Thanks for joining us during this special correspondents edition of Off the Record, We'll look at the race for president in our state.

And it is tied.

Efforts to disclose money in Florida.

One key accounts appears to be on life support.

And an update on the U.S. Senate race around the table.

Chuck Stokes, Samantha Schriber, Jordyn Hermani and Bill Ballenger 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 service 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.

Welcome to Studio C on this Friday morning.

And lots going on.

A new poll is out that the presidential race in Michigan is a statistical dead heat.

It doesn't get any closer than this, 45%, Mr. Trump, 44%.

Mr. Biden 11% on the fence, which means in four of the most critical swing states, this race could go either way.

The two are basically tied.

One of the X factors in this too close to call contest is the third party candidates, including Robert Kennedy Jr, who gets 5% in Michigan.

And when you factor that in the race between the top two contenders, still a statistical tie.

The most important issue for voters is the economy.

Republicans think they're ahead on that front.

Democrats believe their stance, however, on saving the democracy favors them.

But that finishes a distant second to the economy with Labor voters another time.

And Mr. Trump holds a nine point lead with the all important independent voters.

Another X factor, the Hush Money trial in New York.

50% of the electorate say the trial is appropriate, 43% conclude it's a witch hunt.

But if Mr. Trump is convicted, 32% in Michigan would be more likely to vote for him.

Only 29% would be less likely, and 39% say it doesn't make any difference.

One element also at play, two critical issues on two different fronts with two different results.

We continue to see issues at the southern border and Republicans really message on that.

That could further hurt by it.

However, if you see more and more of some of these states like Florida, Arizona passed these very stringent abortion bans in their states, that could end up helping the president as well.

When undecided voters were pressed to make a decision, Mr. Trump opens up a four point lead, which is just one point higher than the margin of error.

So somebody tell me, Samantha, why this race in Michigan is tied.

I think the number and I like that “huh ”.

Exactly.

Well, I am anatomizing all the different dynamics at play here.

But I think the number that really sticks out to me when we watch that video is how nearly 40% of voters said that regardless of if Trump is found guilty amid this kind of series of court trials, etc., they said it wouldn't really impact their decision.

So my question after watching that clip is, have minds already been made up?

Yes, frankly, I mean, if you have almost half of the people that you're surveying saying it doesn't matter if a court of law, if a jury of his peers finds him guilty, I already know I'm going to vote for him for president.

And at that point, if that is the litmus, if that is the line and you say, no, I'm fine with crossing over that, in my mind, there's nothing that Trump could do to lose those individuals, which is pretty much an uphill battle for the Biden campaign.

I mean, how do you continue to court voters or maybe draw away those RFK individuals, those people who might go third party when you know that your opponent has individuals who are willing to vote for him regardless of if he's found guilty in a court of law?

You know, I think what it says is that the majority of people aren't wowed about either one of these candidates for a multitude of reasons.

And we know one thing for sure, the undecideds are going to decide this election on all different levels.

The undecided vote is huge and how they're going to crack down on it as we get close to November, we'll just have to wait and see.

There are all sorts of issues, whether it's the economy, whether it's, you know, democracy, health care.

We saw some of those numbers.

39% say it's the economy and only about 8% are saying it's democracy.

You know, I just have a funny feeling people aren't being totally truthful.

to pollsters.

Goodness gracious.

Let me write that down.

Simply lying to pollsters.

But what else is new.

Billy?

I just say, actually, Biden is doing less poorly in Michigan than he is in the other six states.

Yes, this poll covers seven states altogether.

He's, you know, virtually tied one point difference.

I mean, some of the other states, it's like 4%, even one, I think maybe North Carolina, 7%.

So what's astounding to me is that Trump is ahead in all of these states.

I mean, yes, it's extremely close, but there are all sorts of factors here in Michigan, the RFK factor.

But don't forget Jill Stein and Cornell West, those take completely away from Joe Biden and Jill Stein on the ballot in 2016, helped cost Hillary Clinton Michigan.

Yes, it has been again.

But the latest wrinkle is the Kennedy thing is taking more away from Trump, it looks like.

Yes, in Michigan, it's about even in some of the other states.

There's evidence both ways.

