got to live here to understand the State of Michigan.

Can I get an amen?

Amen, brother.

Yeah, you tell it right?

Because we are different.

We are unique.

If we go back in history, we've made our own history.

I was thinking the other day, this goes back to the 1970s.

The state of Michigan in a primary election actually voted for George Corley Wallace for president.

He took the state of Michigan.

I remember Doug Frazier was head of the UAW at the time, and he was livid.

He was beside himself.

That was a unique moment, and we had many unique moments over the years where Michigan sort of stands out.

We are a purple state, and I think that's a thing to celebrate because it just it makes the politics more interesting.

And with all this national attention, it's good for the state of Michigan.

But let me just let me just say data centers, I think, is driving some of the emotion out there in this election.

You're right about that.

And that's going to be an entire show at some point.

But yeah, absolutely.

That's that's driving some folks.

I want to go back to the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America group.

You know, they created a lot of divisiveness within their own party, in the Democratic Party.

At the same time, the Republican Party is becoming more fractured, with MAGA supporters still on the Trump train and other Republicans ready to get off the Trump train.

And of course, I find it interesting that the president has said, just pretend I'm on the ballot, right.

And in the past that that probably was a good thing.

Maybe not so much at this time.

Right.

So, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out of the polls come Election Day, whether as you kind of touched on it, Tim, crossover votes, independents may rule the day.

What do you make of sort of the by play and the divisiveness and all these political parties and how that might play out?

(Tim) - Well, first of all, the this was interesting this year because I attended the Republican State Convention, and it was it was a piece party.

I mean, there was nothing.

I went to the chairman.

I said, Mr.

Chairman I don't have a lead yet, okay.

And he said, you know what?

That's the lead.

And in many respects it was it was a united convention.

But then you had that thing that happened in Detroit, and you go down there and you got people in the audience shouting down one of the major candidates running for the U.S.

Senate.

And it got ugly to the point with the chairperson.

And he did not want to do this Curtis Hertel, but he had to because it was the truth.

He was not only disappointed.

He reprimanded the people for doing it.

And he said, you know what?

We've got to knock this off because the Republicans just love this.

Democrats fighting Democrats.

Wow.

That's a ticket to a loss at the election.

So the the I don't know if it's true or not.

We're about to see on Election Day, but the Democrats seem to be a little bit more on the same page with accept some some factions.

This Jewish vote problem that El-Sayed has in the U.S.

Senate race is serious.

Another press release on that today that another 17 people, including a name you may have heard of, Mark Bernstein leading a group of 17 who are joining others who say he's got to sign this non-negotiable pledge thing.

And so that could be a fracture that does hurt the Democrats in the end.

Do they come together?

We simply do not know.

But it's a it's an excellent point that you bring out because it's part of what makes this election work.

As to what are these people in the middle going to do?

And they are angry, but they're angry at everybody.

I had a pollster tell me the other day, Skubick, he says, here's what's going to drive this election.

It's going to come down to who do you hate the most, the president or socialists?

And that's an interesting take it.

Not sure I totally believe it, but I throw it out for consideration.

Yeah.

In 1968, the national DNC had a big split that showed up at the convention and you could actually see it, and it was along that background.

But that was that was the bubbling up, what was happening and the reality on the ground where there was big splits in the Democratic Party and, and, you know, the Republicans win in a landslide.

I don't know if that's true nowadays.

I think that there are there are these splits in both parties.

And the Republican Party was very, very split in in different ways during the Biden administration.

But they came together and Trump got elected.

And maybe that happens this time around, I think I think that you captured it well of, you know, you can people have to be excited for someone and they'll go out and vote for someone, or they just really have to have something to vote against.

And you can drive a lot of turnout by really voting against something.

Unfortunately, it's driving a lot of what Tim talked about, which is really, really negative campaigning, because when everybody feels like there's big problems going on, whatever those are, they're all different things.

For every person, it's easier to do negative campaigning and just just try to get to the lowest common denominator and hope your person squeaks through.

Yeah, Tim you make a good point about El-Sayed and sort of the turnout of his people.

Now, you mentioned that he's not going to get the Jewish vote.

He did not do well with the African-American vote against Haley Stevens.

Those are two groups that obviously not going to get that large group necessarily.

But the African-American vote, they tend maybe not to come out in big numbers, and they probably probably should.

Mike Rogers, by and large, is going to get the the older vote.

And they tend to turn out.

So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Typically the midterms act as a referendum on the political party in power, which tends to help the party not in power.

And voters look for a change, right?

That's traditional on a national level.

President Trump, the Republicans are in control here in Michigan.

Governor Whitmer, Democrat, of course, is headed out after eight years in office.

So how do you see this playing out?

Does President Trump help or hurt gubernatorial candidates like John James and U.S.

