Who's on first?

The latest statewide survey results on the race for governor and the US Senate Democratic primary with political pollster Richard Czuba.

So sit in with us as we get the inside out, Off the Record.

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And now this edition of Off the Record, with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much for tuning in for Off the Record, new polling that is out in the race for governor in the US Senate primary.

And our guest is now featured in this brilliant piece of journalism.

Let's take a look.

Okay.

In the Democratic primary for governor, Jocelyn Benson has a strong lead.

She's at 66%, while Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson is at 8% with 26% undecided.

There is also some major churn in the Republican side of the gubernatorial race.

Primary wise.

A couple of weeks ago Perry Johnson was basically tied with John James, but not anymore, according to Detroit Chamber of Commerce pollster Richard Czuba.

Mr.

James is now at 37%.

Mr.

Johnson, despite spending millions of dollars on T advertising, has moved to 20%.

So what's going on here?

John James has run for office multiple times statewide.

He has a relationshi with Republican primary voters already.

These are the hard core of the hard core Republicans.

So he has a relationship with them.

Perry Johnson is just developing that relationship with them in third place in the GOP primary for governor.

Mike Cox, 10%, Aric Nesbitt, 7%.

And Ralph Rebandt at 1%, with 23% undecided.

Several weeks ago, in the Democratic U.S.

Senate primary, Abdul El-Saye was basically tied with Mallory McMorrow, but now Haley Stevens has moved into a statistic a dead heat with Mr.

El-Sayed.

Mr.

Czuba sees two different lanes for winning this primary, starting with Miss Stevens.

She is leading b more than 20 points in Macomb, Oakland and West Wayne.

Abdul El-Sayed very clear pathways for him also.

Democratic socialists.

Mallory McMorrow.

Since, you know, she's running this strategy where she's trying to straddle the two lanes, Michigan voter will figure all this stuff out as they pick the winners and losers.

On August 4th.

All right, so those are the numbers.

Jordyn, what did you make of them?

frankly, what stood out to m most was the level of enthusiasm that Democrats and Republicans both reported in terms of being excited to vote.

This is going to be an intensely watche and intensely observed primary.

And it's interesting to me to see that voters are again, I know that these are, as she talked about, some of the the primary voters.

These ar your most politically informed, but you're seeing people who are really tapped in very early in this race, and that means that things could probably get, pretty ugly, frankly, as we move closer to the election now.

And it also, I'm looking at the comparison between what's going on in that race and what's going on with our economy in this kind of seesaw.

One day the markets up, one day the markets down.

one day gas prices are up.

One day gas prices are coming down a little bit, I will say, all the way down.

there just seems to be this unsettled territory.

And I think of Americans right now in Michiganders are saying what in the world is going on?

And I think they're shifting all over.

And I think it's a long time between now and August and what they're going to do.

Yeah, we got these big primaries kind of sort out before we start reall kind of dissecting what actually is going to happen in the big picture, economic issues in the general election.

And we're doing this while there's $5 gas on the street right now, essentially.

But in the governor's race, John James holds a 17 point lead over Perry Johnson after Perry Johnson has spent at least $10 million on television, phones, billboards, all kinds of advertising.

You can you can you can.

Money can buy essentially.

And he's still down 17 points.

It's quite a ga for against a candidate who has who is doing very little campaign skipping debates.

yeah.

Essentially.

Really kind o like dodging media in general.

John James is pretty real, you know, sort of is still in the bunker as we, as they say, you know, from the Biden campaign of 20, 2020.

And so he's been in the basement, in the basement, still in the basement, essentially.

But but he's he' still got this comfortable lead.

But, you know, there's still there's 2 to 3 crucial months ahead here.

And he could very well could be eroded.

But let me piggyback on that point.

Does that prove or no prove that him not showing up in debates has had zero impact on this vote?

No, I mean I think that, you know, Richard had it straight on the hand, though.

He's Jame as somebody with statewide name recognition already, he's ru in several statewide elections, lost in several statewide elections, too.

But I mean, to the average voter, you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who could name, you know, the governor, secretary of state and attorney general.

And they've been in thos positions for about eight years.

