Thanks for joining us.

As veteran Michigan pollster Richard Czuba is in the queue with lots of new data on lots of things.

Our lead story news he's made on Mackina Island will have some comments.

And on the panel, Chuc Stokes, Zachary Gorchow 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 par by Bellwether Public Relations, a full servic strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and issue advocacy.

Learn more at bellwetherpr.com And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome back to Studi C on this Friday morning to end we were had everybody all the important people were up on the island.

We were we were holding the fort back here.

Right.

What's the lead out of there?

Apparently, we do not have peace on hand between the players in the quadrant, the four legislative leaders.

So I think maybe for the first time this year, you had the House speaker, Matt Hall, the Senate majority leader, Winnie Brinks plus the minority leaders in the Senate and the House, Aric Nesbitt and Ranjeev Puri all together for a session at the Detroit Regional Chambers Mackinac Policy Conference on stage.

And it was fireworks.

This has been building for a long time.

A lot of tension between Speaker Hall and Leader Brinks, and they really went toe to toe for people of a certain age who remember the Hagler-Hearn fight, as you know, minutes and minutes of throwing fists.

You pulled that out.

This felt like that.

I mean, there was a lot of oohing and ahhing in the audienc as this was going on.

And it was quite a spectacle to watch.

And it really seemed to underscore that this could be headed for a real crash September 30th when the fiscal year ends.

And we might be lookin at throwback to 2007 and 2009, because right now things seem really toxic.

Well, I think it all gets down to Hall.

The speaker, Matt Hall in the House and Governor Gretchen Whitmer, they have got to make a deal on roads and it's got to be folded in the budget and supposedly get done by November 1st.

October 1st.

Excuse me, October 1st.

Hall is kind of thrown cold water on the idea that a budget has to be don by July 1st, even though that's what the school lobby obviously in the news media and everybody else wants him to do.

And he basically said we'll get it done.

But, you know, he didn't say in our own sweet time, but I think he realizes it's going to take a while if they're going to get a deal.

So, Chuck, is this all for show or is this real?

And you know what I'm asking?

I think it's probably about 50/50, a little bit of both.

But I don't think it's th picture that the chamber wanted.

The chamber has worked for.

You know, they've worke very hard over the last several Mackinaw conference to try to bring people together and to say we have to work together.

And matter of fact, just recently I interviewed Sandy Baruah and he emphasized tha that we don't get anything done unless we talk, we listen, and then we act together.

And that is not the appearance of working together.

And ironically, it came righ after Governor Whitmer made this remarks and speech about bipartisanship and civility, much in the way that Governor Milliken made many years ago to the Mackinaw conference.

In good standing.

We do hard stuff.

That's right.

So that's not going that way.

But you're absolutely right.

Even though the deadline is not technically July 1st for educators they want that done by July 1st.

So they can go about planning out their budgets and making sure that they're doing the right.

And it has played off all the rancor and animus by saying, see, this is what's wrong with the system in Lansing.

Everybody throwing bombs at each other.

The two sides polarized everybody is evil who disagrees with us.

We need to all work together.

Our Detroit Chamber of Commerce, we to get things done.

And I'm the guy who can do that as an independent candidate for governor.

The speakers strategy is really interesting here.

He the House has not pushed forth and passed its idea of what a budget should look like.

That's basically at odds with decades and decades of tradition where each chamber passes a budget.

He's basically thumbing his nose at that and saying, well, why would we do that?

We don't need to do that.

I can only think of really one time where that was done.

Former speaker Andy Dillon in '09 decided not to pass his own budget.

There was a shutdown for a few minutes that year and I think, you know, at Hall the speaker is big into leverage.

And I think fo a lot of this year he has had it and it may be slipping a bit from him because the Senate, with its Democratic majority has passed a budget.

And Senator Brinks, the leade there, is basically saying, hey, how about you pass a budge and tell us where you all are at and then we can negotiate.

And I don't know how, you know the speaker can continue to say we're going to do that.

And well, your budget is ou of balance and all these things.

But until the House puts its cards on the table, I think, you know, Matt Hall i going to be in a bit of a jam.

