Former Michigan governor Jim Blanchard is in the Q talking the presidential rac in Michigan, which is brand new.

That's our lead story, along with the results of the primary election.

And here to discuss all that and more, Chuck Stokes, Jordyn Hermani and Lauren Gibbons.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible, in part by Martin Waymire, a full servic strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at MartinWaymire.com.

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

Thank you very much.

Another busy news week a we report to you from Studio C. So what is the lead out of the election on Tuesday, other than the fact that everybody was playing golf rather than voting?

Yeah, I mean, it was it was not the most surprising election in the world.

We got the confirmation on the Rogers/Slotkin race.

We saw, you know, some interesting congressional primaries and and also at the state House level, we did see some incumbents get bumped.

Neil Friske I think wa was an interesting development.

He had some controversies, had an arrest, and and got primaried out by voters.

So while it wasn't yeah well it wasn't like a huge, huge turnout necessarily.

There were there wer a few interesting developments.

What did you make of it?

Well that was kind of what I heard from voters when I went to the polls to talk to them was that while I kind of came out because it was my civic duty, but nothing necessarily is motivating me right now, and coupled with how bad the weather was, it's no real surprise that turnout was low Tuesday.

Like Lauren said, I think the real intrigue was down at the state level with respect to state races, because other than that, everybody who was pretty much forecasted to win one.

So it was a kind of sleepy primary.

But I mean, hold on, because it's definitely going to be a rather rambunctious November.

A completely different November.

Yeah, I agree with everything my colleagues had said.

No real surprises by virtue of the fact that both Rogers and Slotkin had their attack ads already and the very next day they were all they were already pre-produced in the stations ready to go, though.

Usually they're... Their polling, internal pollin was obviously pretty darn good.

I was shocked because usually there is an let's take a deep breat before we start spending money.

And I was watching the news last night and there they were, back to back ads.

They were right there.

And then on our side of the state, the congressional race that will have the rematch between John James and Carl Marlinga.

That should be great because Marlinga only lost by 1600 votes or flip it the other way.

John James only won by 1600 votes.

So this is going to be an expensive race, a real humdinger of a race.

I don't think there's a House controlled.

We learn anything there as to how that's going to go?

I mean, not to my knowledge, pretty much.

It looks like, again, everybody who was more or less slated to win one, we did see some incumbents get bumped out in Republican areas, bu they are also Republican areas.

So it's very likely they're just going to be replaced by another Republican.

And thos and those had some local issues.

Right.

They weren't necessaril like a sign of statewide trends.

I think regardless of what happened on Tuesday, it's still going to be a very competitive general election.

It's kind of hard to say from the primary like whether someone comes out, comes out with an edge.

Well, the Democrats are absolutely more geeked now than they were prior to the election with this new ticket.

Am I right or not?

No question about it.

You know, if you just listen to all the talk radio, that's all the talk right now.

They feel that the word they're using is joy in the campaign and they feel as though they haven't felt this type of excitement since 200 when Barack Obama was running.

And it has energized, you know when you just look at the head to head picture and you have former President Trump on now the old guy in the race an you have Vice President Harris, a young, energized person, and with her running ticket, everything is just sort of flip flopped.

And so it's going to be interesting.

Now, she's peaked, right?

Well, I shouldn't say she's she's gotten a great bump.

There's a lot of excitement.

She'll get another bump with the convention.

But when you really want a peak is October.

So there's a long way to go.

So you were in the middle of all this in an airplane hangar of all places?

Yes.

Lucky you.

Yeah.

No, it was it was deafeningl loud all throughout the event.

There were people there who were so excited to vote.

I mean, I met kid who weren't even able to vote, who were at the event just because they were interested in being a part of it.

I heard the word historic tossed around a lot.

Joy, again, like you pointed out, they repeated on the stage, I heard it from the people I talked to, but there was also a sense of and it broke out as a chant several times during the rally of were not going back.

So it is a little bit of the enthusiasm that we sa during the Obama administration.

But I'd like to point out that a lot of that was genuine enthusiasm for for Harris.

How can you Tell?

Well, so because in my view, for Harris, yes, there is enthusiasm.

I'm not trying to downplay that.

But there is also another sense of we're not going back.

We can't elect Donald Trump again.

So that fire of we can't have him again in office is still there.

