(dramatic music) - [Tim] Welcome back to my special Pollsters and Pundits Edition of "Off the Record" with pollsters, Bernie Porn and Steve Mitchell, and pundits, Adrian Hemond and John Sellek on What's Ahead in the New Year, sitting with us as we get the inside out, off the record.

(dramatic music) - [Announcer] Production of "Off the Record" is made possible in part by the following: Business Leaders for Michigan has a strategic plan to make Michigan a top-10 state in the nation for jobs, personal income and a healthy economy.

Learn more at michigansroadtotopten.com.

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

- Thank you very much.

Welcome back to "Off the Record."

If you were watching this on December the 24th, so be it.

We are actually taping this program on December the 17th.

And we have around this table this morning on Zoom 120 years of political experience and Sellek has 110 of those years.

Welcome to all of you.

I've been looking forward to this program.

We're gonna have fun here.

We're gonna first of all talk about a poll that was out this week, and the poll had to do with Governor Whitmer and her numbers look like this.

- [Narrator] The polling data reveals that Governor Gretchen Whitmer has a gender gap, a racial gap, an education gap, and an age gap, an advantage of our all other candidates as she moves into next year's election.

For example, a deep dive into the polling data shows that 54% of the women agree with the governor's job performance while only 41% of the men agree.

The governor gets 86% of the African-American support but only 41% of the White vote.

That's a whopping difference between the two.

She also nails college graduates.

56% favor her job approval, but those with a high-school degree, the number is 40%.

And the age gap is interesting to say the least.

65% of the seniors give the governor good marks, but middle-aged voters only 62%.

And that senior support is a problem for Republicans says this pollster.

- The Republicans are gonna have a senior voter problem.

And those are the most reliable voters there are as we know.

- [Narrator] But the number that jumps out at our pollster is the 17-point gain with independent voters that the governor enjoyed.

In September, she was underwater at -5.

Now with independence, she's at +12.

- It's a very big deal.

I wanna see if it's sustained or if it's a blip of some sort, but we're gonna keep watching this.

Independents decide Michigan.

- [Narrator] Here's a potential political problem for the governor.

With the president at 39% approval to her 48%, the governor may think twice about campaigning with him next year.

- Unless Joe Biden's numbers improve with independents, I don't think you're gonna see her being particularly close to him right now.

- [Narrator] Right now, some of these numbers look good for the governor.

The question is, will they hold?

- Let me first point out that that pollster that we all know was talking to us from Florida.

Apparently we've got the wrong gig going on here, man.

You know what I'm saying?

Let me start with a yes or no answer to this brilliant question.

Bernie, is the governor vulnerable going into the election year?

Yay or nay?

- Yes.

- [Tim] Adrian.

- Yeah, I think she's vulnerable.

- [Tim] Stevie.

- Yes.

- [Tim] John.

- Yeah, for sure.

But the Republicans are sitting on their folding chairs, watching the marathon go by and they can't seem to get out of their chair to go after her.

- Well, do you agree with that, Mr. Mitchell?

- I think if the Republicans are looking for a candidate, it's gonna be a long run before they finally get one.

But when you take a look at the atmospherics, first of all, this is the first governor to run with her party or his party in the White House since 1974 when Richard Nixon was president and Bill Milliken was running for reelection.

And whenever your president's in the White House, that does not bode well for you.

And I think that's one of the real problems she's facing, which is why she doesn't wanna be campaigning with Joe Biden because Joe Biden is more unpopular than she is at this point.

- Adrian, why is she vulnerable?

- Steve has it exactly right.

It's a midterm election, right?

Other than after 911 and George W. Bush, post-war, midterm elections are bad for the president's party and you can expect that.

So I think that there are environmental factors that make her vulnerable, but the Republicans need to get the clown college under control and figure out who the nominee is gonna be.

- Bernie?

- Well, I think that looking at the election coming up, she is vulnerable because of Joe Biden's unpopularity.

She was very popular when she was confronted with Trump in the early stages of COVID-19 and her response, but that has changed and that has had an impact.

And I think COVID is really the big gorilla in the room that is impacting just about everything.

And that will continue to do so, I think, through the election of 2022.

- John, she changed horses on COVID and some would say from a political standpoint, brilliant move, others from a public health standpoint might say, "Eh, you know what's going on there."

What's your take?

- Yeah, it's obviously a great political move and it's pretty interesting.