But let's say it's a wash. And actually that's what most people are thinking it is right now.

RFK not thinking that he's going after Kennedy.

He's going after.

But the Biden people are really after getting RFK off the ballot.

But again, if that's tied and that's a wash, even though it's a and Daniel, percentage of the electorate, Jill Stein and Cornell West, 3% between them that could make the difference in Michigan.

I additionally want to know that what is the Biden camp thinking when they look at these numbers?

What are they going to do to improve Biden's capacity to connect with these individual voters, especially the undecided purple voter of Michigan?

And I can't help but think about one week in March where you had Trump, Donald Trump come to Michigan, come to Grand Rapids fairly quickly to talk about the subject of immigration following the death of Ruby Garcia in Grand Rapids.

Meanwhile, Biden had some of events, but he wasn't actually there to speak at them.

He was using surrogates.

He was using UAW President Sean Faine.

He had U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, acting Labor director Julie Su and I can't help but wonder when individual voters look at this use of a surrogacy led campaign, does that make them continue to further question Joe Biden's cognitive capacity to run for president successfully?

It's a double edged sword, right?

You bring up the cognitive capacity thing that people have talked about a lot.

His his sort of stuttering, his his, it seems, inability to string synthesis together sometimes on the right, especially that that's how that's being panned.

But so keeping him out of the spotlight could serve more good in their mind.

I mean, you look at these polling numbers, too, Whitmer's polling ahead of Biden.

Almost 50% of Michigan voters approve of of Whitmer.

The other day, she was in Flint hosting a roundtable on abortion, which is another issue that Democrats are again hoping to plant their flag again like they did in 2022.

You know, they have individuals like her who are polling well on behalf of Biden.

There is, you know, wisdom to suggest that you're much more likely to come on in if you are believing in another politician who then believes in, you know, this politician that could for some I'm not saying for all be something that brings them over the edge or something that continues to solidify them to go for.

Her as the surrogates are popular.

Yeah, I agree with you.

They got to be very popular.

They have to be notable.

I mean, I don't know how many individuals are really hinging their vote on acting labor secretaries.

Endorsements.

I would work.

Yeah, exactly.

With with even with Governor Whitmer having her fight.

Can I do I say fight like heck or am I allowed to use the other word?

Yeah, she has her.

You do have counsel.

She has her PAC zooming in on abortion and reproductive issues.

And people are going to those events.

And she's talking about Biden, but she's also talking about how the abortion issue has played in the state of Michigan.

But I also wonder, does that increase the lack of enthusiasm for Biden that people say, I voted for Biden in 2020, hoping that he would just be a one term transitional president.

And here I am having some of these candidates, some of these political leaders who I would love to explore more, but they're not the ones running.

Instead, it's Biden.

Part of the White House strategy is be very careful about when you're bringing Biden out because of the age and the energy and all those things.

I think they're using the surrogates because some of these surrogates are much more in tune to the electorate and will excite more people to get out, whether it's Obama or down the line.

But I think they're going to roll Biden out.

I mean, we already see signs of it.

He's coming to Detroit.

He's going to be the main speaker at the largest sit down dinner in the history of this country.

He's going to Morehouse.

And the N.A.A.C.P.

and with Reverend Wendell Anthony, who I'm sure is going to give him the longest introduction that any minister has ever given in prayer and prayer.

He's going to Morehouse College, the seat of where Martin Luther King was educated, my alma mater.

That's strategically planned to be able to address protest and civil rights.

There's already alumni letters.

They've gone out to all alumni saying we welcome him coming.

Protest is important.

It's part of the history of this university.

But we also recognize this is a day for our proud graduates.

We can do both.

We can agree to disagree.

Now, how he uses those platforms is going to be the key.

So the question is, do governors have coattails?

I cannot remember a michigan governor coattailing anybody into the White House.

I don't think even if Whitmer is popular and I think she would be a good surrogate for Biden here in Michigan.

She's not going to pull him across the finish line.

in my opinion.

Although people are saying that's exactly what she needs to do.

People who wish her well in her future ambitions would perhaps suggest that.

But I don't think she's either going to be able to accomplish that in terms of helping Biden and whether it helps her in the future.

We'll wait and see.

