(upbeat music) - So Zoe Clark and Nolan Finley, among the other electoral treats that we have this year in Michigan, we've got a Senate race with an open Senate seat because Debbie Stabenow, who has been in the Senate since 2001, says she's not running again.

That's a rarity in and of itself.

It is gonna be a contested race, obviously, but within the Republican party, the primary is looking to be contested.

I'm gonna set it up this way.

Republicans have not won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994.

That's a long time, do they have any shot, do they have any shot here of doing it in a year where they got a lot of other problems on their plate?

Nolan, I'll start with you.

- Oh yeah, I think they have a shot.

I mean, a lot of this depends what happens with the top of the ticket.

I think we saw four years ago when John James ran against Gary Peters and lost a narrow race when Trump lost the state.

Those races in a presidential year particularly depend on the top of the ticket to pull them through.

And so if Trump does well in Michigan, I think he could pull Mike Rogers or Peter Meyer or whomever the nominee is across the finish line.

But if the presidential race doesn't go the Republicans' way, I don't think they can win the Senate.

- The other thing I'm fascinated too, to Nolan's point about top of the ticket, like that tends to be what we see.

We saw it in '22, right?

Not with any open Senate races,, but with Governor Gretchen Whitmer winning by double digits that ended up lifting along with some changing of redistricting and new maps for the first time in 40 years, Democrats to hold control.

But what I'm gonna be really interested about, and I would love to hear both of your thoughts about this, if we might see some tickets splitting.

We know that Michiganders sometimes vote Republican for one race, Democrats for the other.

And because we know right now that that top of the ticket aren't the most popular candidates, it's fair to say, I'm really curious if you may see some Republicans holding their noses and voting for establishment Republicans, let's say, and voting for Biden, but then saying, "You know what, I'm gonna vote for Mike Rogers instead."

And just trying to sort of somehow even this out.

- I think you might see independents doing that.

I think you'll definitely see independents doing that.

I don't see a whole lot of Republicans voting for Joe Biden.

It's not like it was four years ago.

I mean, they know Joe Biden now, and they've seen him.

I think the most likely place you'll see disenfranchised Republicans go at the top of the ticket is just to leave it blank.

So I do think independents may do that.

I doubt many Democrats will do that.

I don't think any Democrats will do that.

And I really don't see Republicans going that way.

- So I actually think Republicans are cursed when it comes to the Senate in Michigan.

If you think about all the things that have happened, all the opportunities they've had to win just one of those seats in the last 30 years.

We've seen this scenario before where you've got a Democrat who's not maybe terribly popular at the top of the ticket.

You had George W. Bush at the top of the ticket during a war, and it wouldn't pull somebody across the finish line.

There's something about the candidates, I think, that they choose to run in these races that turns people off.

And this year someone like Mike Rogers, who used to be a really respectable member of the delegation in Washington from Michigan, is now married to Donald Trump and his politics.

And I don't see how Republican voters or Democratic voters would separate him from the question of Trump, especially if Trump is on the ballot at the top of the ballot.

Someone like Peter Meyer would be a good compromise candidate.

That's somebody that you could get independents and maybe even some Democrats to vote for if they don't like Elissa Slotkin.

But he has almost no shot in the primary because the party's such a mess.

- No, and I think without Trump this year, I mean, if things trend like they are trending, he doesn't have a shot in either race, I think, I mean, all the polls look still at this point fairly good for Donald Trump in Michigan, and Peter Meyer would probably be a better candidate for Democrats, but I don't see Democrats leaving Elissa Slotkin.

So I don't know where you gain votes in in that equation.

I think if Mike Rogers runs his own race, the Trump support will help him.

And I don't know, I mean, people know him.

He's had a good reputation.

I don't think he's going to lose that many Republican voters.

Question is how many independents can you pick up and which way they lean in this election?

- Yeah, I mean, really what's fascinating is this Republican primary.

I mean, you were at a Baker's dozen, you had Nikki Snyder who just dropped out of the US Senate race to run for Congress.

And so, I mean, really what you're gonna see, if all of these folks get their names on the ballots, which we've seen as being an issue recently in recent history here in Michigan, there's just gonna be a plurality of whoever is going to win.

I mean, it would be shocking if one of these candidates within the Republican party actually wins 50 plus one in this primary.

And so what you're gonna see is smaller numbers.

And I think it would have been hard for a Mike Rogers and a Peter Meyer and a Sandy Pesnsler to split all of those votes in the primary, except for this news that I think took a number of folks by surprise, which was this early Donald Trump endorsement of Mike Rogers after Mike Rogers had said some things that were not super kind about the former president, and we know that the former president tends to hold a grudge.

I thought that was really interesting and could be what gets him through this primary into the general.

- Yeah, I mean, the Trump endorsement, I don't know if that helps or hurts in the primary.

It probably helps this time around.

I interviewed Mike Rogers when he said he was gonna run, and he had a hard time articulating some of the answers to questions about the election in 2020.

He wouldn't commit to the fact that Joe Biden had won.

He had a hard time articulating what we should think about January 6th.

I think these are issues that are gonna sink Republican candidates this fall.

I'm not sure what role Donald Trump plays in all of that, ultimately in the primary, but I do think that when you're talking about a general election, it's gonna be really tough to maintain voters' support and confidence when they can't be clear on things that are not debatable and that voters say are not debatable.

- I think state voters are gonna go to the polls this time, worried about immigration, worried about prices, worried about the drift in this country over the last four years and the lack of leadership under Democrats.

- The greatest job growth in the last 20 years.

- And still low participation in the workforce.

I mean, you can tell people all you want that they're doing great, but people, you look at what people are saying, you don't feel like they're doing great.

- What's your portfolio look like?

Mine's pretty good.

- I don't think it's a winning strategy, Steve, to tell voters, "Hey, you're not as bad off as you think you are."

I don't know that that's ever worked.

And that seems to be the Democratic strategy.

I mean, the issue that voters care about, I think Mike Rogers or Peter Meyer or even Sandy Pensler are going to speak very powerfully too.

I don't think they're gonna be looking back.

I mean, it may surprise you, it surprises me, it surprises most people.

I thought Donald Trump was done in 2021, but he's not.

And if you look at the poll and you look at his support, people have rightly or wrongly forgiven him his sins.

A lot of people have, and I think he's as competitive this election as he's ever been.

- Yeah, we'll see.