Like Bernie said, the governor did best in some ways during the COVID era when she had a foil, and that was Donald Trump.

He's off stage now.

And not only is he not on stage, but they showed us in Virginia that when you try to bring him back on stage as a ghost, it doesn't work.

So she's gonna need someone else.

And right now her foil is Joe Biden.

It's almost unthinkable she had a slink off to Greenville to...

It's hard to tell if that was strategic or not, to say she didn't agree with the vaccine mandate, which was gigantic news.

She didn't show up in Detroit when Joe Biden was there at the, I think the battery factory for General Motors.

So she's keeping her distance.

She's changing her tune on that issue.

She's frustrating her base.

But she needs to go bigger than her base, and clearly that's what the numbers show her she needs to do.

- But Adrian, if she's at 48%, that's pretty darn close to 50%, which is where you wanna be or a little bit above that, right?

- That's absolutely right.

When we say that environmental factors make the governor vulnerable, that doesn't mean she's gonna lose.

I don't expect her to based on where we're at right now.

It's mid-December.

It's not at all clear who the Republicans are gonna nominate.

The Craig campaign seems to be imploding.

Their biggest expense right now appears to be private security.

That's an annualized expense of about $370,000.

It's not at all clear who the Republican nominee is gonna be.

That's bad.

The elections is in less than a year.

- Bernie, you remember at this point in the 2018 election, you had broken the story.

You were at Gretchen Whitmer's dining room table in January of 2017 breaking that she was running.

By this point in the election, she had already been running for office for a full year and the Republicans still don't have their person in place.

So that's gonna be really tough.

The only reason that this is passable is one, that she had so many unforced errors on our own side even if we think she's getting a little bit better with independence, and that'll allow the Republicans to jump in, but they are definitely behind the ball right now in catching up.

- On the other hand, when you take a look at 2010, and of course that was at that time, an open seat, the Republicans finally did not have a candidate until the primary was over in August.

At that time, Snyder finally won the primary, but Snyder trailed all the way up until the last weekend, and yet Snyder went on and won a very significant victory in 2010.

I don't think that you need to have the candidate immediately.

I think that ultimately as long as Republicans nominate a strong candidate, they have a chance at winning the governorship this year, and in a large part because of the atmospherics, because of the fact that we've got a Democrat in the White House who's a Democrat governor.

So I'm not as concerned as others are about when the Republicans get a nominee.

If they get a strong nominee, then there'll be in good position.

- But, Steve, with all due respect, as Republicans cannibalize one another on the campaign trail as this thing drags on and on, they're taking on the supposed front runner, Mr. Craig, kind of making mincemeat of him.

Isn't that dangerous for the Republicans that they may have "your strongest candidate" who might be the weakest person as a result of the primary?

- Well, you take a look at the 2010 election.

That was a bruising campaign between Mike Cox and Rick Snyder and Mike Bouchard and Pete Hoekstra.

That was a real tough campaign.

And yet at the end of the day, the Republicans came together and Snyder was able to win election by a pretty good margin.

So I'm not as again, this can be a tough one.

We don't know who the nominee is going to be.

I agree with you that James Craig has certainly slid since he first began, but again, he has time as well.

- Who impresses you in the Republican field, Bernie?

- I would say Rinke.

- [Tim] Yeah, why Rinke?

- Because similar to Snyder, he has a tremendous amount of money.

He's already committed $10 million in the primary and listening to some of the positions he has taken, he is, I think, trying to be more moderate like Snyder.

And so I would think that if he can spend his way to success and also have the other candidates cannibalize each other, he would probably be the strongest candidate.

- Adrian, you're not easily impressed.

Anybody on that R side get your attention?

- The check that Kevin Rinke has promised to write is fairly impressive.

I don't know that I'm impressed with him as a candidate yet, but $10 million a lot of money if he actually does it.

I think it's important to kinda return to something that John said here about the Trump factor, right?

These candidates at one point or another are gonna have to answer for the former president.

The reason for that is the former president is making endorsements for statewide races that are gonna be decided at the Republican nominating convention.

And so just for instance, there's this fight that's been set up for the AG nomination between right to life of Michigan and the former president.

That's gonna go down in the spring time right around the time if you're a Republican that you would hope you would be consolidating around a nominee, especially when you're trying to take on an incumbent governor.

I think there are some pretty serious environmental differences right now from 2010 when you are trying to take out an incumbent governor who already has a boatload of money.