That hasn't gone away, which I think is the key difference between comparing this to the oh eight race and now is that while there is enthusiasm behind Kamala, you know, that was that's that's something that came about just because we kind of got Biden off the ticket and we're having a younger person to younger people I feel like feel it's important to note Tim Walz and Kamala Harris are similar in age.

I did hear that from several people that.

60 and 59 isn't it?

Yeah, he's he's he's very close in age to her.

But I have heard that from several people of what we pu another old guy on the ticket.

No he's.

He just looks older.

They're from Minnesota they have rougher winters than we do.

And I think that's interesting because I attended the Biden rally shortly before he decided he was going to be out of the race.

And you had voters there.

I'm here to see if he can still do it.

I'm here to protest because I thin he should get out of the race.

I'm here because I like him and hopefully he makes it.

It was just a very different vib from what we saw with the Harris rally in Detroit, where, you know, there's not all this uncertainty anymore, especially after the debate.

You saw a lot of despondency among Democrats, just people who were really concerned that he wasn't going to be able to beat Trump again.

And I think now there's been this at least temporary injection of hope.

We'll see how the debates go.

We'll see if Trump can get back into the get back into the, you know, the national conversation after things die down.

But it's been a really, really significant shift.

What was also interesting was, Senator Vance, are basically kind of trolling the the the whole itinerary of the Harris Walz campaign and whether or not that really is going to work because there's certain reference you look at that and say, okay, yeah, you're trying to make sure that you're staying in the news cycle too, but why aren't you establish seeing your own pattern in your own rally?

And it feels as though they're not leading the way they felt they were leading when Biden was in.

Well correct me if I'm wrong, did she not call out the audience to knock off the lock him up, referring to Mr. Trump?

Did I hear that incorrectly?

Yeah, there were.

There were several points where that kind of started to jump up throughout the crowd, and it was pretty muc batted down with like a no no.

Like, you know, we're we're trying to be respectful here.

The one big thing, though, that did get me was there was a group of protesters who did interrupt the rally several times and they were chanting, you know, th the remarks of Kamala, Kamala, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.

It's the same refrain that we heard from the Biden administration, individuals protesting the ongoing war in Gaza.

They interrupted twice.

She tried to say, hey, you know, let them speak.

It's a it's a democracy.

But then a third time, she did eventually interrupt the crowd and say, if you want Donald Trump to win, say that.

Otherwise, I'm speaking.

Is verbatim what she said.

And so that has kind of gon viral a bit and has started to kind of tear at different people in the Democratic Party saying, A, good for her good for silencing that crowd.

That's not this time, that's not this moment.

But then there's also another set of people saying, you did this in Michigan, of all places, where we have a very high Palestinia population, Muslim population.

You did that here?

You called them ou publicly and kind of disparaged the fact that they're concerned about this?

And now there is a ga in that kind of permeation of, well, we're feeling happy.

But this war i is a huge thing for Democrats.

There was that 100,000 vote protest vote back in February of the uncommitted people.

You know, in 2016, Biden only won the state by or I'm sorry, Trump only won the state by by under 11,000 votes.

This this came at a tim when the door was just slightly opening to endorsing or getting on board with her.

That Arab community was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I don't know if that poured cold water on it or not.

Well, so from from reports that I've been seeing, members of that movement did meet with her ahead of the rally.

They've tried to speak with her with respect to brokering an arms embargo with Israel and also calling for an immediate cease fire.

Obviously, the mechanisms that move global politics are huge and vast and large.

So one conversation is not necessaril going to move the tide on that.

But for what it's worth, she did speak with those protesters and then they also did interrupt her rally and then she also did call them out publicly.

So where this lands especially in a couple of weeks as the media cycle moves, I'm honestly unsure.

But it is something that's going to continue to follow this campaign.

While this campaign has problems with that voting block.

They met with the UAW.

They were in here for two days in a row, which is I can't remember the last time we've had that.

I would love to know what party they had overnight with the governor.

I'd like to know which bar they went to.

Yeah, well, that's a big endorsement.

And Harris is going to ride that as long as she can.

That's a lot of workers a lot of volunteers out there.

It's the leadership of the UAW.

Granted.

Can they bring the Trump UAW workers back?

Oh, I don't know.

That's the question.

There will be some.

I don't think it'll be the lion's share because you've got the presiden of the UAW who, you know, he's the president and he's leading the majority of the troops.

There is certainly a faction of the UAW that is solidly Donald Trump, and they're going to be with him down the line.

