On the next off the record, the Democratic speaker of the Michigan House, Representative Joe Tate, will join the conversation.

Our lead story, the latest polling data in the race for president in Michigan and around the table, Chuck Stokes, Emily Lawler and Kyle Melinn sit down 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 service strategic communications agency, partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

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

Thank you very much.

Welcome back to Off the Record from Studio C, new polling data is out Emily and not much has changed vis a vis who's ahead, right?

So we've got a 45/41 lead for former President Donald Trump over President Joe Biden.

You know, certainly four points within the margin of error.

But if you're the Biden campaign, I think you'd be looking at that in line with all of the other polls that have showed a similar trend and still be a little concerned, although I will say it's slightly, slightly slightly narrowing.

And of course, so far ahead of the election, this is compliments of Bernie Porn.

Right and Epic MRA.

And it also shows that if former President Trump gets convicted, then it tightens up.

It's a dead heat, 44 to 44.

But whether or not that's going to happen, he just got to look up in the sky and say, you don't know.

Well, if that's your election strategy for winning, hoping your opponent ends up in the slammer, that's a stretch, isn't it?

Yeah, it sure is.

I think their election strategy is more about making Joe Biden look competent and make him look relatable to different generations.

You know, he's finally on TikTok.

Did you see that super Bowl TikTok of him talking?

Oh, it was actually pretty funny.

I mean, I thought it was pretty good.

He was basically talking about who are you pick and the chiefs or, you know, the chiefs or the 49ers.

You you like what what do you think about Taylor Swift or, you know so it was just like little you go the rage you know and then she he said you know yeah she's in my camp or something like that hahaha.

You know it was, it was, it was very lighthearted but it was very relatable.

And I think that's where Joe Biden's going right now is just trying to relate to different generations and trying to expand his pool because this will be a turnout election he needs as many people to turn out for him as possible.

Well, you had the specter of Mr. Trump back in Michigan again in a cold airplane hangar.

How did that go?

Really chilly, according to reporters on the ground.

I was editing safely from the warmth of my own home, but actually my parents home.

But I do think that people are still swarming to see Trump.

They're still enthused.

I think that he has tapped into a base that he's held since 2016 that is just really enthusiastic.

Absolutely going to go to the polls for him.

You know, President Biden has the disadvantage of being the president.

I think a lot of people are holding him accountable for a lot of things.

If you're not happy with the economy right now, if you're not happy with the fact that you're paying more for groceries than you might have in 2019, then certainly he's an easy person to point a finger at.

All right.

So how important is Tuesday's election, the presidential primary?

In case you don't know, we're having one, It's important only from this sense for the Democrats.

They walk away with all their delegates.

So everything is going to be determined by this presidential primary.

For Republicans, it's a totally different situation.

They're only going to have a fraction of those delegates.

Then they go into these conventions and we know that there's tremendous dissension all the way to the top because they can't even decide who their chair, man or chair woman is going to be or where the gig is going to be held.

Right?

Absolutely.

So there's all this chaos surrounding on the GOP side and they still have to sort out.

Granted, a president in former President Trump has endorsed former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, the Republican National Committee has also said that he's the chairman.

But Mrs. Karamo said, I'm not giving up the keys yet.

So this is going up in court.

Kyle the real story on Tuesday is the Biden story, right?

I think I think it is.

I mean, how many people come out uncommitted and you know what percentages that is A 20% to 15%.

How much of a message are Arab Americans and people who don't really like Biden's policies are going to show up and show an uncommitted?

I think another story, though, is the degree of participation in this primary.

Look, with proposal to come in and there should be absolutely no reason why anybody who wants to vote doesn't vote.

You've got nine days of early voting.

You can vote right now today, as you're watching this program, as long as you're in regular business hours, go to the go to the county clerk's office or wherever they have these early polling sites and vote.

So if you really want to vote, you can vote.

Also, the Democrats in Michigan put a lot of political capital into making Michigan one of the first states in the country to have a presidential primary where fourth in the nation.

And the reason is because folks like Debbie Dingell went to the mat and said we should.

