(upbeat music) - So Nolan, presidential politics, primary politics, they're never boring here in Michigan.

Our history is that we always make news in a way that surprises people.

This year was not an exception, both on the Democratic and the Republican side, we got a little bit of turmoil.

- Yeah, we do.

I mean there of course everybody focused on the uncommitted drive, the drive to get voters to cast an uncommitted ballot to protest Joe Biden's Middle East position and his support for Israel.

I view it as a bit of a fizzle.

Numbers weren't that high, I don't think, to make a huge difference or to send a huge message to the president.

Unless that replicates in other states, I think it's just gonna be a flash in a pan.

- It's a huge number.

13% statewide, almost 17% in Wayne County, 17% in Washtenaw County.

They were hoping to get 10.

That's what they said.

The organizers thought that would be a tremendous success.

They exceeded that in so many ways.

There's no way this doesn't send a message to the White House.

That's why the Biden folks have been here as much as they have been, why they've been meeting with members of the Arab-American and the Muslim community about it.

I think that as strategy goes, what they're after here is an audience with the President and some consideration for their side of this issue.

I can't think of a better way to have done that.

These are not people who are gonna vote for Donald Trump in November.

- And the administration knows that.

They also know that they've gotta be mindful on the other side of this issue of Jewish voters who are also very loyal Democratic voters and supporters of the party.

So it's a delicate balancing act.

I wouldn't expect this to influence the decision making on policy in here.

They make it a larger voice.

But there are a lot of interesting elements in the numbers here.

Donald Trump lost 90,000 Republican voters in Oakland and Kent and Ottawa counties, and Ottawa and Oakland counties were the counties that sort of turned against him in 2020, cost him Michigan.

And so he's got the same problems in those counties this year as he had last year.

But I think what we're seeing in this election that's unique perhaps to any others we've ever seen is the emergence of a really potent voter force, the double unfavorables, the people who don't like Trump and don't like Biden and are going to go into that ballot booth and either not vote for president or hold their vote nose and vote for the one they dislike least or vote on issues that are important to them rather than the personalities.

And whether it's abortion or immigration or the Middle East, I think issues will be more important than personalities perhaps this year based on what we saw Tuesday night.

- No, I think that's right.

And then you have this other problem on the Republican side, which is about to play out, which is the question of leadership and you still have caucuses to be held over on that side.

And neither side's banking down here, Kristina Karamo still says, "Hey, I'm the party leader and I can lose in court all day, but I'm not gonna act any differently."

What will happen though if she decides to go ahead and keep acting that way?

- Well, there's only so far you can go in defying a court's order.

I mean, that's serious business now, that takes it out of political squabbling and into the courts and she's been told by the court to do some very specific things, primarily to stop pretending you're the chair of the Republican party.

So she's gotta start turning over the Twitter handle, the empty checking account, the other paperwork, those have all gotta go to Pete Hoekstra who has now been recognized by the courts as the legitimate chair of the Republican party.

So I think she'll back down.

But the long-term impact on the Republican party of all this has been tremendous.

And I don't think even if Hoekstra is able to get people to come back together, Pete Hoekstra the new chair, even if he's able to get everybody to come back and act as an organized civil party again, he doesn't have enough time to make it into the sort of force Republicans will need to help them win Michigan in the fall.

- Yeah, I think that's right.

I think that's gonna play out even more dramatically in the state races, in the senate race, in the congressionals, and in the State House, where Republicans at one time had kind of high hopes that they could make some inroads.

if the party is not in a position to help them in the right way, I don't know that that has much of a chance of happening and it's still this hangover I guess from the effect of Donald Trump on the party that's causing all of that.

- You do have a lot of people doing workarounds.

Rick Snyder and Bobby Schostak raising money, recruiting candidates for State House races, the Senate candidates, the ones who have the resources, Rogers and Pimsleur are planning to sort of create their own surrogate state parties to do get out the vote, fundraising, mailings, et cetera, going through county parties for a lot of that work.

So there's workarounds at the state level, and in the Senate race, I think where it does get tough is to turn out a big vote for your presidential candidate and do the sort of organizing you need to do in the fall, I think it'd be very difficult for Donald Trump to win Michigan if the State Republican Party is at this level of disarray between now and November.

- Yeah, All right.

Well, another primary in the books, another primary making news, Nolan, we'll talk, I'm sure, more about this in the future.