You saw some of their signs out there, even though Fein said this is our person and this i who we're going to get behind.

So there's a little internal battle in there, but I think the lion's share is going to go with the leadership for the part.

I would have thought.

I wondered if they talked about how to handle this issue, because that is a ticking time bomb out there.

And I have not heard her address.

Where's she going to endorse the Biden policy?

50% of the fleet by the year 2030.

My guess is she walked that back.

And I think that's also a valid poin because a lot of those arguments that are coming, at least i Michigan, are saying, you know, this is from California this is the California policy.

She is from California.

That's a a different angle, a different aspect of this.

But she does need to conside when she's trying to reach out to constituencies in the Midwest.

And and I do think that that mayb that's not going to play as well here as it may play in places like California.

Or how does it play when Mr. Vance comes in and says she' not meeting with the news media?

I mean, she's for what it's worth, she's not.

I have been out to now Harris rallies.

I have yet to have a media availability with he or anybody that that we know of.

You know, national outlet are getting a little bit of time with her from my understanding.

It was a 70 second scrum near the plane.

Yeah.

You know and but that's so for for what it's worth and I said this before know we're journalists are supposed to be the proxy of the voter if what concerns we have in Michigan are absolutely different from the concerns they have in California, in Maine, in Florida, if you're not meeting with local journalists to address local issues, there's no real way that voters in our state can understand where you're at with that policy.

Now, I have heard from other people or seen online, I should say, people saying, well, why does it matter?

She just named Walz.

She just got her campaign together.

Again.

It matters because you're trying to speak to the voters if you want to win over Michigan, which is a battleground state, you're going to have to talk to the press here.

You're going to hav to make this case to the voters, because in her remarks at the rally the other day, she said very little to Michigan, specificall other than pretty much the road to the White House runs through your state.

It was the stump speech and same thing for the VP.

Well, no, Walz speech was almost verbatim, the same speech that he gave Tuesday.

So they're going to need to get new material.

And part of that new material very likely should be, at least in my opinion and obviously I'm biased, I have something to gain from this.

But that that should include speaking with reporters.

Do the people at home go?

I could not possibly vote for this person for president because he o she won't meet with the press?

No, and because let's face it, a lot of people at home feel about our medi that we're way, way, way down.

They're on their lis and we're part of the problem.

So I think to write this, she is going to have to do it at some point.

But I think she's feelin I don't have to do it right now.

I'm going to ride this surge that I'm on as much as I can.

I'm going to go from city to city with my vice presidential pick.

We're going to get to know people.

We're going to make sure that people know us.

And there's still 80 some odd days to go.

She's got time to do that, and I think she will do that.

I also think that all of this came about so fast that she's just although she seems to be handling it very well and seems to have made a good pick that, you know, is matching up well with her, that she's there's still a lot that she has to do.

You got to remember, Biden wa running for this thing forever.

Now all of a sudden you say, whoa, you're the top of the ticket.

So there's still a lot even behind the scenes with, I'm sure, those that she's working with and say what's our policy going to be?

How are we going to roll it out?

All those things.

There's a lot going on.

And to Chuck's point too, the longer that you know, they give the generic stump speech, the less time she has to say something controversial and maybe lose that momentum that she gained just by being not Biden.

So the longer she can go without, you know, like, you know, potentially angering certain subsets of voters, as we just discussed earlier, maybe it's better.

For to the convention where they know they're going to get another bump no coming out of that convention.

That's when she's going to really be screwed.

I thought Mr Trump had an interesting line.

He said, I worked really hard to beat Joe Biden.

Now I have to beat her, whic sort of summed it up, didn't it?

Well, it was interesting.

You know, he gave a press conference at Mar-A-Lago the other day in which he repeatedly, several times referred to Vice President Harris as stupid.

So it is interesting kind of seeing this back and forth of, well, I prepared for Biden.

Now it's unfair to well, she's dumb anyways, so we're probably going to beat her.

I don't necessarily think the camp knows where they're gatherin their their resources right now.

They were prepared absolutely to take on Biden.

And obviously they thought that they could wi and potentially rightfully so, based off of the president's stamina.

We saw that during the debate.

He very clearly looked Joe Biden very clearly looked not well during that debate.

They prepared for that.

So, you know, now that they're going to have to reassess everything and for what it's worth, their attacks aren' really working at this moment.