Well, he said we're going to lower the income tax rate.

Okay.

Which is a nonstarter, right, with the governor.

That's a waste of time, isn't it?

Yeah, I would assume that.

Well, here's the opportunity.

How would lowering the income tax rate.

Look, Bill.

Bill.

Yeah.

What is in your coffee?

No.

It's going to be resisted strenuously, but I wouldn't dismiss anything out of that.

I think through the wire they're going to do a deal.

I think, like what coul the Republicans in the House do?

They could pass a greatly reduced budge that cuts spending to the kinds of programs they don't want to fund like they say they want to do.

They coul incorporate said income tax cut and they could put money, more money into roads.

Now, if they were able to do that, that would throw the the th the pressure back on the Senate Democrats to say, okay, look, we've passe a fiscally responsible budget.

We've cut taxe and we've done more for roads.

Your budget doesn't do any of those things, but they haven't done that, which suggests it' going to be extremely difficult because, you know, cutting billions and billions of spending is hard.

Transferring billions of dollars from various government services to roads is hard.

And until the House actually does that, they're going to be questions about whether they have the political will to do it.

Well, with all due respect, I think you're giving too much credit to Winnie Brinks and the Senate Democrats.

I don't think it's about them.

I think they're largely irrelevant.

It's Speake Matt Hall and Gretchen Whitmer.

That is where the rubber hits the road.

That's how things are going to get done.

And you also have a lot of pushback from House Democratic members who are putting a lot of pressure on Whitmer and saying, don't give up everything that we've fought so hard for when we had control of both houses.

Medicaid is being hit hard.

All kind of health care stuff is being hit hard from the federal level.

And now you're going to hit it from the state level as well.

Protect the fort to whatever degree you can even though you're both right.

And at the end, they kind of make some kind of deal if they're going to get.

The governo can't push things to her desk.

So, you know, you know as well as I do 56, usually it's 20.

Right now it's 19 and one.

And the Senate Democrat.

Well, I agree.

This whole Whitmer Re relationship has been the focus for sure, and rightfully so so far this year at the Capitol.

You know, that relationship between the Senate Democrats and the governor isn't especially warm.

And so, you know, you can't get a budget to the governor's desk without the Senate's suppor unless they totally capitulate, in which case you'd be right there, irrelevant.

Well, who's going to call everybody into the room and lock the door and bring, you no food and nothing to drink.

And we're going to sit here till we get this done?

Well, first of all, it's not going to happen.

But if anybody Looks nice on paper.

It has happened in the pas to bring everybody in the room and we're not going anywhere another day.

Okay.

All right.

But Whitmer is the only person who can really do this.

But will that be accepted?

I think she has intervened to tr to get these two sides together?

But their performance on the stage up there, that certainly was not giving forth any fruit, which is why I think I think more o this is show than it is actual what what might happen here, Tim, is having that type of performance before the chamber.

Now, when people get back, both sides, Democrats and Republicans, might start getting some serious pressure from the business community, which as of late has really set the agenda for this state in many respects, more so than the politicians.

And if they start getting calls from the Gilbert's and DeVos' and all kind of other folks in saying, hey, you're messing up Michigan's brand righ now, sides might find a solution but Speaker Hall has done a tour around the state of various chambers of commerce and sort of left audiences slack jawed, like, why does this guy hate us?

I mean, he he opened with.

Too away all our corporate welfare.

He did an interview with a podcast.

I'm forgetting which one.

But before the chamber event, just trashing the Detroit Regional Chamber, basically saying they've endorsed a bunch of woke policy.

Well, he based on basically he's going to call the conference call excuse me, he called the conference sort of a wing of the Democratic Party.

So, yeah, I don't think, you know, this is someone, remember, who ousted a anti-Trump Republican in a Republican primary where the business lobby was against him?

I you know, I'll bet $1,000,000 he has not forgotten that.

And, you know, he is definitely not a fan of just business community says jump or, you know, I'll say how high.

No, he's pushing back hard, you know.

But don't forget, he also comes from southeast Michigan.

He was raised in that area.