Michigan is representative of this country and we should have an early primary.

And if people don't vote for Biden, even though the selection really doesn't mean a hell of a lot, it's going to look bad on the Democrats.

Well, you got to wonder if the governor and Debbie Dingell are thinking maybe this wasn't such a great idea, because you have to put every election in the context of what's going on around this election.

No way they could have anticipated the problem with the Arab community in this issue.

Well, that's true.

And we already know the outcome is Biden in front are going to win Michigan, even though you've got ten candidates on the ballot, seven of them Republican, three of them Democrats, you figure that two of those Republicans have already endorsed Trump.

So we know what the outcome is.

It's hard to get people enthusiastic about this.

This does not it doesn't look anything like what we had in the past.

You know, we stop and think about Jesse Jackson in 1988.

You think about George Wallace back in the 70s in which we weren't real sure who was going to win or there were upsets in the making.

There's no upset here.

Yeah, I do think, you know, to the question about whether Gretchen Whitmer and the Democrats have regrets over this, I mean, they did miss out on maybe a month of policymaking by ending early enough for the day to put the earlier primary into effect.

And that was right before they lost a majority in the House with those two representatives going to be local mayors.

And so, you know, I do think that there was an opportunity cost here, but I don't think they're looking at this election as the be all end all of whether that was the right decision.

And I think that, you know, four years from now, eight years from now, Michigan's going to be reaping the benefits of being an earlier say.

Well, do you think that the governor for a moment wants to have this uncommitted issue on the ballot?

Well, I don't think she wants to see uncommitted at 50%, But I think if whether uncommitted comes back 20%, 15%, 10%, I'm not quite sure it changes the story that much.

But if there's more turnout for Republicans, where, as Chuck has already said, their vote really doesn't matter at all because the delegates for Michigan are going to be for Trump.

Pete Hoekstra is already committed for Trump.

They're going to have their convention for Trump.

85% of the delegates will be for Trump.

So that primary absolutely doesn't matter.

So if there are more Republicans who show up to a meaningless primary, which is what Tuesday is for them, then that looks bad because it shows that the Democrats couldn't get even with the easiest voting rules on the planet.

More votes for Biden.

It just really looks really bad.

But I also still get the sense that people aren't zeroed in, They are focused, and I think particularly Democrats right now, I think they just figured, look, Will, we're waiting until the general and the general hopefully will get enthusiastic enough.

There'll be some key ballot issues on there to help get folks out as well.

They are waiting for the matchup in November.

Well, you know, the people that are pushing this uncommitted thing and we had Andy Levin on the show last week pointed to Barack Obama, who and they who came into it, who didn't come into Michigan, but there was a 40% vote for him.

But let me submit to the jury that the Barack Obama phenomenon that got a vote, enthusiasm there is not the same situation we have here.

No, no, no.

Uncommitted is just a protest vote, this time.

Uncommitted vote back then was for Barack Obama and everybody knew it.

This is this is to the like I said, if this is anything around anything different than around 20% uncommitted, it's kind of what we expected.

It's just a protest vote.

It's like it's a big story.

Personally, a couple of deep dive on the issues on the African-American vote, 68%.

Bernie Porn says he's got to be up around 80.

This is Mr. Biden or higher.

The independent vote is 38 for Trump, 32 for Biden, with one third undecided.

Not a surprise there.

And Biden is women winning with women, but not at the same level that he had before.

And then you have young Democrats who appear to be taking a second look at Mr. Biden and they helped push him over the top last time out.

Right.

And I think the takeaway here is that there are so many puzzle pieces.

I mean, you could move any one of those demographics, four or five points, three points in some cases, and put together a winning coalition.

And that's true for either campaign.

You know what that poll doesn't show, though, Robert Kennedy?

You know, I've seen I've seen Porns poll, 82% I saw in Bernie Porns poll?

No, not in this one.

Right.

Right.

I have seen in other polls, too, as high as 22% of Robert Kennedy gets on the ballot here in Michigan.

He could have an impact.