The fact that John James has name recognition with people is not all that crazy to me.

It's how he's going to use that capital moving forward and to the point someone made on line.

I actually believe it was former Michigan Republican Party co-chair Sean Matic.

She noted that James has agreed to two debates, but they're in July.

Absentee ballots star going out, I believe, in June.

So there ostensibly will be Republicans who vote before ever hearing from James on a debate stage, which should be troubling.

Frankly, if you are that candidate, how do you know that those weren't voters you could have convinced earlier on in the gam if you had gotten out there, it you know, it's again repeating the past mistakes of prior campaigns.

Well, James is smar to protect his lead politically.

Why get into the middle of this fray until you absolutely have to?

Because, you know, at some point the attacks are going to come and he's going to have to defend themselves.

So hold on as long as you can and hopefully you'll be the front runner by the time you get into it.

No matter what damage is done, you still remain the front runner.

But the big question mark in all this is what does President Donald Trump do?

Does he get in this?

Does he stay out?

And doe he endorse anybody at this time?

Because all of them would love to be able to have his endorsement in the primary.

Now, it may come back an backfire on you in the general, but for the primary, first things first.

Those things are important.

Well, I was just going to note too, that as part of that polling, you know, we were discussing support for President Trump amongst young voters were noted to be down.

So, you know, you bring up Trump if you are in first of all, this is going to be obviously a very interesting race because you still have to put in the Duggan factor of who's he going to draw from, what's going to go on there.

So you need to get every voter you can.

If Trump throws himself in the race and you're seeing that he's losing support amongst young peopl who are not super stoked about what's going on in Iraq right now, let alone the fact that gas is pretty much $5 a gallon.

I drove in today for 99 right on my street corner.

you know, will Trump actually will the Trump effect actually be a net positive?

His approval rating is is incredibly down.

And that to sa nothing of the economic factors that are at play here in Michigan.

Well, as far as the Perry Johnson camp is concerned, their $10 million bought them from 0 to 20%.

Okay Which is the good news for them.

The bad news, he's still 17 points behind.

And how do you make that up?

Well you don't have to keep spending.

He'll probably spend ten more million easily, in the next couple months and maybe even more than that to in July.

the pivot to the Senate race.

I mean, this is this is this.

Thank you.

Because I was looking for a second out.

This is this is America's best Democratic primary across the country.

This is this is a really fascinating race.

And really it it is underscoring this huge divide, in the Democratic Party over Israel.

you got the pro-Israel candidate in Haley Stevens.

I would she'll take a PAC money and she won't she will not apologize for it.

And then you got the anti-Israel pro-Palestine candidate in and Abdul El-Sayed and then right in the middle is now our with more tryin to sort of find a different lane between the two of them.

But there may not be another lane there right now.

There is a there appears to be two lanes.

You're either with Israel, you're against Israel, you're with Palestine or against Palestine.

And it's showed up in that democratic convention with this vote, with all these delegates.

But but be careful that Democratic convention was not a slice of Americana.

I know it wasn't.

And so be careful about generalization of what we saw there, which was dramatic.

There's no question about it, because, I mean, we know the I mean, we know because we had the results now that two thirds of the of the delegates voted for, a miracle, Mike led to the, Dearborn attorney who represented protesters at the University of Michigan in this U of M Regents race and ran out, you know incumbent Regent Jordan Acker, who was the regular Democrat from the governor on down.

Yes, he had the establishment and the establishment is now, you know, kind of looking its wounds a little bit.

But but they don't really know how to handle this situation.

This is showing up more and more.

And so, Stevens is plowing forward and probably the best thing going for Steven is Mallory McMorrow in the race, because she's going to pick off a number of people in the middle and and maybe, maybe leave a just enough narrow of enough, Lane for for her to win this nomination.

But you got this interesting battle between what's happening in terms of foreign affairs and what's going on in the Middle East, which certainly is a volatile situation.

And then, of course, what's happening at home in terms of the economy and the pocketbook issues, and which one is going to have the biggest effect on voters com August is a big question mark.

We don't know.

But I think you're absolutel right in terms of the analysis.