He's a pretty big fan of Detroit, likes to come to Detroit for other things.

If he starts getting enough pressure from some of the key money movers and shakers from southeast Michigan and Wes Michigan, things might change.

I think it doesn't have to be pressure.

I think it has to be threats.

And there's a difference.

Am I right or wrong?

You know, you give me an offe he cannot refuse, but from whom?

I mean, it's going to be the Republican interest that he would be more apt to listen to.

And the Republican push right now, especially at the grassroots, which is where Matt Hall is much more attuned to, is hold the line, cut spending, stop, you know, bring back some of those largesse that the Democratic trifecta put in place.

Here's the hook.

The DeVos new group that's being formed.

Okay.

And others like that going to Mr. Hall and say, Mr. Hall, you know what's at risk here?

Control of the Michigan House The electorate wants cooperation out of Lansing.

You are putting that at risk.

You are putting that at play.

Now, Are the Democrats smart enough to exploit that?

I don't know.

Does that group do tha or do they say, hold the line?

Matt Hal I think the jury is out on that.

Well, they made it pretty clear.

Ronna McDaniel Not, you know, just the they said tha that's one of the major goals is they want to be able to hold on to the House and expand and they want to get control of the Senate.

And that's the major objective.

And they're puttin all that Devos money behind it.

I think we still like learning about the Speaker Hall, Senate majority leader Winnie Brinks, Governor Whitmer in the relationship between the three of them.

And I think there is the possibility, like we've talked about, some of this was for show and we'll get into Septembe because I do think this is going to get into September, and eventually there will be they showed they could get a deal done on the sick time and the minimum wage.

Now that's starting to reall fade into view with all of that.

But they didn't show they could do it.

So I don't think anybody really wants a government shutdown.

So they could get there onc the clock really starts ticking.

The speaker did that deal with who?

Sam Singh.

Not Winnie Brinks.

That is correct.

Huge difference.

Sam Singh is more highly regarded by everybody watching the Capitol.

Very quickly, the kidnaping story is out.

Donald Trum hinting that he may rescind the the two gentlemen that are in federal prison pardons for them for trying kidnap the governor.

What do you make of that?

You know, it's it's a tough on because I thought the governor handled it pretty wel in terms of her response to it.

I don't think she overreact, but I think she also made it clear that she doesn't want the pardons.

And she very suddenly pointed out the fact that when President Trump was taking a shot at an thankfully it wasn't successful, if that person had lived, woul he want to pardon that person?

You know you kind of make those things.

She didn't quite go all the way, but it was that was sort of the inference moved, the story moved.

What did you make of it?

I mean, you know, in a year o kind of somewhat shocking things coming out of Washington, D.C. that add this one to the list.

But there has been a movement in the far right that this was not a legitimat investigation, that these folk, these two men who are convicted and are in prison were entrapped.

But these charges were brought by the FBI.

Well, and Trump appointed US attorneys.

And that seems to be getting overlooked by the critics of this.

These guys talked about killing the governor in addition to plotting to kidnap her from her Eaton Rapids vacation home.

And if they actually if the president were to actually pardon these people, there will be massive repercussions.

Should the governor have made what Trump said to her, I'm going to drop any idea of pardoning thes people here, made that public.

I think that's the question and you know, from a strategy standpoint, you could argue it both ways.

Maybe it puts pressure on him not to do it, or it could say he's put him in a bad spot where he now can't do it.

But you just you have no idea.

Knowing Trump you'll just deny ever said it.

That's a possibility as well.

All right.

Let's talk about polling data with Richard Czuba who's got more numbers going through his head than you can count.

Richard, I was thinking about you this week as all this data is coming out of the island, was there a momen as you were pawing over all of these numbers that you had a oh my gosh moment and you stopped and you couldn' believe what you were reading?

Did you have one of those?

Well, I think the one moment that really stick with me is in the policy survey, the Detroit Chamber did two different surveys in a policy survey and political survey.

And I want to applaud them because they're fearless in asking questions.

And this was a perfect example of that fearlessness.

