The big presidential debate.

Did it have an impact in Michigan on the presidential race?

Chuck Stokes, Beth LeBlanc, Laur Gibbons and Jonathan Oosting are here talking about all things political in Michigan.

So 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.

Well, 67 million people found something to do the other night to watch the debate, and I have four of them right here.

Where did you watch the debate?

In my kitchen.

In your kitchen?

Right next to the bar?

It was really rough.

I would need another drink of water.

Would you watch it from my couch on my phone?

I was.

I was at a watch part doing some reporting for a story I'm working on later.

So I saw some reactions from folks.

Interesting.

I am not too embarrased t admit I watched from bed on my laptop computer.

These things are too late for me My bride and I watched it from home.

And it was nice and peaceful and quiet.

And where was your watch party?

It was in Royal Oak.

So what did you learn from that?

You know how many people?

Oh, it was a it was like a room in a rooftop bar.

So it was, you know, s nobody was watching the debate.

Oh, well, you know, there were a lot of cheers and boos at the time that you would expect from a party hosted by Democrats.

Okay.

All right.

So, Chuck, what did you make of it?

I think that it was very clear that Vice Presiden Kamala Harris had prepared and had prepared well for this debate.

And I think it paid off.

Donald Trump was Donald Trump.

I don't think he did a lot o preparation, but I think he felt he didn't need to because he he'd bee in six of these before this one, and he knew what this was all about.

It was a very spirited debate.

A lot of attacks.

I wis they had dealt more on issues.

And I think the moderators did a good job trying to pin them down and made it obvious when both candidates didn't want to answer questions that you could have said yes or no to.

Yeah, I'll get back to that later.

Go ahead Beth.

I mean, I think I think Harris kind of had Trump's number in that one.

I mean, she baited him a couple of times during the debate and he responded really quickly afterwards on crowd sizes and different issues that that did not reflect well on him.

And she obviously had prepared and was prepared to to debate Trump in particula and to play Trump in particular.

I don't think Trump was was prepared to, you know, kind of stay on topic and and answer the question and dwell on the issues wher he did have a stronger argument.

So it was it was definitely an interesting debate.

And I think one candidate probably prepared better than another.

Yeah, I think it was an interesting an interesting experienc for Trump, because since 2016, since he started his politica career, he's been the wild card in these debates.

And I think this time Harris was the wild card.

Everybody was watching how she would do what she would say how she would debate with Trump.

And I agree with Beth tha it was a situation where Trump came doing the same playbook that he usually does.

And Harris was the one who brought a playbook specifically tailored to how Trump would react.

Yeah, to Beth's point, I mean, the answer that everybody is going to remember was actually Kamala Harris dodging a question on immigration.

The question was, you know what?

How Democrats had let under Democratic president anyways, so many undocumented immigrants had made their way into the country.

She did not answer that question and then instead invited people to go to a Trump rally and suggested that people leave these things early because Trump can't stay on topic.

And what does he do?

He goes off topic, he takes the bait, he starts talking about crowd sizes and then segways into what most people will remember, which was a rant about false falsely seemingly about Haitia immigrants eating cats in Ohio.

So Kamala Harris came out way ahead on that question, which should have been the hardest question for her and what people should remember if Trump had stayed on topic, was that she did not answer the question at all.

And that wasn't the only one.

We are not supposed to have biases.

Okay, I'm going to confess one right in front of everybody right now.

I have a bias against debates where there are questions not answered and reporters don't do their duty and follow up to get answers.

Exhibit Putin.

Have you met Putin?

That was an interesting question.

Did she answer it?

No, no, no, she did not.

Okay, let's see.

Are you better off for years now than you were four years ago?

Didn't answer it.

Okay.

And Trump actually had her on the ropes on the abortion issue when you turned her and said, are you for abortions at months seven and eight, which is a very controversial issue.

And she didn't answer that either.

So that's my bias.

I confess to it.

But it wouldn't have determine the debate one way or the other.

I think the die was cast on this thing.

Yeah.

And I think the real telltale sign is, regardless of what Donald Trump is saying out on his campaign rallies now about how well he did in the debates, the fact that he is saying, I'm done with debates, there will be no more debates when just a few weeks ago he was saying to Joe Biden, I'll debate as many time as you want anywhere, any time.

And this is a debate that will next debate was supposed to be on Fox and you're saying no to that.

Now, he may change his mind again, but as of right now, he's saying, I don't want any more of Vice President Kamala Harris If the polling data is correct.

And our thanks to our good friends over at MIRS and Stevie Mitchell for putting together the numbers.

But here's what he came up with after the debate.

And it's very interesting.

A statistical dead heat at 47-46 So it is tied as it has been, 56% of the people said that she won the debate, 29% said he won the debate.

But here's the number.

3% of the audienc went to Harris, 5% went to Mr. Trump based on that performance.

Are you surprised by that?

Yeah, something just doesn't seem to figure with that.