And the impact isn't necessarily taking away from more from Biden or more from Trump.

It's just getting enthusiasm and just another alternative and could could have an impact where he could get himself on possibly the debate stage.

Let me go ahead.

And I'm just going to say quickly, I don't think that Biden is going to get the base out the way the Democrats want, especially the young people they are going to have to depend on.

Former President Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris.

They're going to have to find younger people and people that Democrats, especially young Democrats, are more excited about to be able to help get that message out.

The age factor, even among the Democrats, is working against the President Biden, but he's doing well with senior citizens, those 65 and older.

He's beating Trump by a 50/34 margin.

And we were talking before, if you want a choice of having more young people show up or seniors show up, if you're a politician, you're going to the seniors vote and they vote in large numbers and they vote often, you know what I'm saying?

So is that a factor in this race?

It's all about getting out your your group of voters and getting out more than the other person.

There isn't any real undecideds.

I mean, what was the undecideds in this 1% percent?

I mean, 11%.

I mean, and how many of those 11% were going to go for RFK?

You know, it's just it's it's more it seems like these elections are becoming more and more about turnout elections and who can drive who's base out and who can get them fired up enough to vote because there just isn't the persuadable voter blocks.

Chuck, if you're sitting in the Biden camp and you're looking at the EV issue, are you worried?

Yeah, I think you're a little concerned because they are not selling and people are very concerned about EV and they have all kinds of questions whether it's the battery and how safe the battery and how expensive it is.

Once you have to replace the batteries and the charging stations, there's so many different issues.

And I was just in a dealership and I was after this and there was a Ford dealer.

I said, How are they selling?

He said, Not selling.

They all add to it losing my job.

If I'm a UAW worker and Donald Trump is playing this like a violin.

Oh, absolutely.

And that was one of the focuses of his speech.

I think the last two times he's been in Michigan, he's made that a big focal point.

And I think you get some grassroots support there.

I mean, there are a lot of people who look at movie and say, that's not for me, whether because they can't afford it or because their driving range doesn't support it or because they're a big fan of road traffic.

But I do think that they have a little bit of a disconnect between how ready the government is for us to embrace EVs and how really the manufacturers are to embrace EVs versus how ready the general public really is.

It's not that I don't think it'll transition there.

I'll be it slowly may be the future, but what I keep hearing is too fast, too soon.

Well, and too much.

Yeah.

You know, from the book look at the Biden White House is not deaf.

Okay.

They are reading these signs.

They are hearing this stuff and they appear to, through the EPA going to move the headline and the deadline from the third 2030 to 2032, which is an appeasement, is it not, to the union, folks?

No question about it.

It is.

And they're going to have to kind of gauge this, read the tea leaves as much as they can without totally abandoning the theory of EV is the future, because they have the automakers saying, hey, this is where we're going.

Like it or not, we may not go at the pace that everybody has been saying they want to go at, but they do feel as though this is the future.

But there are a lot of kinks that have to be done.

On the other side, you got the greens that are saying, you know what, Mr. President, you're putting more carbon up in the air.

Man.

Yeah, I know.

But they're looking at the polling.

They know that this isn't really selling.

And really the the Democrats I think have moved off of the whole EV thing.

And if you look at the governor's budget, I mean, she's really backed off compared to budgets in the past.

And I think the Republicans then have moved on now to immigration as being their top selling issue as as what Trump was saying in Waterford this past weekend.

He was going on if we don't get a handle on this immigration, whether we're building EVs or we're building gas powered vehicles, they could be taking your jobs, people.

And so this is the issue.

You got to be focused on.

All right.

Let's call in Speaker Tate on that ominous note and get his his take on this.

Mr. Speaker, welcome to Off the Record.

Nice to have you with us, sir.

Thanks for doing the program.

You just heard our conversation here.

Is the EV issue a political liability for you as you look at hanging on to control of the Michigan House?

Sir?

No, I don't think so Tim.

I mean, when we're looking at what House Democrats have accomplished over this past legislative session, you know, our focus has been putting people first.

So we've been lowering costs.

We've been focused on gun violence reduction.

