INSIDE MICHIGAN POLITICS: DID THE BIG DEBATES CHANGE ANYTHING?

Question 1): Who won the debate this past Tuesday between the Democratic nominee for Michigan governor, Jocelyn Benson, and Republican nominee John James? And will it make any difference to voters leading up to Nov. 3?

Answer 1): The debate was pretty much a draw, compared with, say, 1962, where Gov. John Swainson outperformed challenger George Romney (Romney would wind up winning the election, anyway), or 2006, where any chance Republican Dick DeVos had of knocking off Gov. Jennifer Granholm evaporated when Granholm basically ate his lunch. Because Benson has been ahead in all polls by an average of high single digits, all she really had to do was play it safe, stay on message, and avoid any mistakes. However, to give her credit, she was aggressive — she produced the only real novel policy bombshell of the evening — claiming that as Governor she would carve out a separate trade arrangement with Canada that would subvert Donald Trump’s tariffs. It’s questionable whether she can really do that, and if Republicans and the media conclude she cannot, they could hammer her over the next three weeks for making a false promise. That probably wouldn’t be enough to make any difference in the general election outcome, because  Benson also deployed her ace card that will be the decider — Donald Trump and John James’s allegiance to him, which Benson pounded on relentlessly.

As for James, he stayed on the theme of the “failed leadership” of “Democrats in Lansing” (Who could that be? Names, please) that finds Michigan at the bottom of the heap in virtually every national index of educational achievement, the economy, per capita income, etc. Problem is, Benson hasn’t been governor during this time, only an “administrator” (of elections and motor vehicle/driver infrastructure), which she pointed out in the debate. James failed to tie Benson directly to Whitmer, whose job rating has plummeted dramatically in the past few months. An August EPIC-MRA poll put Whitmer’s job approval at 41%, the lowest of her administration, compared with 30% for Trump in the same survey. Democrats have done a good job attaching Republicans to Trump, but Republicans, and James, haven’t tried to attach Benson to anyone, and particularly Whitmer. To have any chance in this campaign, James should. He should press Benson to explain what she would do differently than Whitmer. If Benson produces an answer like Kamala Harris’s to the same question with regards to Joe Biden (“Nothing,” the VP said), it could be a game changer, but don’t expect that to happen.

Both candidates hotly disputed each other’s arguments on the issue of data centers, where Benson has vulnerability because of her husband’s financial ties to the unpopular Saline project. Problem is, James has cast unfortunate votes in Congress on data centers that Benson was able to use against him in the debate, negating any advantage he might have on the issue.

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Question 2): Thursday’s debate in Grand Rapids between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers was the first face-to-face confrontation between the two U.S. Senate candidates. It constituted an hour of near-constant verbal bombshells that at times saw the opponents overpower moderator Rick ALBIN. At one point, the fighting became so persistent that it continued through the commercial break. “In 30 years of doing debates, I’ve never seen it continue during the commercial,” said Albin, of WOOD-TV.

This contest, one of the most closely-watched in the country, has already broken Michigan’s record for spending in a U.S. Senate race, with some $243 million disbursed as of October 9.

The two combatants’ attacks ranged from the war in Iran and tariffs, to their respective finances, where they own homes, and how many yachts they may or may not have owned.

The consistent line of attack for Rogers was connecting El-Sayed’s campaign, supporters, and even his family to people or groups Rogers said support terrorist organizations.

Rogers claimed during the debate that El-Sayed had taken money from groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and from people who “openly support Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda.” He later said El-Sayed’s “biggest funders” came from a group supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and accused him of being unable to condemn terrorist organizations. El-Sayed didn’t help himself by failing to answer a question about who is a bigger threat to America — Israel or Iran?

“I told you what this debate was going to be,” retorted El-Sayed. “Him pointing at me and saying all kinds of foreign names, or him talking about himself.”

For his part, El-Sayed called for stronger federal rules governing AI and data centers, including protections for utility customers, water and union labor. Each also accused the other of having investments connected to the industry.

Their approaches to the federal debt also diverged. Rogers pointed to cutting fraud and waste throughout federal agencies, including the Department of Defense. El-Sayed proposed higher taxes on billionaires.