I mean, he's tryin to call her out for her laugh.

That hasn't really seemed to stick.

They're trying to call out Tim Walz for putting tampons in bathrooms.

That doesn't seem to really be sticking.

So they're kind of trying to figure out what to grasp it right now.

And I don't know wher they're going to land, frankly.

All right.

Let's call in our former governor of the state of Michigan, James Blanchard.

Governor, it's good to see you again.

Welcome to Off the Record once more, sir.

Nice to have you on board.

Let's look.

Before Mr. Biden made his decision in your private moments, did you conclude that he did have to step off the ticket at some point?

Absolutely.

And everyone I talked to and around the country or in Michigan agree.

And so they were incredibl relieved when he stepped down.

And but what surprised me is how much energy now the new ticket has.

It's legitimate.

You're talking about it.

Everyone I talked to is really excited.

Now I'm over on the west side of the state this week, but I talked to a lot of people and so it's a whole new race.

And I thin the really interesting thing is the Democratic ticket is two fresh faces, people are still just gettin acquainted with Kamala Harris.

They're seeing how much she enjoys campaigning and people in politics.

Tim Walz of course, is new to everyone.

It's a very strong ticket, I think will carry Michigan.

By the way, there are two tour here, a tour of the new ticket.

And so I think when that ends will be plenty of availability with local press and every every key state.

At least I think that will happen.

And I don't think you guys should worry about that.

In your private moments, are you also worried that the bloom will come off the bud here and that things will fall apart?

Not at all.

Look, I know Harris, by the way, I should disclaim her husband has been my law partner for a number of years since she was elected to the Senate in Doug Emhoff.

And I used to walk down the hall five offices for me, and we would shoot the bull about politics.

So I'm comforted that he's there as well.

So she is whip smart.

And I'll tell you, I'm glad that Trump has finally decided to debate her because I think she will slic and dice him the likes of which he will never understand until it's over with.

So I'm looking forward to this race.

I'm going to be active in it.

All my friends are you know, I've been at this for a long time.

As you know, I was elected to Congress in my primary 50 years ago.

Yes.

And I knew what I was doing.

And I if I'm excited, I think that's a sign of positive things for Kamala and Ti Walz and I think for our state.

So to that point though, as we mentioned earlier, there was a small little protest that did break out at the rally with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I guess how concerned are you at this moment of that issue affecting Vice President Harris and her running mate, Walz in Michigan, considering, as we mentioned earlier, 100,000 votes were cast in the Michigan primary to sort of signal their dissatisfaction with the way that the presiden is moving on that war in 2020.

Biden only won that state by 154,000 votes, 2016.

Trump won it by just under 11,000.

How concerning is this issue for you for the ticket?

First of all, every group is important and I think everyone agrees if we could get a cease fire in the Middle East, that would be fabulous.

And that may happen.

You just don't know.

The other thing is my experience with the community of Arab heritage is there's five or six group and they can be deeply divided.

A number of the are not going to vote for Trump.

Maybe they'll stay home.

They're not going to vote for Donald Trump, period.

I mean, he's kind of curtains for any minority group and everyone should know that.

I should also sa that the community in Dearborn voted for George W Bush, not John Kerry.

John Kerry still carried Michigan, so let's not get too carried away.

The other thing is, in the Michigan primary, there were 120,000 uncommitted, but normal uncommitted is probably a little less than that.

So a lot of it is just the normal uncommitted.

It wasn't a protest vote.

I want to make that clear.

Now, there will be wor to be done in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck, Absolutely.

Heights, Hamtramck, Absolutely.

Heights, Hamtramck, Absolutely.

But we're not going to get carried awa with exaggerating the problems because we have a good, strong ticket.

And I think if you step back, the thing that bothers me is everyone, including The Wall Street Journal editorial, tries to normalize Trump.

You cannot he he not only has three significant personalities, disorders that really render of unfit to be president, but let's step back one more.

We've never had a president run again for president claiming he actually won the last election and being unwilling to concede the fact that he lost.

The second thing we never ha a person running for president who tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in our country.

These are overarching issues that every person in Michigan who cares about our country needs to take into account when they go vote.

It isn't just that the Harri Biden team has done a good job.

It is that the other side is from another world.

And then you add to i the vice presidential candidate of Vance.

And here' a guy that a few years ago said Trump is America's Hitler, he's reprehensible, and now he's on the ticket, proud to run with him.