But wouldnt you think it leans towards the domestic turmoil that we're in?

It does and normally foreign affairs doesn't have that much weight on how people vote.

But I think Cha and Jordyn are absolutely right.

What's going on in the Middle East right now is it's leading the headlines almost every day in one form or another.

It's affecting the gasoline prices.

It's affecting domestic issues and pocketbook issues in a way that normally it doesn't.

So it's all sort of tied together.

And I'm not sure how this is going to shake out.

And you talk about that middle lane that McMorrow occupies.

I think what will be most interesting to watch is this should for especially you know, we're seeing these these attacks come out about McMorrow.

There was the release this week that she had a bunch of deleted tweets where she was quote unquote, trashing Michigan, which I would frankly argue as a born and raised Michigander, complaining about the weather is maybe some of the most Michigan thing you can do.

but it'll be interesting to see should she flame out.

And it does become between El-Sayed and, Stevens that, you know, where her voters go because you've seen, El-Sayed and McMorrow kind of buddy up.

They don't like Stevens.

Their voter constituency isn't the biggest fan of Stevens, and a lot of that does have to do with where she stands on the Israel stuff.

So, you know, will those McMorrow voters, will more of them come over to the Abdul El-Sayed side?

Will that be enough to, swing him over the Stevens for nomination?

you know, it remains to be seen, but I don't think that that's something that should go ignored the Chuck's point.

If if we have a cease fir that ends and Israel just starts bombing the heck out of Lebanon.

But Abdul El-Sayed is going t use this use the imagery of this to say they're going to they're going to do to Lebanon what they did to Gaza.

And and he he will he will use this to motivate voters.

in this primary.

And it's going to be hard for, for for Stevens to try to counter that.

If at the same tim it is inflaming all this other, you know, regional war with Iran, I mean, anything could go wrong here and I and and then add to the fuel prices, add to the angst and all thi could this kind of stir up and, and add to the, to the elements of, of what's, what's going to be on the minds of voters, as they head to the polls in this primary?

And then you're going to have a different, a different ballgame in the fall against Mike Rogers.

If you get Haley Stevens versus Mike Rogers is basically sort of a pack versus a pack, essentially a candidate.

And if you get El-Sayed or McMorrow, you're going to have a much different, contrast.

All right.

Quickly, let's let's come back to a domestic issue.

The speaker excuse me, at the House, unveile what we know is his property tax relief plan.

The state Senate moving on the budget.

There is movement there.

It looks pretty good.

this property tax thing.

What's your what's your early read as to where that goes?

Well, the House speaker, Matt Hall, wants to tie it to the budget negotiation process.

And as we've seen in the past, House Speaker Matt Hall has more often than not, when he says especially bigger ticket item that he wants to get something, he finds sometimes a way to get at least a portion of what he wants.

I know I' doing a lot of couching there.

but he is a negotiator.

He is good at that.

We've seen that historically.

Whether or not it goes anywhere, I'm really going to hold off on that.

there doesn't seem to b a ton of appetite in the Senate.

We haven't seen a level of vision or support from the governor on that specific plan.

She's floated her own, property tax relief plan for seniors.

So my gut check, it's not going anywhere right now.

And even in the house they're out for the next week.

I mean, you can be for property tax cuts all you want, but Matt Hall's plan calls for a massive, replacement tax and tax on on services.

And yet they havent.

To the tune of 4 billion bucks.

$4 billion in luxury taxes.

Well there are not enough luxuries.

that's what we're about to find out.

Look, and give him credit on this.

He announced in the news conference he's going to go to the governor's Treasury Department and run the numbers to see if private plane sales tax will raise X amount of dollars.

If he can't get to $4 billion, he's got to punt.

I mean, we the data is already publicly available.

Reporters have looked at this.

There are not enough divorced family jets, to possibly taxed, out to g after this thing going to work.

and so you're going to have to start going down the line of taxes and they're going t they're going to hit sales tax, they're going to hit sales tax on services.

On service the middle class uses everyday.

Well then they're dead.

Okay.

That's not going to be the only it'll go the way of bab baby shoe bronzing in this town.

