By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: July 31, 2020 2:16 PM

Gongwer Managing Editor Alethia Kasben and I sat down to chat, well remotely via electronic instant messaging, to discuss Tuesday's primary election in Michigan.

Here at Gongwer we have spent the last month interviewing candidate after candidate across the state, mainly for the Michigan House, but also for U.S. House and some local races, to get a feel for how those races are going and the issues and controversies that are animating these contests.

Here's the transcript of that chat.

Zach: Alethia, we are four days away from one of the most unusual elections we have seen. As we wind down this portion of the cycle, what races stand out to you?

Alethia: There's certainly not a shortage of competitive primaries! On the Democratic side, a spirited primary in the 45th District covering Rochester Hills will decide who attempts to turn that long-red seat blue for the Dems. It's between a young progressive Brendan Johnson and a school board member Barb Anness. With COVID-19, they've both stayed virtual. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

What races are you looking at on Tuesday?

Zach: I think the number one race on my list right now is the Dave Coulter vs. Andy Meisner primary for the Democratic nomination for Oakland County executive. Such high stakes. The chance to lead the state's second-largest county, and whoever wins, provided that they win the general election, immediately emerges as a major statewide political force. I wrote about 3,000 words on it, and I think I left another 10,000 on the cutting room floor, there's so much animosity, so many story lines there (See Gongwer Michigan Report, July 30, 2020).

You mentioned MI House District 45. We've got a few primaries that are going to play a big role headed into the general election for the House. What other ones look key to you and where do they stand?

Alethia: Another big race - and in Oakland County too - is the 38th District seat in Novi. That one has primaries on both sides, though Republicans looked primed to pick Chase Turner, a young conservative who ran a primary challenge against Rep. Kathy Crawford in 2018. The Dems will choose between Novi City Councilmember Kelly Breen, who was the party's nominee in 2018, and Megan McAllister, who is harnessing some of the more progressive vote. That side looks more like a tossup to me.

The Republicans also have a primary in the 71st District west of Lansing where two candidates are hoping to take on Rep. Angela Witwer, the Democratic incumbent. Christine Barnes was the GOP candidate last year and would make it a true rematch, but she has to beat Gina Johnsen first. Johnsen has outspent and outraised Barnes so it will be an interesting one to watch.

Certainly there are more. Do you have a House primary at the top of your list? Republicans have a few competitive contests in their safe seats, don't they?

Zach: At this point, there's two primaries that are wide open and to me put the full spread of each party on display. There's the 95th District centered in Saginaw where five Democrats are competing. You've got a progressive woman there in Carly Hammond, who is white, up against four men, three of whom are Black, and all of whom are less to the left than she is. That's shown up in two flashpoint issues for the party -- how they would handle Enbridge Line 5 and whether radical reform is needed in policing. Very different views among the candidates there.

On the Republican side, the 83rd District in the Thumb is fascinating to me. I've written a story we will publish prior to the primary about it, and you really have four totally different approaches to how a Republican elected official would operate. You have traditional Republican-friendly groups like Right to Life and the Farm Bureau backing a longtime countywide elected official, but then the DeVos-funded Michigan Freedom Fund and Great Lakes Education Project are putting beaucoup bucks behind a young Navy veteran who's also getting big informational support from a nonprofit tied to the parent company of Consumers Energy.

The Democratic primary for the seat in Kalamazoo is pretty clearly the nastiest race in the state among the House races.

What would you say, if anything, has surprised you about this primary season?

Alethia: The 60th is definitely nasty with two Kalamazoo officials going all out. On the Dem side, at least, there haven't been a ton of negative primaries (this portion of the discussion corrected after word with the right district number).

I don't know if it's been surprising as much as it is interesting to hear about the differences in canvassing across the state. In general, outstate regions west and north of metro Detroit have gotten back to door knocking for some time since the peak of COVID. In Oakland County most candidates on both sides aren't knocking as much or doing so more conservatively in hopes not to make people uncomfortable.