The questions are: What was the viewers’ reaction to this oral slugfest? Did it change any minds? Will it determine who will prevail on Nov. 3?

Answer 2): The short answers to the three questions are, respectively: 1) Frustration and Disgust; 2) Hardly Any; and 3) Highly Unlikely. The viewing public can be forgiven for being revolted and concluding that neither candidate won the debate. Both candidates spent the entire time sniping at each other, speaking over one another as well as  the moderator. Voters might have wished that Mike Duggan had chosen to get in this race rather than the gubernatorial fracas and stayed in the contest long enough to debate. However, one thing that no commentator has mentioned is that El-Sayed came into the faceoff with on-the-record boasting that (paraphrasing here) he would verbally eat Rogers alive and tear him to shreds. It didn’t happen. Rogers gave as good as he got, and then some. Laid to rest was the suspicion that Rogers was a lightweight who couldn’t defend himself and had already skipped an earlier debate against El-Sayed, perhaps out of fear. If voters were looking for passion and intensity from Rogers to match El-Sayed, they got it. Let’s see what happens in their next battle on October 21.

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Question 3): Another debate — this one for Secretary of State — overlapped in time with the Rogers/El-Sayed faceoff and was held across the state in Ann Arbor at The University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, attended by a crowd of nearly 200. It was far calmer and more civil than the Grand Rapids affair.

For about an hour, term-limited Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, now the Democratic nominee for SoS, debated the Republican nominee — Macomb County Clerk Anthony FORLINI.

In a mildly surprising development, Gilchrist touted his technology industry background, saying the office needs a software engineer to protect residents’ data and create a safe system for digital IDs in the future. “I’m someone who will be the chief privacy officer of the state of Michigan,” Gilchrist said. During the 2000s, Gilchrist was a software design engineer for Microsoft, studying community engineering at U-M.

Forlini and Gilchrist became combative when it came to the subject of election denialism. Gilchrist criticized Forlini for hiring Genevieve PETERS, who was at the Jan. 6, 2021 riots in the U.S. Capitol over the 2020 presidential election results (See “Macomb Democratic Organizers Call For Jan. 6 Protester To Be Fired From Clerk’s Office,” 10/20/22).

Also, Gilchrist brought up a Progress Michigan press release from six years ago targeting Forlini for participating in a “Save the Children” gathering in Macomb County, which included references to the alt-right QAnon conspiracy network.

In response, Forlini claimed he’s not even sure what QAnon is. He said he had attended a gathering along 16 Mile Road to stand up against human trafficking, an issue that, at the time, he wanted to partner with his Democratic opponent on, in order to raise awareness of the issue.

“You know, I’m the only one up here that is not an election denier,” Forlini said near the beginning of the debate, bringing up how Gilchrist called for a recount of Detroit’s election results in 2017 when he lost the Detroit clerk’s race to incumbent Clerk Janice WINFREY by about 2 percentage points.

Forlini also targeted Gilchrist for his absences in the state Senate. Gilchrist attended only six of 100 Senate session days on which attendance was recorded last year, Forlini said.

Gilchrist pushed back, claiming he was there for 100% of the days he was needed to cast tie-breaking votes, which is what  a Lieutenant Governor’s duty is in the chamber (there were no such votes during the past eight years while Gilchrist was LG).

The under-the-radar SoS contest, dwarfed by the Governor and U.S. Senate races and without those campaigns’ financial resources, is important not only in and of itself but because the winner can become part of a party’s farm system that could determine future candidacy for a top office (Gilchrist has already tried to become such a candidate but dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination for governor early this year).

So, based on what viewers saw in this debate, can they be reassured that the office of Secretary of State will be in good hands no matter who wins? And who is that likely to be?

Answer 3): Yes, voters should be reassured. As for the possible winner, the few polls that exist, public and private, show that it’s fairly close, with many voters undecided, but Gilchrist has to be given the edge in that he’s a Democrat in what looks like a “Blue Wave” year. As much as 90% of the Michigan electorate votes straight ticket and the generic ballot right now appears to be about 53% Democratic. If that holds up through Nov. 3, Forlini will be swimming upstream even though he’s highly qualified for the job of SoS.

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