What kind of Jekyll and Hyde is that?

So we have a strong ticket.

They have a very weak ticket.

The Democrats, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, are representing a whole new generation.

And to most voters, they're fresh faces and they're going to be very, very effective campaigners.

Sir if I could jus interrupt you for very quickly.

You know, you talk about the Jekyll and Hyde thing.

You talk about how there's thi movement behind Harrison walls.

Is there any concern that we may be repeating the same mistakes as in 2016, where in Hillary Clinton seemed very, very sure that she was going to defeat Donald Trump and then didn't and lost Michigan on top of it?

Yeah, well, I think I think people are cautioned.

I remember that race very, very well.

And I remember the Hillary Clinton people saying to me, we hope Michigan will be done by October 1st.

And I remember saying, wait a minute, when Bill Clinton ran, he was in Michigan about once every ten days.

Same with Al Gore.

Same with John Kerry.

You know, they thought with the Obama movement, someho Michigan was solidly Democratic.

Everyone knows we're a toss up state.

This is going to be probably a three point race, probably a three point race.

Also was with Elissa Slotkin and Mike Rogers.

So I don't think anyone is going to going to rest comfortabl until the last ballot is cast.

We also have a very strong Democratic Party.

I'll bet we are going to be able to bank over two and a half million votes, vote by mail before Election Day.

We're all working it and no one's going to take it for granted.

Hillary only came to Michigan about once in the fall until the last weekend and they really did.

Really thought Michiga was a safe place and it wasn't.

It never will be, as far as I know.

And Tim, you follow it.

Never safe.

Alright Governor, go ahead Lauren.

Yeah, And looking ahead, in addition to just showing up in Michigan what does the Harris Walz ticket need to do to appeal to Michigan voters and maybe bank some some of those some of those either likely Democratic or independent voters?

I think they need to talk about the future and they will they can talk about protecting a woman's right to choose, which Vice President Harris has led the fight on.

And that's important.

And that's important in Michigan, as you know, because we've had a referendum that that that allows women to mak their own health care decisions.

I think they'll talk about manufacturing.

Well the the the Harris Biden record of 15 million new jobs is a big deal.

We have a record low unemployment in Michigan.

This is fabulous.

By the way, the roads are being fixed and there's a lot of federal money there.

And thanks to the leadership of governor Whitmer that's happening.

I think I think you're going to hear more about an assault weapons ban, which is really important.

I mean, we cannot continue to look the other way in this country when teenagers can go get assault weapons and kill little children in their school rooms.

I mean, this is unbelievable.

Governor.

I've got to let Chuck Stokes answer a questio or I'm off his Christmas list.

Okay.

And we're we're going to stay and do an over time because we've got a lot of ground to cover.

Chuck, please.

All right.

Real quickly.

You know something about dealing with tough economies.

We've seen recent volatility in the stock market.

Jamie Dimon said he believes that a recession is coming at the end of this year or close to the end of this year.

What effect do you think this may have on the econom and particularly on this race?

Michiganders vote with their pocketbooks.

Yeah, I think, as you know, my original campaign was jobs, jobs, jobs are three issues.

So the economy, yeah I think we have a strong economy and it's been a strong economy.

I might add that when Joe Biden took over, there was record high unemployment and not a single vaccination had occurred with COVID 19 and the American Rescue Act and the infrastructure bill, all these things have really given us a wonderful future.

But yeah, you can't take the economy for granted.

And, you know, Jamie Dimon is prominent.

I don't know what to tell you other than we're all going to be working at it and we don't want to take any of our gains for granted.

And the last thing we want to do is go back to the era of Trump.

I mean, these guys are you know, they practice political quackery.

That's what they do.

They try to scare people, find enemies everywhere, be so negative.

I'm looking at Harri Walz as a very positive force.

By the way, Tim Walz has the ideal credential to be president himself.

All right, Governor, I got to get out.

I got to get out.

Just stay tuned.

Don't go away.

We're going to do close credit and go back for more overtime.

Are you game?

Sure.

What else you got to do?

Right.

Go to these close credits come back and wkar.org for more of our interesting conversation with the former governor.

Please do.

Production of Off the Record is made possible, in part by Martin Waymire a full service strategic communications agency, partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at MartinWaymire.com For more Off the Record, visit wkar.org.

Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production costs of Off the Record.