Well, it's tied and this is early.

I mean, you've got to say on all this polling data which way we have to give credit to Emerson College, the Hill and to Nexstar Broadcasting for doing the poll.

But this stuff is going to change six ways from Sunday, and who knows what happens next if they get a peace settlement in the Middle East.

Does that change everything?

Huh?

It could.

It could.

You know, honestly, though, if four years ago people said we'd be in this situation today, that Donald Trump, with everything facing him in litigation over the next four years, which has happened in his ongoing now, would be in this position leading in these seven battleground states with everything that's going on.

It's just kind of hard to believe.

Well, it underscores, again, Mr. Trump's resiliency with his base, as you suggest.

I remember after the Hollywood bust story broke, remember, there were Republicans in this state that said he's done, he's absolutely toast.

This race is over.

That has been proven wrong over and over and over again.

Look at the statistics that just came out in the poll where there was actually a slightly higher plurality, wasn't there?

If he's convicted, do.

Vote for.

Him, they'll vote for him more than the people would say.

I'm less likely.

That's amazing.

Amazing.

I must be fairly transparent that I'm a bit embarrassed because I have gone on the show before and I have said I feel like Donald Trump is done with endorsements, done with goodies.

He's just focused on himself.

Who did he endorse this year that was a huge factor in that primary race.

He endorsed Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate.

And we're going to get to that in a moment.

But first but first, stay tuned.

Boys and girls.

There was a good a bit of angst around this table about the governor allegedly going to cut the auditor general by 38%.

Right, Right, people.

Oh, my God, The sky is falling.

Matt Hall is in conniption fits.

Okay, Well, turns out it's probably not going to happen.

Let's take a look.

The Auditor General was hired by state lawmakers to bird dog the spending of Michigan governors.

And recently the House Republican leader Matt Hall raised a stink when it was reported that the governor released her new budget for the auditor general with a 38% cut to the Auditor General's office.

The Auditor general argued the cut would undercut his ability to bird dog this governor's spending.

Well, the governor's office reported it never intended to cut the budget.

And now, in fact, six news has learned.

Apparently that will not happen based on this new budget information.

The Democratic Senate chair, John Kerry, who helped set the auditor general's budget, is inserted a 5% increase for the agency and not a 38% cut on another matter in the aftermath of the Flint water crisis, State Attorney General Dana Nessel charged both Governor Rick Snyder and his right hand man, Rich Baird, with crimes associated with their conduct in that crisis.

They pleaded not guilty.

All of the charges have now been dismissed.

But now comes Mr. Baird, who has filed a notice of intent to sue the attorney general, the current governor and the Wayne County prosecutor for alleged malicious prosecution to the tune of $1 million.

Witness this exit interview in 2019.

Mr. Baird did concede that given a chance to do some things differently, he would not have trusted the information they were getting from state officials.

I was too naive to actually understand The best thing that we could have done back at that time is go to some independent entity and say, advise us on what the hell was happening here.

All right.

We'll get to Mr. Baird in a second.

And let's take you in reaction to this Auditor-General's story.

Mr. Ballenger Finally, justice is done.

I mean, the auditor.

Is never going to cut the thing.

Well, she's gotten a lot of pushback, I think, from a lot of people, not just Republicans and, you know, the auditor general as we pointed out a couple of weeks ago, was once an independently elected official until the present constitution, and it's supposedly nonpartisan.

Now, the Democrats behind the scenes have been pushing back on this narrative that we're beating up on the auditor general saying, well, he's a different kind of auditor general.

He's a Republican hack hack.

And and so they pushed back, but it didn't work.

And John Cherry stepped in and a 5% increase.

And that's probably what it should be.

And I was amazed that when this story first broke that the governor's office didn't offer the explanation upfront, which was we had to put a number in the budget as a placeholder through, which means were open to negotiations.

Was that an unforced error?

I, I think one thing that is worth mentioning amid all of this is that even during a Democratic trifecta in Lansing, there still is utilization of the office of the Auditor General, not just Republicans sending letters over to them, but Democrats utilize said they look into their reports while making policy decisions so as to why why the governor did not provide a quicker explanation.