Senate candidate Rogers?

I think I could answer that.

I'll let you answer that.

And with Governor Whitmer helping or hurting Jocelyn Benson, I'll let you weigh in on that.

So let's start with both James and Rogers.

Both have pretty much distanced themselves from president, at least on the war.

Do you sense that he is just the longer they they side with him, they are going to go downhill?

Yeah.

I think the appearance that we saw with Mr.

James and the president may have been it for the campaign trail.

There's popular wisdom in our town, which is often wrong.

Okay.

But the popular wisdom is Mr.

Trump could be a liability to Mr.

James.

And so you don't show up with the guy who's part of your problem.

But you know what?

If they're having trouble generating the base and getting them out, then you almost have to bring him in.

Which, of course, for every action in politics, there's a reaction.

And the independents who are watching that are saying, well, John James, while there, he is cuddling up to the president again.

But let's not forget that President Trump won this election in Michigan the last time out.

What did he do?

All the pundits said he doesn't have independent voters.

He doesn't have independent voters, ergo he loses.

What did he do?

Yeah, he didn't get the independent vote, but he got angry white men to show up in larger numbers than they ever did before.

And that trumped, if you'll pardon the pun, the independent vote.

And that's how we won the Michigan election.

So this is doable.

Even if you think your president is a liability, it's still doable.

If you can get to the segments of the party that maybe don't vote and maybe you can you can come over, overcome the independent thing that we've been talking about here tonight.

Yeah.

You have some things that are running against each other to history and something's going to give.

On the one hand, Michigan very much tends to vote against whoever the president in party is.

Those every two years.

In 2010, Obama was president and the Republicans swept in.

In 2012, they kind of went back Trump's first turn in 2018, it went big for Democrats.

So we our state tends to vote against the whoever's in national leadership.

On the other hand, we also tend to go back and forth between our gubernatorial candidates.

So we have eight years, one eight years, another eight years and other.

And we we've had eight years of Democratic control.

So will we go back to electing a Republican?

I don't know.

The polls are are making look making that look pretty tough right now.

So there are and then the last thing on that is on that Senate race in particular, you have an you have an incumbent senator who won reelection.

Won election last time pretty highly, Gary Peters.

He's retiring in about as good of a year nationally as Democrats want.

You have a president that's polling very low.

You have a bunch of issues that are running on.

Why are you in such a competitive race in a state?

I don't think national Democrats want to spend a ton of money in Michigan right now when they have other states want to go after.

So again, it's always back to we're a 50/50 state.

We're competitive.

It's making things very competitive everywhere.

And I think politicians running right now, but also for the future, need to think about how am I going to run myself in a competitive state if we're going to be an ongoing, competitive state?

(Tim)- Well, the Democrats missed the boat as they got it right the last time out when Slotkin ran against Mr.

Rogers.

Okay, they had a unified candidate from the opening bell.

Okay.

This thing that we saw happen here was not a unified party.

And it's still a question mark, I think, for some Democrats and and hopefully the Republicans say so the you you've got to have that everybody on the same page.

What you guys know in politics in this current climate is really tough to do.

And let me just speak to the governor a second.

The governor had an event with Jocelyn Benson here at a local bar.

They did not drink and they they did the pro forma joint thing, hands up on the air.

And the governor, I think is out on the East Coast right now.

And she was on the West Coast.

She has been a non player in this campaign.

Now I think part of this is well I'm not really sure because to be honest with I haven't talked to her in months, which is you know, and that's my problem not hers.

Okay.

But clearly is is out there doing the national thing and letting this Michigan thing pretty much go by the way, is to however it goes.

And if I recall, early on, it might have been the primary.

Governor Whitmer did not come out and endorse Jocelyn Benson right away, and she worked with her for eight years.

And I think later on, which I think was sort of a telling tale.

So back to my earlier question over all, would does Benson you would think she'd benefit from Whitmer, but maybe not based on what you're saying, right?

(Tim)- Well, up until the last poll, the governor's popularity, she was breaking the curse.

Every modern day governor who has gone out of office, has been under water.

When he or she left, their numbers of popularity were down.

Woodburn was up around 54%, which all the pollsters and the people in this town are saying, wow, that's really something.

But then the last one came out and the number dropped precipitous to 41%.

So you got to ask the question, this governor is not as popular as we thought she was.

Maybe at one around the campaign trail.

I have no insight intel on that at all, but it certainly makes for a good hot stove discussion as we look at what's about to unfold in November.

So I'm going to change gears a little bit and talk about something nobody's talking about that's on the ballot.

There are two ballot issues.

One has to do with our constitutional convention, and I forget the other one.

But Jarret, do you want to start with that?

And what are we missing here.

We all the news coverage out there is going to be on the Senate race and then and then the Governor race.