We've been ensuring that everyone is treated equally before the eyes of of the government.

So we're going to have our message.

We already have our message in terms of what we're looking at for 24.

I don't think that's going to impact us and we're going to come out and we're going to win and we're going to expand our majority.

Mr. Speaker, your critics would say you're whistling through the graveyard because your friend, Mr. Trump, is out there just hammering away on UAW.

If UAW folks are bad in your House candidates, you are in trouble, are you not?

Well, that's the great part about about the state house, because we're the closest to our constituents.

So you're going to see us do our work, obviously.

But talk about our message.

And our message has been, at the end of the day, putting people first.

And we know, you know, that our voters, you know, they're going to see us out there.

We're going to talk about the work that we've done, which has been very popular work in terms of what we've been doing and governing at the end of the day.

And I think that's going to bode well for us this year.

So that's going to be our focus.

That's going to be our focus as as House Democrats for us.

Mr. Speaker, with Donald Trump on the ballot, Republicans are very excited about their prospects in the House districts currently represented by Democrats in the downriver area, Macomb County and Northern Michigan.

With Joe Biden on the ticket for you, where do you think that the Democrats have opportunities to be successful where Republicans currently represent the state House?

I think there are a lot of opportunities for us.

I mean, when you look at Oakland County, you look at other parts of southeast Michigan, the work that we've been able to do, I think is really going to bode well.

So I mentioned Oakland County.

You've seen how we've been doing work there.

We've seen the legislation that we've been able to pass in particular around commonsense gun gun reform, gun violence, gun violence reduction.

So I think that's going to resonate there.

You look at other areas in southeast Michigan as well, too, and to western Washtenaw County and to Jackson County.

I think you're going to see a lot of opportunities there.

And we have a message.

And I think that at the end of the day, voters, Michiganders want us to actually get things done.

And we've been doing that.

Mr. Speaker, when Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel and the late night comedians are making fun of the president's age and his, quote unquote, mental aptitude, doesn't that present a PR problem for you, the Democrats, especially with young people, rather than the day that President Biden has, has my full throttled support.

And I'll tell you why, because he's been getting things done at the end of the day.

And I think I would flip that a little bit because the president, he's been showing leadership.

He's been yeah.

At the end of the day, getting things done.

Chips in Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act.

But also I think people discount his institutional knowledge his wisdom as as well too.

And when you'll likely see, you know, who the Republican nominee is as as we know who who that will be, there's going to be a comparison there.

And I would put the president's record up against anyone's where record at the end of the day.

So I think, you know, once this election gets closer and people start paying attention to it, they're going to see that Joe Biden has been doing this work for Americans, has been getting things done.

I think that's really going to that's really going to resonate in particular in Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, you're leading an evenly split house at this moment.

And April, there should be a special election that changes that.

What are your sort of top two or three bottled up priorities that you haven't been able to accomplish in the last few months that we should be on the lookout for in April?

I think everything for us, Emily, starts with the budget.

I think, you know, we're continue to do that work.

I mean, you know, we had a really what we came out with last fiscal year, I think was huge just in terms of of getting to Michigan residents.

I think we want to ensure that that we continue that work.

So whether it's, you know, universal breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren, we also talk about mental health supports, investments that we made there as well, too.

So I think we want to make sure that we're keeping that up as we go along.

Secondly is looking at where are other areas that we can lower costs for Michigan residents.

We know that, you know, we did one of the largest tax cuts targeted tax cuts last year with expanding the ITC and eliminating the pension tax, where those are the areas that we can look at and I think to community economic development is going to be a continuation.

You know, you look at the House in terms of what we've done, what we passed out of the House with the R&D tax credit.

I think there are some other components as well, too, because we want to be able to show that, you know, we want to be competitive as a state with jobs and with private investment.

Mr. Speaker, you've gotten an anti hate resolution passed bipartisan in the legislature.

You've also taken swift action against a Republican state representative.

What's the message as we sit in Black History Month?

I think the message, Chuck, is when you look back at history, you know, no civil society has ever been sustained in terms of how they govern when they try to marginalize people or divide people.