And so going back to the Jennifer Granholm we will not work.

It will blow up.

And his his members will be running for the hills, particularly members who are in vulnerable districts in Oakland, Macomb and down River.

And what I was just trying to say about the legislatio itself, though, is that, like, it doesn't even properly define what it's hoping to seek out taxes for the people who are reviewing the bills right now even say that negotiations are ongoing and they've been kep intentionally vague on purpose, because what these are even attempting to do, they're still trying to figure it's a moving target.

They introduced an empty shell, of a bill, that can be filled in at the last hour.

and we've seen these tricks before in this town.

And this is wha the speaker is up to right now.

Chuck, quickly.

There may be a little bi movement on in some Camaraderie you've heard Mayor Sheffield talk about the need to do something about property taxes.

She talked about it in her state of the city address is an issue that Detroiters are very concerned with, especially senior citizens, whether or not they can craft something that the Ds will go with with the Rs is the big question mark but people are very concerned.

Let's call in our pollster, a veteran pollster.

Richard, nic to have you on off the record.

If I can see your face, sir, you are welcome back.

So nice to see you.

So you've heard our conversation here on the domestic versus the foreign stuff.

Weigh in.

It's not even close, folks.

This is going to be decided o the economy, plain and simple.

You know, we asked this question, particularl in both of the primary surveys.

What's the most important issue facing Michigan?

There was not one respondent in that democratic survey that said Gaza, Israel or the Middle East.

It is about prices an affordability, clear and simple.

This is not even close.

And I think we nee to step back here for a second and this is probably something operatives across the state need to hear.

You know, last year we did polling, asking people where do they get their information, what social platforms are they on?

Only 18% of the stat said they are even on Twitter, and only 4% said they use Twitter a lot.

And I think there's a whole lot of people who think campaigns are won and lost on Twitter, and that's not the case.

You win and lose primary elections by talking to older voter who dominate the August primary, and right now they care about costs.

Jordyn?

You know, earlie I had mentioned the concept of the Duggan effect.

We see Republicans and Democrats equally motivated to get out and vote.

This primary.

I like I'm drawn you know, we're assuming it goes on to the general.

Mike Duggan will not have to run in the primary election.

But you know, how much do you anticipate Duggan pulling away from either of those?

Do you pull in any of that in terms of how, Republicans or Democratic voters were feeling about him as an entity in this race?

So we did not include Mike Dugga in the primary election polls.

We've included Mike Dugga and past general election polls.

And what we saw was he was essentially drawing equally from both parties.

But I raised, you know, m doubts about this at the time.

This election is very much going to be a referendum on the incumbent president, as all midterms are.

And I have to say, Donald Trump's numbers are absolutely collapsing in Michigan.

Independents, have absolutely abandoned any support they have for Donald Trump.

I think, we're going to see it get worse before it gets better.

So my question has always bee on a referendum of Donald Trump.

Do voters simply go back to the corners they were in?

Do the Democrats galvanize their supporters?

you know, I've always sai Jocelyn Benson has the easiest path here and that is to win those voters who strongly disapprove of Donald Trump.

And the question I have moving forward is, do those, do those party members go back to their parties?

So Mr.

Czuba, do Republicans running in Michigan really want the Donald Trump president endorsement, or are they just saying they want it because they don't want to offend him, but quietly, they want him t stay the heck out of the race?

Well you know, we saw what this did in 2018 for Bill Shuete.

He did everything he could to get that endorsement and became an albatross.

Albatross around his neck in the general election.

This is going to be no different for any Republican running that they have got to figure out a way after August 4th, to pivot to independent voters who I will say deeply, deeply disapprove of President Trump right now.

And it all revolves around costs.

And we're seeing it get drastically worse because, as you all talked about, gas prices are skyrocketing in Michigan.

So this is this is an ongoing problem of the Trump era.

You know, you do great in primarie with Donald Trump's endorsement.

But boy, independent don't take to that endorsement, Richard, in the Democratic Senate primary what is motivating these voters?

Is it on these candidates in particular, the is it is it economic issues?

Is it foreign policy or is it just vibes?