Like I said, the Kevin Rinke check if he writes it is impressive, but the governor's already got the money.

- Steve, did you see the Mr. Rinke on the program?

- Yes, I did.

- [Tim] And your thoughts?

- I thought he did a good job.

- [Tim] By the way, thank you.

You were the one viewer.

I appreciate that.

(participants laugh) - I thought that he did a good job, especially again, given the fact that it was his first time on.

As you and I discussed after that show, he seemed to take some moderate stances that you don't normally get from a Republican gubernatorial candidate.

And it'll be interesting to see whether or not he did that because it was a planned strategic decision or that's the way he felt and he hadn't had enough preparation for all kinds of questions before he came on the show.

And I don't know the answer to that.

- John, you know a thing or two about running campaigns for governor.

What was that guy's name you worked for?

Bill what?

- Bill Schuette.

I'm still waiting for the Democrats to go and testify before the redistricting committee and say, "Please put Midland back in the County of Midland.

"I don't know if we can handle two Bill Schuettes "in office at one time."

- [Tim] Anyway, so did you see Mr. Rinke on the broadcast?

- Yeah, I sure did.

Look, the comparisons to Rick Snyder, I get, I understand.

I actually would compare him to Glen Youngkin, the Republican that just stole the Virginia governor's seat.

And the reason for that is Rick Snyder would not have talked about critical race theory or election security or anything like that, and Kevin Rinke has.

He knows he has to touch on those issues.

He must have followed the Youngkin model of addressing the Trump issues even if he's not wearing the Trump mask himself.

It's something that I think James Craig is also trying to do.

- Do we agree that Mr. Trump will be in Michigan to campaign against Gretchen Whitmer?

Anybody disagree with that?

- [John] No.

- No?

Okay, all right.

I think we have unanimity.

And is that a plus for her, Adrian, or not?

- I think it depends on the part of the state, right?

Donald Trump campaigning in say Macomb County or Bay County or someplace like that is probably a plus for Republicans.

Donald Trump campaigning in Oakland County or in Kent County is potentially disastrous, right?

John touched on this before with the Republican's win in Virginia.

Part of the way that Glenn Youngkin was able to pull that off in addition to running against a Clinton bag man, was that he was able to kinda shoot the gap a little bit.

And I don't know if that's going to be possible here but it'd be interesting to watch.

- Does she make him the foil and then she doesn't have to talk about our record, Bernie?

- You have to talk about Trump because he's going to be in that room.

He's gonna be the 800-pound gorilla.

And first of all, you need to talk about the fact that gorillas don't weigh a hundred pounds, they're only about 400 pounds.

But in addition to that, that you need to... Everything is a choice, and the choice between Gretchen Whitmer and whoever her opponent is, is going to be, it's to some degree or another influenced by Donald Trump.

He's going to influence the 2022 election no matter what.

- But, Steve, the problem was running against Donald Trump is that people wanna know what are you doing for us?

We don't give a shoot about this bad blood that you've got with the former president.

Doesn't she run the risk if that's the centerpiece for campaign, that it could backfire?

- Look, I think as much as the Democrats want to run against him, what we saw in both Virginia and New Jersey was that voters were far more concerned about the current occupant of the White House than they are about the former occupant of the White House.

And that, I think, is the problem they face.

The Virginia election was watched very, very carefully.

Not too many people were looking at the election up in New Jersey where the incumbent governor almost lost with a very unexpected result in that race.

And that's again, as a result of the fact that you've got a president.

I look back from 1962 until this election, and incumbent governors who ran for reelection with their president in the White House, and in fact, one out of four loses office at that time.

The change in congressional seats when a president's got a job approval under 46% loses on average 50 seats.

So the atmosphere is again, I keep going back to that, it's very difficult under these circumstances to win reelection if you're not doing particularly well and you've got this albatross around your neck in this case called Joe Biden.

- John, you have personal experience with the Trump factor in all seriousness with the Bill Schuette campaign.

Everybody sort of expected Mr. Schuette to pivot away from him but he was so locked in, he couldn't pivot.

Was that a problem?

- I think it was in the primary, it was absolutely necessary.

In general, every time the Trump endorsement wasn't talked about, the numbers got a little bit closer.

And so at least the polling numbers saw that Schuette ended up winning running away, and probably didn't need to do Trump as hard as he did in the primary in retrospect.

But this is not established science.

No one knows the effects of these things.