I can't help but feel like there are a lot of various items in this executive budget recommendation and now coming forward with the legislative budget recommendations that are just fairly weighty.

And I have no idea what the final product is going to look like once they actually get into that negotiation room.

The Auditor General is appointed by the legislature, not the governor, the one appointed statewide official by the legislature.

So it's a big deal with the legislature.

And I think they got their backs up a little bit and said, look, you know, this is our guy.

We pick and let them do the job.

I know that they are the the Whitmer's office is saying that they never intended to cut.

And I don't ever think that the auditor general's budget was going to sincerely get cut when everything was said and done over the finish line.

Optics on that were rotten.

But yeah, I'm not I still don't understand.

You know, when I talk to the Auditor General, I asked for the last ten years of budgetary numbers and the number that Whitmer floated in her initial executive budget would have cut it to beneath 2015 levels of funding.

Why do that?

I'm not quite certain.

If you want to start a conversation, I don't know if the right way to do it is to throw a grenade into the middle of it.

But that's kind of what happened.

We saw the pushback and it's going to get funded.

This is all sort of going to be water under the bridge in the end.

But yeah, I guess I'm not quite certain why even start the conversation that way when if you wanted to have a negotiation, then maybe propose a 1% decrease instead of a 38%.

Don't you think?

Whether it was obviously wasn't successful, But don't you think originally the intent partly on Whitmer's part was to send a message in saying this office has gotten a little bit too partizan for our taste and we're going to send a message and let you know that if you don't clean up your act, I have ways of being able to do it.

It did.

It backfired.

But I think the message was still sent.

And I don't know if I buy that, though, because, you know, we talk about all of those audits that, for instance, there was the audit of the 2020 voter rolls that vindicated Democrats, that said, yeah, you know what, 99.9% of people who voted in 2020 were living, breathing Michiganders.

And when we did see the end of a dead individual's vote, it was people who mostly turned in absentee ballots and then happened to pass away before Election Day.

They got maybe counted.

I actually am not remembering the totality of that audit, but, you know, there's that one there's the nursing home audit that found that there was no attempt by the administration to like, cover up or hide these nursing home deaths.

And, you know, for COVID.

Yes.

And so that I guess I'm not certain why Democrats are trying to make this a fight when many of these audits, if we'd spent more than 30 seconds worth of a talking point to look at, they do back up a lot of what Democrats have been saying.

And if we expand this scope to look at the budget making process overall, I mean, this coming week, we're going to see the Senate and the House chambers really ramp up their votes on these budget recommendations that they designed, which is essentially Democratic leadership in these individual chambers, saying, look, Governor, you had your executive recommendation, but this is what we want and this is what we're willing to fight for.

For example, Senate Democrats, they want 150 million to go toward housing, affordable housing programs.

There's an emphasis on child care, a feeling that the governors my budget recommendation didn't have enough of a focus on infants through three year olds, and they want some child care stabilization grants.

There's an ongoing conversation of we want more money to explore public transit possibilities in our states.

Progressives are going nuts over that.

They really, really want to get on that train.

They really.

Do.

Take a sip of your water.

Every time someone talks about public transit.

I mean, I think there is I think higher education is going to be a huge budget to look out for what's going to be the future of the Michigan Achievement scholarship as the governor has an ambition to someday see a universal community college system.

There's a lot of different moving parts that we're going to see the battle begin on.

Let's turn to the Baird story.

Were you surprised he he didn't say, I'm going to sewer.

He'd like to sit down with Mr. Nessel, and he gives $800,000 back that it costs to an.

Attorney getting to negotiations.

And they may very well Senate negotiators and they never really get it.

Do you think, Nessel for a moment is going to sit down with Baird's attorney?

I don't think she's going to want to if she gets enough pressure and figures out that may be the better way to go, then she might do that.

But it may very well get into the legal system and he may have some grounds for this.

You know, when the Supreme Court threw it out and said, look, this one man jury was not legal process and he's now saying, you violated my due process, you you caused me problems financially, you caused emotional stress.

He's going to try to make you know, hey, out of this for $2.1 million is what he's threatening here.

What's the threshold for proving malicious prosecution?

Do we put Dana Nessel on the stand and say, did you want to get the governor?

That would be an interesting question, wouldn't it?