But then in Detroit, which was of course hard hit by the coronavirus, candidates seem to be door knocking while keeping their distance, and getting positive receptions.

Zach: Speaking of Detroit, the showcase state House race statewide is probably the challenge to Rep. Karen Whitsett from Roslyn Ogburn in the Democratic primary. What's your sense of where that stands?

Whitsett's relationship with President Trump and denunciations of Governor Whitmer and House Minority Leader Greig have put her in a precarious position, it seems.

Alethia: Just talked to her this afternoon. She is feeling confident and has done quite a bit to get resources to her constituents during COVID-19, which I think will be beneficial to her. Ogburn has gotten a lot of big name endorsements, but I wonder if some of Rep. Whitsett's perceived troubles are more inside baseball and may not sway voters much. It's also not a head-to-head match up with two more Dems on the ballot. We have talked to observers who think she's in trouble but others who aren't so sure. It will be one to watch and I really feel it's tough to predict.

Zach: So let's turn to Congress. The three big primaries are in the Grand Rapids area, Macomb County/the Thumb and the Detroit district between the incumbent, Rashida Tlaib, and Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones.

I am struck by what a bust the Tlaib-Jones race turned out to be. Tlaib seems to be running away with it. Jones' political base with the unions evaporated. Her getting COVID-19 obviously hurt, but she also waited so long to get into the race. Then the idea this would turn into a national proxy fight over the Democratic Party's view on Israel never materialized. I suspect Brenda Jones probably wasn't the best vessel for Democrats upset with Tlaib's opposition to a two-state solution. Jones has been somewhat close with noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

Over in GR, the betting money remains on Peter Meijer, but Lynn Afendoulis has mounted a strong campaign that has kept Meijer on his toes. It is interesting that after she was the mainstream conservative candidate two years ago in her state House race, fending off arch-conservative opponents, she's now trying to run to Meijer's right. The big question is whether the Democrats, with Hillary Scholten can give the Republican primary winner a real run for their money in the general election. I still think that district is tough even with all the changes in Kent County. That district doesn't include Kentwood and Wyoming. If it did, I think this would be a coin flip.

You've covered Shane Hernandez a long time and he's running for that seat in the Thumb and Macomb County but Lisa McClain really has upended that race with all her spending. What do you see there?

Alethia: Hernandez is of course well known in his core area, he represents Port Huron, and has the backing of the incumbent, which is an interesting factor. But he also is Appropriations chair in the House and has been working on the state budget fallout after COVID-19. I don't think he planned on a multi-billion budget deficit to deal with the summer before his primary when he got into the race. Certainly this one is getting nasty and I wonder how receptive voters will be to the attacks from McClain, particularly given she doesn't have a huge background in politics to point to.

Zach: She has tried to run the Paul Mitchell playbook -- outspend your opposition with personal wealth. But the Club for Growth has come to Hernandez's rescue in a way Mitchell didn't have to deal with when he won in 2016. This seems like a jump ball.

Any final thoughts?

I'll say I'll be watching for what the total primary vote is statewide in each party's primary. It can be compared to the 2016 primary because there were no statewide primaries that year either, and as we saw in 2018, if there's a big uptick in enthusiasm for one party in the primary that can definitely carry over to the general.

Alethia: I am also interested in total votes for each party, especially with absentee voting. Does one party seem to be using it more than other? Also interested to see how long it will take to get full results and how many people who requested a ballot end up not turning one in.

And I am looking to see what happens to candidates who show more savvy on social media and were maybe first considered underdogs in their primaries, like Johnson in the 45th and Republican Meghan Reckling in the 47th covering the Howell area. This cycle saw way fewer in person events, parades and other things candidates normally count on.

Okay, time for another candidate interview! Ready for Tuesday.

Zach: Indeed, usually we would turn, bleary-eyed, to the general election first thing Wednesday, but with the finalization of the unofficial vote count in question, I wonder if it will be later. It will make for a most unusual election night.