No one knows how much to use or not to use.

And really what I see when I hear all these conversations, you're asking like, what kind of role or how big a role should Trump be playing?

We learned in Virginia, the Democrats learned, they can't just try to put the Trump mask on James Craig or Kevin Rinke or whoever.

They can't do that.

But we also know that Governor Whitmer is a fighter.

She likes to mix it up.

She's good at that.

She came away from some of those skirmishes with Trump in the positive that put her in the place for potentially being vice-president or running for president next.

She enjoys and needs a foil.

If we just look at Tim Skubick every day in a vacuum, some people may have a lot of complaints start to build up, but if you put them on the screen next to John Sellek, they might go, "Oh, Tim's not so bad after all."

So if the governor needs a foil, it's not gonna be Trump, she needs Kevin Rinke to get in the race, she needs James Craig to get to more potato chip factories and more charter schools.

They want that race to get started in my opinion.

- Right, Adrian, let's talk about between Dana Nessel and Jocelyn Benson, who is more at risk in the election year as we move into that?

- Jocelyn Benson hands down.

Dana Nessel has done a better job at her job.

I think objectively, she also has a more mentally-hilarious likely opponent in Matt DePerno.

So I think that both of those things sort of play in her favor.

- Oh yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

You're assuming that Mr. Leonard's not gonna get the nomination?

- I am assuming that.

I think it's a very interesting convention fight between right to life and the former president, but I'm pretty clear in my own mind about which one of those endorsements matters more for the Michigan Republican party in 2021 at a nominating convention.

A primary election might be different but in a nominating convention, the former president's endorsement is gonna win there, I think.

The other thing is Jocelyn's office is very unpopular for people who don't do what we do, right?

We interact with the secretary of state's office around voting and elections and things like that.

Most people interact with the secretary of state's office to get their tags renewed, right?

To get their license renewed, and that's a nightmare right now.

- [Tim] Well, she said they're down to 20 minutes.

- Yeah, she did say that.

- Apparently you're not buying it either, huh?

- I didn't have a great experience in October.

- All right, Bernie, is she the more vulnerable of those two women?

- Probably.

Dana Nessel has done a great job in terms of her messaging and also the fights that she has chosen to take on.

And there have been problems with the secretary of state's office.

It has improved dramatically, but that is still going to be a problem in terms of her potential vulnerabilities in 2022.

- All right, John, do you think that she is the most vulnerable?

- Yeah, same deal and mostly for what Adrian said, we are not normal, but we're on the show.

The people are watching the show, we love you.

You're not normal either.

It's everyone else that actually just has to show up at the secretary of state's office that waited forever like I did to get my license plate and my driver's license renewed.

They're not gonna keep blaming everything on COVID.

They're gonna wanna know when things are gonna get back to normal.

Dana Nessel is proven for a first-time politician, let alone a statewide politician, she's very skilled.

She is a loose cannon also, but with all due respect, she's got a pretty aggressive sense of humor.

She's gotten to a couple of scrapes PR wise here or there, but you see the seeds of what her campaign is gonna be.

She's going after the utilities.

Most people aren't excited about doing that from the political aspect, but there are a lot of people who have lost power and she's basically putting up TV ads right now saying, "Hey, come talk to me.

"Tell me all about how terrible they are."

Those are the ads you'll see her running saying, "I fought for you to try to keep your lights on."

- Mr. Mitchell, do you make it unanimous?

- I think both are vulnerable, again, because of the year.

I think you're absolutely right.

Anybody who had a bad experience at the secretary of state's office is not going to forget it, and they're not gonna have the license for a while.

So I think that Benson has some real problems there.

I disagree with Adrian on who the nominee is going to be.

Tom Leonard has John Yob working for him.

John Yob understands that convention strategy very well.

He's been a part of selecting a lot of those delegates who are going to be there.

Leonard has a strong record as a former Speaker of the House who ran a very close campaign in 2018.

And I think ultimately Leonard will be the candidate.

And I think he's a very strong candidate.

But again, this is a year in which Democrats lose races because they've Joe Biden in the White House, and I think therefore, anyone is vulnerable on the D side right now, because this race looks to me like 2006 in reverse.

2006, a huge year for Democrats.

And I think because it was in midterm George W. Bush's second term.

So I think that right now this has a potential of being that type of a year, but this time the Republicans being the beneficiary of it.

- [John] Yeah, I would add in real quick, Tim, if I could.