That was the focus of that resolution.

We know that our words have action.

And if you are a member in particular, a member of of an elected body, you know, there is a standard that you have to have.

I mean, you still have the, you know, your right to freedom of speech.

But at the end of the day, what does that come with it?

And, you know, in the House, that's something that that we don't support.

That's not us, because we are a consensus building body.

And once you start marginalizing people, that doesn't work out in the long term.

It's not good for the state.

And it also looks at, you know, safety issues and concerns as well, too.

That's a priority of mine, making sure and ensuring my colleagues are safe while they're working, staff is safe while they're working, and people that visit, visit the people's house are safe while they're in the Capitol.

Very quickly, are you violating his right to speech, even if it may be unpopular?

I am not, Chuck.

I am not.

I do have discretion in terms of of, you know, how we do and how we operate in the House.

But, you know, those members are still representing their constituents, still pushing the button, still voting, still having those opportunities to.

At the end of the day, so that that's still there.

But again, my focus is going to be ensuring that, you know, that there are people that walk through the Capitol, though, are safe.

And then also rhetoric around racism and xenophobia and Islamophobia that doesn't have a place.

Mr.. Mr. Speaker, are you ready to restore the the services that the representative had that you took away?

Have you sent the message, are you willing to give back this office staff and the money and the like?

No, Tim, I'm not ready to do that.

Why not?

I think at the end of the day, as I mentioned before, I do have discretion around that.

But I want to make sure and ensure that, you know, those that type of rhetoric has no place in the House.

And just to take that a little bit further, I think we all remember I was a member here when there was a dress rehearsal for January six in Michigan in April of 2020.

We saw what took place on January six as well, too.

There was a big part of that was was the rhetoric of elected officials.

I am not taking any way, any members away their rights, away from what they need to do for their constituents or how they need to represent them in Lansing.

But also, I want to ensure that our institution maintains its decency, because I believe from the bottom of my heart that that is an expectation of Michigan residents that we have to get things done.

We have to work together.

We have to be able to compromise and division is not is not a part of what the House should be represented.

Our speaker, there was a representative who is camping out in front of your office this past week, Steve Carra he was trying to make the point that the budgets that have been passed recently have included money for programs to help black owned businesses.

And he says giving that's giving preferential treatment to a certain group of people.

Does he have a point in bringing that up in comparing it to the situation we've been talking about here with Josh Schriver?

So first off, I think with Representative Carra, it was a little bit perplexing to me that he wanted to camp out in front of my office.

That's something that he'll have to talk to his constituents about, those that are his bosses, because I feel like his time could have been better use than camping outside of my office.

Secondly, I think when you look at the work that we do at the end of the day and again, our caucus, my caucus model, House Democrats, has been putting people first.

So how are we positioning everyone across the state to have those opportunities?

And, you know, that's just a part of a larger a larger budget.

But when you look at the deliberations that we had throughout the budget process, as you all know, it's several months long.

And for Representative Carra to now bring something like this up is is in a way a little bit confusing to me because this could have been something that as we were going through the budget process, he could have had conversations with me.

But now instead he is camping out in front of my office.

Mr.. Mr. Speaker, you just said what you just said moments ago, that we need to work together.

How would you describe your relationship with the House Minority leader?

Mr. Hall, or do you have one?

Yes, we do.

We do.

I think both of us are building off of that building off of that relationship.

We're having conversations.

Obviously, we don't agree with everything.

But at the end of the day, my priority and I would like to to continue to work together in a bipartisan fashion.

We're going to continue to have those conversations as we go along.

Do you trust him?

He is a colleague of mine.

And I think at the end of the day, I think we're working to continue to to build that that trust.

At the end of the day.

But the conversations are ongoing.

So I'm looking forward to continue the working with him.

Likewise, Mr. Speaker, we look forward to working with you as you guys come back to town.

Thank you for doing off the record.

Appreciate it, sir.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you, guys.

Everybody have a nice weekend.

Okay.

See you for more Off the Record, next week.

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