By Nick Smith
Staff Writer
Posted: May 29, 2020 12:07 PM

With the state slowly beginning to emerge from the new coronavirus pandemic stay-at-home order a key political question comes to mind: if the candidates venture out, will the voters come?

For months U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township) and Republican Farmington Hills business executive John James have been having to campaign mostly from home due to COVID-19, as have all candidates on the state and local level.

Using phone, social media and programs such as the Zoom video conferencing software, campaigns have had to be creative in getting their message out and attempting to rally their base.

Despite being largely stuck at home (and in Mr. Peters' case, also tasked with constituent work and involvement in COVID-19 response efforts being discussed by Congress), the groundwork has been laid on both sides recently for a more active public campaign when they begin venturing out.

Mr. Peters' campaign began going on-air with campaign advertisements prior to the pandemic arriving in the state. That may have benefitted him, as spring polls showed him getting some breathing room with his lead over Mr. James.

Earlier this month he began airing more ads, focusing on China. This may have been in response to last month's reports of the National Republican Senatorial Committee sending out a memo to GOP candidates to push an anti-China message over the coronavirus and to tie Democratic candidates to China.

Regardless, those ads went live, and Mr. James' campaign recently began airing ads of its own, including an attack ad on Mr. Peters related to China.

Mr. James also recently broke a several months-long streak of not doing interviews with Michigan political reporters. For months he had almost exclusively dealt with national, conservative outlets, something Democrats have beaten the drum on almost daily. The slight change by Mr. James has been part of what appears to be a campaign reboot or re-introduction to the public after staying largely quiet since entering the race nearly a year ago.

Both candidates have several million in their campaign war chests and are expected to have national groups funneling millions more into ads during the home stretch before November, so money won't be a problem.

The question becomes, again, in a post- COVID-19 environment, if the candidates head out, will voters come?

Based on there being hundreds that have answered the calls by conservative groups to rally in and around the Capitol against the governor's stay-at-home order since mid-April, I would have to guess there will be at least some appetite for campaign events.