- Yeah, go ahead.

- You were gonna like get into a laboratory and try to figure out a candidacy that could be a Trump endorsement in a convention.

It's probably timeline situation.

He's already won at once, he's kept up office relations, he's very close with all the people.

That means there's a lot of loyalties and relationships directly with Tom that they think he almost pulled it off last time despite there being a really bad year for Republicans.

And then he got the right-to-life endorsement on top of it.

So I think the world will be watching to see if somebody like that that had their own base.

This isn't an open-house seat where Trump is picking somebody out of the blue to be the nominee, this is a lot different.

Trump's got a lot of stuff in his bucket to carry around at convention.

- [Tim] Adrian, they're piling on you, man.

- Look, they're making some good points.

Number one, Tom Leonard is clearly a stronger general election candidate than Matt DePerno.

I think there's probably unanimity about that.

The real question is whether he can get through a nominating convention.

Steve's point about having Yob on board, that's essential for Tom.

Yob is I think universally acknowledged as the most effective person at winning Republican nominating conventions in Michigan, but he's not Donald Trump, right?

And we talked earlier about, is Donald Trump gonna come to Michigan to campaign?

Is he gonna come here to campaign for Matt DePerno in advance of that convention?

We don't know.

He just put out another endorsement letter for him yesterday.

I think that the more that the former president talks about this race, the worse it is for Tom Leonard.

He seems to be taking a very aggressive endorsement strategy around the country, not just in Michigan, trying to insert himself into these races to back what he views as loyalists.

And the folks who are Trump supporters, his base, they're gonna follow him there to the extent that there is some overlap between that and the right-to-life endorsement.

That's really where the action is at this convention.

I think it will be interesting to watch it play out.

But we've heard this story before about this group, these folks from the establishment that are gonna take on the former president, and they're gonna be the ones that are gonna beat him.

The track record there is bad.

The establishment has a very, very bad track record trying to take on former President Trump.

- Bernie, who's right here?

- Well, I would say that the Trump endorsement will have more of an impact.

It may maybe only slightly in a convention, but right to life is also strong, but I would give a slight edge to the Trump endorsement.

- Have any of you thought about the impact?

Let's assume that the US Supreme Court throws out Roe v. Wade.

What impact might that have on a gubernatorial race or other races as for that matter?

John, what do you think?

- No, it's already having one right now.

I just turned on my Facebook this morning and I was greeted with the Facebook fundraising ad by Governor Gretchen Whitmer because of Roe v. Wade.

It's already having an impact.

It's gonna be potentially a hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the airwaves.

We've already seen them, the groups nationally discussing let's go target the 12 states that already have laws on the books that will kick back into gear should that be wiped out.

Michigan's one of those states.

If I was betting your money, I'd say we're gonna be talking about this a lot.

- [Tim] Bernie, do you think so?

- Absolutely.

- [Tim] Is it a game changer?

- Well, it depends what I am about.

I would think that Democrats should be pulling to see what potential ballot issues that could be on 2022.

I think we're looking at the potential of the abortion or the issue of- - [Tim] Guns?

- No, guns, there's several other issues that could be on the ballot.

And the issue of (indistinct) will also have an impact, I think.

- All right, Steve, quickly on the abortion issue, is it a game changer, you think, if they'd rule?

- If they overturn, I'm not convinced they will.

I think in Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization, that John Roberts will either pick up Kavanaugh or Barrett and they will eliminate the 15 weeks.

If they do that, 61% of the voters support abortions in the first term, but 31% support in the second term and third term.

So I think that is not a game changer.

- Adrian, game-changer, yay or nay?

- No, I don't think it's a game-changer except maybe for Gretchen Whitmer and Dana Nessel, but it doesn't change the fundamental environment we've been talking about.

- Wow, I can't believe this.

We were done, okay?

Listen, congratulations to all you guys for staying awake for a half hour.

I appreciate that.

Next week- - Merry Christmas.

- Yeah, same to you guys.

Thanks for the great show, thank you.

Next week, more "Off the Record," come on back.

- [Narrator] Production of "Off the Record" is made possible in part by the following: Business Leaders for Michigan has a strategic plan to make Michigan a top-10 state in the nation for jobs, personal income and a healthy economy.

Learn more at michigansroadtotopten.com.

For more "Off the Record," visit wkar.org.

Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production cost of "Off the Record" with Tim Skubick.

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