Well again, there's in this race in particular, I think there's a lot of political operatives who think Twitter matters and it doesn't you know, you can you can have all the hissy fits and mean girl tweets on Twitter you want.

But voters who dominate this this election are older voters.

And they're not paying attention to you.

You're just talking to yourselves.

But I do think this is an interesting situation.

You know, we saw this, you know, convention, Democratic convention.

What a terrible way to select nominees, frankly, to just, you know, stack conventions with people from Washtenaw County.

And it does not reflect the rest of the state.

As I mentioned earlier, that convention, those delegates are deeply out-of-step with the older voters who are going to dominate the primary election in August.

They care about, you know, course, they care about the economy.

That is their primary motivation.

you know, I found it very interesting that Haley Stevens seems to be dominating those over 65 voters right now.

That's very you know this is methodical campaigning.

We're seeing, and it's not flashy, but it's the blockin and tackling that helps you win.

You know, Abdul El-Sayed has a whole lot of excitement amongst younger voters.

We saw those events at Michigan State and U of M. But I got news for that campaign.

There's not going to be anybody on campus at MSU and U of M on August 4th.

You've got to be talking t older voters to win this thing.

Historically, the party not in power doesn't do well in the midterms.

But with the recent Supreme Court decision, you know, trickling away at voting rights, will that perhaps not be good for the Democratic Party as they star redistricting all over the map?

Well, I certainly, you know, I, I, for one, am stunned to see that Louisiana just is going to postpone an election.

You know, everythin the Democrats have been saying about playing with elections, tinkering with elections is coming home to roost because very much postponing an election is a really, truly dramatic step.

And it's over partizan advantage.

That I mean, I think that should worry everybody in the country.

That something like that is taking place.

Here in Michigan, we have a bit of a buffer in the redistricting commission, and while it may not help Democrats, may not help Republicans, but it sure does help democracy right now.

And, you know, Michigan is example, perhaps for the rest of the country.

I just don't think the rest of the country is going to follow the example.

Richard, what's your take on th young men, the angry young men who voted for Donald Trump?

They couldn't vote enough time for him.

Where are they going?

you know, we are now seeing not just i this Republican primary survey, but in surveys I've been doing for the last several months.

Donald Trump appears to be developing quite a problem with younger voters, particularly those younger Republicans and independents who put him in office.

They don't like what's going on at all, and it's not what he promised them.

And so we are seeing, for example, in this Republican primary survey that, those voters under 40 are starting to slip away from him in terms of favorability.

And these are Republican primary voters.

We'll see how this looks in the general election.

Primary electorate, because I suspect the problems are going to be even bigger.

And the irony is this is exactly what cost Joe Biden.

He lost a young portion of his own party.

I'm seeing similar signs in the Republican Party for Donald Trump and, you know, we'll see moving forward.

But all indication I'm seeing on Donald Trump's job approval is that he is now in Biden territory.

So I want to return to something you said a second ago, which is that, you know this race is going to be decided on these economic issues, these gas price issues, which obviously people are hurting right now, but it's not as if the gas prices just jumped because they did.

We're obviousl in a foreign conflict right now.

So you know, how, how is that?

You know, I guess I'm a little confused how the foreign portion of things doesn't actually factor into this election, given that it's the whole reason why we have these higher gas prices in the first place right now?

Well, first of all I think we need to separate out the Israel-Gaza conflict from the Iran conflict.

the Israel-Gaza conflict is not at the top of voters minds right now.

It is at the top of a lot of Democratic activists minds right now.

But Iran is at the top of people's minds, but not because we're in conflict because it's costing us so much, because gas prices are soaring.

It's driving everything else up.

You know, one of the worst things I think Donald Trump did was to just dismiss the affordability argument, dismiss that costs were skyrocketing.

Again it's exactly what Joe Biden did.

He's making the exact same mistakes as Joe Biden made in dismissing voter concerns.

So while Iran is absolutely playing into this conversation, it's playing into the conversation because of cost and the affordability crisis it's creating.

Richard, thank you very much for doing our program.

Always great to have you on.

take care.

Have a nice weekend.

Our thanks t our panel is always next week.

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