By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: May 4, 2022 10:35 AM

It takes an extraordinary set of circumstances for a state legislative seat with a reputation of casting at least 60 percent of its votes for one party's candidates to flip to the other party.

Such was the case Tuesday when Democrat Carol Glanville of Walker upset Republican Robert Regan, also of Walker, in a special election for the 74th House District in northwest Kent County.

Ms. Glanville did the work, and as a Walker city council member was the strongest candidate Democrats have ever fielded for this seat. A no-name Democratic candidate who did nothing probably doesn't win. She had to earn it. But let's be clear: If it wasn't for the unique toxicity of Mr. Regan, this seat stays in the Republican column.

To recap, Mr. Regan came under fire for social media posts which falsely alleged the war in Ukraine is a hoax, including that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was being staffed by crisis actors. Then, as part of a Zoom meeting with the group Coalition to Rescue Michigan after his narrow Republican primary win in March, Mr. Regan quipped he's told his three daughters, "If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it." He put up a Facebook post in 2021 claiming that feminism was "a Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men."

The Michigan Republican Party, the House Republican Campaign Committee and other groups that usually support Republican candidates slammed Mr. Regan and stayed out of the race, leaving him with no infrastructure to win a general election against a strong Democratic candidate. There was even a relatively well-organized write-in campaign for Mike Milanowski, another Republican, in a bid to get him an early start on the campaign for a full term in the new 84th House District in August (when Mr. Regan also is on the ballot).

Ms. Glanville took 51.7 percent of the vote to 40.4 percent for Mr. Regan with Mr. Milanowski picking up the rest. She boosted Democratic performance by a whopping 15 points from the 2020 November general election.

For Democrats confronting a gloomy climate with an unpopular president of their party in the White House – usually a guarantee of a bad year for that president's party in this state – the Glanville win offered a glimmer of hope.

Further, looking out across the House and Senate candidate fields this summer, there are a number of seats far more competitive than the 74th House District where there are crowded Republican primaries and a range of Republican candidates from more traditional types (like Rep.-elect Mike Harris who easily won in the 43rd District on Tuesday) to fringier types potentially in the Regan mold, maybe not to that extreme, but far enough to potentially turn off a lot of voters in the way he did.

Mr. Regan won his four-way primary with 32.9 percent of the vote, besting the second-place finisher by just 81 votes. That's the nightmare scenario that has prompted top Republican donors to do this August what they did not do in the March primary in the 74th District – invest heavily in making sure electable Republicans get nominated.

So Tuesday's results certainly have to be a wake-up call on the Republican side that nominating a whole bunch of Regans with a small plurality in August could cost them control of the Legislature.

That said, Tuesday also was unique in some ways that Democrats will be unable to replicate in November.

The House race was the showcase race Tuesday, drawing all the focus, and the ability for voters to make a choice only on that race because it was a special election. In November, there will be a full slate of candidates for each party, and straight ticket voting will be an option. That provides some buffer for both parties if they nominate a bad candidate in a district that usually supports their candidate.

Further, national and statewide dynamics will have more carryover effect because those will be dominating the airwaves, internet and mailboxes.

Mr. Regan also was uniquely awful. In my more than 20 years of covering state politics, I can only recall two instances where a party excommunicated its nominee in a competitive race because their views were so disturbing and extreme. Unless a pile of those candidates get through primaries, the eventual Republican nominees are going to benefit from an absolutely overwhelming financial advantage their side is building over the Democrats. Mr. Regan had no money to spend. That won't be the case in November for other Republicans in competitive seats unless the effort to torpedo the fringier candidates in the primary total fails.

There is great worry among top Michigan Republicans about the party blowing a golden opportunity to ride what appears to be a red wave building nationally because of the lack of an A-list candidate in the governor's race to challenge Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the threat of unelectable candidates getting nominated for the Legislature.

Tuesday offered some validation for that worry. While Republicans in Ohio were delighting in their party having twice the turnout in their primary for governor and U.S. Senate than Democrats had in theirs for those races, Michigan Republicans watched Democrats swipe a seat of theirs in bright red territory.