And then maybe they have time for the State House and the State Senate.

Very little going on about two ballot proposals.

And I'll be my hot take in this provocative is your vote on those ballot proposals.

And what we pass will have more effect.

Will could potentially have a greater effect in your life than who you vote for a U.S.

Senate or governorship, because they are very consequential of what their way under the radar.

The one is, the whether we have a constitutional convention, which we have not had since the 1960 was the last time, 1961 was the last one that we had.

We've only had four constitutions.

This would vote to whether we're going to elect delegates to write a new constitution.

And if that passes, it will upend politics here for a couple of years, because all this attention will go to electing these delegates, writing new constitution, how they pull that together in this time of hyper partizanship.

And then we would vote on that.

And these we vote on this every 16 years.

It's always it's gone down the last couple of times, two thirds votes against.

We got to poll out saying that it's polling with a majority.

Will that end up happening?

I don't know, but maybe people are willing to throw out anything at this point.

The other proposal is a so-called “MOP-UP Michigan”, which deals with money in politics, at least on the face.

It's supposed to be about utility companies spending money on politics, which are major players, but it affects everybody engaged in politics.

In the state of Michigan.

It would add new reporting requirements, new restrictions, many things that are just blatantly, contrary to state law, unconstitutional restrictions on free speech.

But it would it would immediately launch into where the legal system would have to hash that out.

It would put all kinds of restrictions on political speech that we've never seen before in Michigan and no state has ever seen.

And so those are both things that are going in right now that are pulling, seem to be pulling pretty well and would upend politics for a while after this other all the other elections we're having, you know, we ought to get you a press card.

That's a nice analysis.

Let me just throw this in.

Richard Czuba, who polls for the Detroit News the other day, said on these two ballot proposals, they tap into the anger and the distrust that people have of government.

And he said, what the people at home are saying is we want to control what's going on.

And so the constitutional Convention fits right into that mold.

With a yes vote, they would basically put at risk the entire document that we now currently have, or portions of it that can be tossed out.

The interesting thing about it, every almost every special interest group, the last number I saw was 66 business, labor, education, you name it, were opposed to this thing (Jarret) - Planned Parenthood and right to life.

(Tim) - And yes, and that was the one that shocked everybody.

In this town, I think the inside skinny was if there was any group that wanted to revisit the Constitution, it will certainly be right to life because they really took a bath on proposal three.

Okay.

With 57% of the people voting yes on that proposal, but yet even right to life.

So this one will be interesting.

The numbers that he saw was a plurality, but not a majority was that 47%.

But these groups have not yet begun to fight with their commercials.

Have you guys seen any Con-Con ads at all?

No, but I and I saw that reported.

Well, they haven't seen the commercials yet.

What commercials are they gonna get in?

We've got $150 million being spent on a Senate election with who is going to who's going to be right, who's going to compete with getting ads.

And I've seen no ads on it, and I don't know how you're going to have the time to compete with this gubernatorial race and Senate race.

So I think people are going to go in blind on this, and they're going to read it.

If they get down that far in their ballot and and make a decision on something that's really, really consequential.

All right.

I'm going to finish one last question with about a minute and a half to go, gentlemen.

Has to do with just gridlock.

Does it matter who's in charge in the political party in Congress?

Does it matter who leads the Michigan Legislature, Republican and Democrat?

Are we still going to face this partisan gridlock where we can't get a whole lot done?

Tim.

I'm not from that school of thought, I believe.

Call me stupid.

And lots of people have correctly so that at the end of the day, most of the players in this town, although it's not the same that it was years ago, but most of the players understand that they are sent here for one major reason that's to do the people's business.

And so at the end of the day, they've made some major compromise on roads.

They made compromise on the tip legislation for workers.

The record is not totally exemplary, but if they want to do it, they can do it.

But they've got to set the partisan step aside.

And after November, hopefully that will happen.

All right.

Gridlock is in the eye of the beholder.

Sometimes you like it.

Look, if we wait now we have a Democratic Senate Republican House.

You will have gridlock if if one political if there are both political party control something.

But what we have seen also is with very small majorities of a majority of all one party, you move major, major pieces of policy.

That used to be we'd have to cobble together votes from both parties to do this.

That's changed, and that's changed in Michigan and other states where they pass major piece of legislation with very simple majority.

So you will see some major changes.

However, the political dynamic shape out.

(Mike) - Jarret Skorup, the Mackinac Center Tim Subick, Off The Record.

Thank you, as always for joining us on the Follow Up.

Make sure to join us next week.

A legendary Michigan election pollster, Bernie Porn, will join us, along with W. along with WSGWs Art Lewis, to break down the latest polls.

With only about a month now left before the midterms.

In the meantime, you more connected to interact with us through social media.

We will see you next week.

Thanks for joining us.