But what struck me was the degree of people on the question of tariffs who understand it's going to cost them more, and yet they support tariffs for political reasons.

Those are Republicans.

Those are Republican that are saying it.

Very much so The other thing that struck me on the economy The other thing that struck me on the economy used to be how you viewed the economy is how you viewed the president.

The reverse is true now.

How you view the president is how you view the economy.

And you know that it is an example of the absolute polarization we're in right now, where everything is seen through the lens of political affiliation.

Let's cut to the chase here with this polarization that you're seeing in your polling and that we know exists, does this make a path to the governorship cleare to Mike Duggan as an independent and his theme than it would be otherwise?

Well, if you just have this conversation about the speaker an what happened up on the island, I think this polarization within the legislature just flat out play to Mike Duggan's conversation.

Yeah, I think it helps him tremendously.

Yeah, because it proves his point.

You know, last year we asked this question of the voters, Do you want political leaders who are going to compromise across the aisle to get things done?

Or do you want political leaders who are going to stand up for the fight party's position and fight for them?

It wasn't even close.

It was 70 to 19 for compromise.

And, you know, we saw Governor Whitmer, for example, go to Washingto and work with President Trump.

It's exactl what the voters are asking for, and she's delivering it.

Mike Duggan is preaching the same thing in a slightly different way.

Now, having said that I think we need to be very clear eyed about this independent candidacy from Mike Duggan.

He is the most I think, has the most gravitas of any third party candidate we've seen in quite some time in Michigan.

But at the same time, this pathway forward for him is very difficult.

He has got to you know, he has an amazing bas of support out in metro Detroit.

And he has the distinction of my in my 43 years of polling being the only political candidate who polls favorably amongst every party affiliation.

I've never seen that before.

But the minute he steps, the minute he steps out of metro Detroit, nobody knows who he is.

That's the problem.

He's got to get his name I.D.

up out state big time, right?

Well, he does, but he also needs, you know, we've all been around long enough to understand that the minute you step out of metro Detroit views of Metro Detroit change.

And I'm not sure how open the voters in outstate are to a mayor of Detroit.

And I think that's a challenge.

Let's break this down from that.

We're talking about partizan, polarization.

So roughly the survey you did showed regardless of who the Democratic nominee is and regardless of who the Republican nominee is, I'm going to average this out a little bit.

Roughly 34 for the Democrats, 34 for the Republicans, and about 20 to 22% for Mike Duggan.

Do you is that the ceiling for Mike Duggan or is that the floor?

Is it because it seems like you have the as you as we know, hard core voters who are going to support the Democratic nominee of the Republican nominee regardless, Can Duggan pierce that or is he stuck in the low twenties?

Well, that's the key question, isn't it?

And we don't know the answer.

We're 17 months out and I see two big challenges fo an independent candidacy here.

One, can Mike Duggan, he has a multidecade decade relationship down in metro Detroit.

Can he develop any sort of relationship with outstate voters?

I think if he could get up to even 20% of the vote in outstate, this would becom a very serious three way race.

But that's a big if.

So the other the other question, I think the challenge for Duggan is we're 17 months out.

You have all these people who say they're flirting with an independent.

As this becomes a referendum on Donald Trump, as any midterm would do those do all these voter just go back to their corners, back to what they've done historically all their lives?

That's a huge I think that's the biggest challenge for Mike Duggan moving forward.

So, Richard, looking at the polling that you see now and the mood of Michigan, as well as the nation, what advice would you give to Democrats and Republicans, not to independents, but the hardcore Democrats and Republicans as they try to make their way through all of this in what appears to be a seesaw economy and a president who one second is standing with Elon Musk, saying that they're cutting the hec out of the federal government.

The next second, that person is dishing on his big, beautiful bill.

One second.

He's here in Michigan with a Democratic governor and the speaker talking about Selfridge and bringing planes in here, which are going to cost money.

next second, he's on his way to Pittsburgh to talk about somethin that he refused on the campaign trail, a Japanese steel company merging with U.S. Steel, but now saying it's the right thing to do.

Well, let me first of all, let me just addres President Trump and his numbers.

I know we've seen a lo in the national press about how his numbers are falling.