Yes.

I mean, I think a very high threshold to prove that.

And remember, Baird wasn't exonerated.

I mean, it was just that the Supreme Court threw the whole kit and caboodle out on the one man jury basis.

I don't think that you're going to have negotiations between Nessel and Baird at any point.

Well, then hes going to sue her.

Well, he's not going to he's not going to sue the governor.

He put the governor in just to get her attention.

Right.

Well, he's mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore.

We're not that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's move on to the US Senate race.

We have the polling data out 54.

This is Republican primary.

54% of the people are undecided.

An incredible number or not so incredible given the point where we are.

I would argue not so incredible.

I do think it is mildly funny considering that there are two former congressmen running for Senate and the Rogers is the more well known individual, which is slightly funny because I'm Justin Amash, who represented the third District in Congress until recently.

He is the more recent congressman, and I believe he only polled at about 8% recognition.

So, yeah, I mean, it just kind of underscores the fact that Republicans are playing catch up here.

Obviously, they had to tangle with the Trump administration of the state Republican Party that did not do many favors towards recruiting candidates, getting our ducks in a row for running for things like Senate or various state houses, US House districts.

So, you know, it's an uphill battle.

But if there's anybody who could potentially do it out of that cohort of Republicans, I do think it's Rogers who would be able to overcome that lack of recognition.

I mean, he does hardly have a tenure, a track record that he can point to that some of the others in the race, for instance, maybe like Sandy Penzler cannot, he has money and most importantly, he has that coveted Trump endorsement, which is I somewhat read between the lines when Peter Meyer dropped out of the US Senate race very shortly after filing all of his signatures.

But that's kind of what it's going to take to win Rogers being that middling candidate that has the Trump endorsement, but also can say, well, you know, I've done some things that the former president may not be as enthused about.

So I can walk that middle road for you.

Republican voters who may not be as enthused about a Trump endorsement, who.

Have said in the poll, I mean, it's virtually tied margin of error.

You're talking about Biden.

Trump It was 40 to 40.

SLOTKIN Over.

ROGERS In the general election in that matter.

People are not focused on this Senate race yet.

Number one, there were zillion candidates going into the primary.

Some of them got weeded out because they couldn't get all their signatures in.

We still have a lot of candidates in the race.

And I think until they get past that primary and it becomes a two person race and ad start flying on our airwaves every 5 seconds, then people will start to focus in on this race.

And the candidate.

Is as pivotal to control of the U.S. Senate as it may be.

Believe me, there's going to be outside money coming into this and you're going to see Roger's name ID shoot from 30% up to 99%.

So everybody is going to be known on both sides, Republican and Slotkin by November.

But you're right, Chuck, we got a long way to go.

And the Trump endorsement, it was a blessing in the primary.

It might be a curse coming into the general because you can bet this luck is going to tie Donald Trump and Rogers at the hip for the hardcore Trump base.

That's going to be good for those independents in there that may be the thing that tips them over and say, I'm going to Slack.

It's going to tie Slotkin to Biden.

Absolutely.

Hes not exactly popular.

Well, that's true.

That is very true.

Talking about something that was popular and let's just do a quick afterglow on the NFL thing down in Detroit.

It was a blockbuster.

It was it was it was great for the city.

Absolutely.

National attention, all eyes were on it.

It showed this 775,000 people in Honolulu Blue could come out there.

It was peaceful.

The security was superb.

All these agencies worked together.

And it was it was people who maybe had a bad impression about Detroit to see a different Detroit.

And what they brought to Detroit was the last story they remembered was.

Bankruptcy.

After Wright bankruptcy, there's this skyscrapers.

They saw clean streets.

They saw a Detroit that we're all very, very proud of.

And you can bet that they're going to be other big events coming in as a result of that because they remade what the NFL draft is all about and set the new gold standard.

Well, you can't buy that kind of commercial coverage.

And I think the more than 50% of people not thinking about the US Senate race were there to see the governor make an appearance.

You had Mike Duggan announcing the mayor of Detroit.

I'm a little bit curious, were there any U.S. Senate candidates there.

On that ominous note Sam, thank you, everybody.

Have a good weekend.

We'll see you right here for 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.