There are 40, 41%.

I'm not seeing that in Michigan.

The voters that voted for Donald Trump are still with Donald Trump.

Big caveat here, and that is the economy.

We are seeing significantly increased fears of both inflation and recession going into the next year.

It's part of why I love doing these chamber polls is because we ask these sam economic questions constantly.

So we don't know what the economy's going to look like in a year.

Donald Trump got elected by independent voters because of the economy, so they better see some results in the year ahead.

And right now they're getting increasingly anxious.

So my advice to both Republicans and Democrats is the advice, frankly, that I preach constantly till I'm blue in the face.

The thing that matters are independents.

You better reach to the center because I'm telling you, Mike Duggan's doing it.

He's reaching to the center.

And you know, you look at Gretchen Whitmer's numbers, which are just really consistent in the fifties, really strong numbers, and it's because she understands the language of independents.

She knows in Michigan you better talk to the center and she's doing it.

Elissa Slotki does the same thing.

They've got They've got the language down.

Nationally, you know, Democrats are trying to figure out how to come back and win the presidency.

Well, you got to do that with Michigan.

So how about you listen t the people who have won Michigan and understand what they're doing?

One of them and that would be Gretchen Whitmer and Elissa Slotkin.

One of the pieces that drew a lot of focus from your survey, Richard, was that, you know I think there was an expectation Duggan would pull more from the Democrats, and the Republica would have like a distinct lead.

And that wasn't the case in your survey.

And of course, we know their messaging will happen.

Republicans will remind their voters that Mike Duggan supports the right to an abortion, has sued gun manufacturers and a whole list of other things that Republican voters won't like.

Or do you.

Is that more of a concern maybe for the Republicans than they thought that this isn't just going to be a layup for them?

Well, I think if there's one thing our survey did is it answered the question of who does Mike Duggan hurt?

And the answer is both sides.

He's drawing equally from bot Republican and Democratic voters and doing really well in the center.

And the real challeng for both parties is what we call the leaners, the lea Republicans, the lean Democrats.

That's a real challenge.

You know, Duggan's making inroads with those voters.

One of things he said on the island was we got to crack down on superintendents and principals in the K-12 public school system.

Okay?

I think that's appealing, frankly, to a lot of independent voters, a lot of Republicans.

That was a very strong message.

We've got to give the state power to fire superintendents and principals on a five year basis if they don't produce improvement.

What do you think about that in the poll?

Well, I think I was actually in the room and I listened to the speech and I actually chuckled when he said that because I thought these are words that could com right out of John Engler mouth.

Again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And he, Mike Duggan, understands the language of the middle in the way that Whitmer does.

Yeah.

You know, I kee I keep hearing this question of, you know, who's going to attack Mike Duggan?

We're going to hear we're going to see the money from the DGA and the RGA.

I think there's an important lesson here for both parties on the middle.

You know, the centrist candidate, I think the Democrats lost Michigan to Donald Trump because they burned the bridge with the Kennedy voters and the Kennedy voters went to Trump.

There was no way back for the because they just attacked them.

There's the same risk here for both parties with Duggan.

Do they attack so hard on Duggan that they burned the bridge that those voters can't come back?

Did you mean to say you and your earlier comment about Trump voters, that there is a point where even the hard core Trump people will will leave him because of the economy?

No.

I think not the hard core Trump people, the independent Trump people, those independents that voted for Donald Trump and they voted for hi because he was clearly talking about inflation and the fact that things cost too much.

He's got to deliver results on that.

These independent voters, they don't they don't care about abortion.

They're not motivated by the culture wars.

The independents are motivated, motivated by the economy, and they want to see improvement.

And they're goin to be looking for improvement.

And if they don't see it, honestly, it's going to feed this conversation for Mike Duggan even more, I think, which is Joe Biden made things expensive.

Donald Trum hasn't made things any cheaper.

Well let's look at the third option.

Richard, thank you very much for being on board.

Have a nice weeken and go sift some numbers, okay.

Our thanks to Billy also, Zack and Chuck, always good to see you guys.

See you next week.

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