And, you know, the stuff tha you guys say about these polls, I just hope that people it's interesting to listen to the polls.

It's interesting to read the polls, but we still have several week to go and it's just a snapshot in time.

And all of these polls mean you go down the list and look at them.

They're all within the margin of error.

So this is a close race I think is going to go right down to the wire.

And the good side of it is that hopefully it will engage the voters and none of them become complacent and neither the candidates become complacent.

And they sa we've got to get our folks out, that this is going to come down to a handful of swing states.

Laurem, explain to me how 56% could say she won the debate and then she doesn't pick up a lot of it.

One thing to win the debate, but we don't give a hoot.

You know I think it's really interesting.

Yeah.

To that point, just how Harris is, how Harris has approached her candidacy thus far, has really been focused on hitting back at Trump.

It's been less focused on some of these policy issues that you mentioned.

I think it's unfortunate that we're probably not going to see another debate between this pair because we were starting to get at least some answers, some more specific on some of these policy issues.

And admittedly, she hasn't been in the race for very long, hasn't had as much time.

But that was an area where I think a lot of voters were hoping to hear more fro Harris about specifics on issues and certainly there were some concerns on the Trump side as well.

When he was asked for specifics about policy issues.

There was at one point he mentioned a concept of a plan on health care, which I think was something that was picked Which he's benn talking about for about a thousand years.

Right.

Right.

So it seems as though, you know, if he since he was president before, maybe he would hav had more thoughts on that issue.

But as far as Harris is concerned, yeah, I think there was a lot of opportunity to hear more That wasn't necessarily answered.

And and I think that the lack of another debate, you know, is unfortunate for voters.

I thought that congratulatio to ABC did have the split screen because as we all kno part of the debate is not only what you're saying but how are you reacting in the contrast between the two of them was strike.

Yeah.

I mean Harris was quite expressive you know midterm.

I don't know if he'd call them smirks or what have you.

And when Trump was sayin certain things, Trump was very dour, stone faced.

Straight ahead.

No eye contact.

Yeah, And I mean, you know, I gues it depends on your perspective, probably going i who you think that helped more.

I mean, Harris's at least Tim Walz has been making the case that Harris is the joyous candidate, one who is more lively and personality driven, whereas they contend that Trump is only in it for himself and selfish.

And if that's the mindse you came in with, probably you thought those facial expressions were consistent with that.

But on the flip side, I mean, I know some people, you know people are always going to judge a candidate' appearance is in these debates.

But certainly Harris was more expressive.

What I kept asking myself during the debate was I thought this was a red meat speech for the base of both parties.

Both candidates said stuff that appealed to their base, but that's not the audience that they needed to get over the line.

They needed the fence sitters, the independents, those that didn't.

There were 38% who said we need more information about her.

I'm not sure either of them accomplish that goal.

Am I out in left field on this?

Well I think you make a good point.

It's that middle is that perso that sometimes votes Democrat, sometimes votes Republican, maybe sometimes doesn't vot at all, or a true independent.

It's a shrinking number, but it's an important number, especially in these swing states.

And Michigan is going to be one of the reasons it's going to very well decide this race and I think a lot of them probably got a little frustrated because they were probably looking for as long as it answers to policy questions more than the far right or the far left.

And they probably felt as though they didn't get some of that.

What I thought was really interesting were the closing statements.

I I think if you're just looking at candidates, I think they're closing statements were so different that it really said a lot about each one of the candidates.

And that's not to say good or bad.

I think it was a clear difference between intended tone, context, what they were focusing on future versus past, all of those things.

And I think for someon sitting there who's undecided, they may have walked away and gotten more from the closing statements than anything else if they were still there.

Yeah, if they were still there.

Good point.

I struggled to still be there by the end.

So I can't imagine what the average voter did.

But I also think sometimes these debates and what's said during them are almost tailor made for for little gifs and memes on Twitter.

And that may be how the majority of voters are getting their information about what was said at the debates.

This is short kind of ou of context clips on both sides that are being sprea through Twitter, TikTok or what have you.

And so I don't know.

I think that might be part of the strategy, too, is just to to take those clips and flood social media with them.

And for the folks who didn't watch the debate, which probably is quite a few, that's that's th information they're getting is are those clips.

Well, let's not forget immediately after the debate or right around the same time, also Taylor Swift dropped her endorsement of Kamala Harris which for folks who didn't watch the debate, may have had an even bigger reach anyways on social media.

So you guys are spot on here.

The afterlife of the debate often takes on more impact than the debate itself, especially with social media these days.

Also, did you know that she had she asked people to go to a website to sign up?

I thought that was a good piece of strategy.

She got 300,000 people to go to her website as a result, and that's not bad is it?

Sure.

Yeah.

And certainly it was a chance to make a pitch to folks who, you know, as, as we mentioned, still watching.

But yeah, certainly if you weren't watching the debate, perhap one of the things that came out was just that little jingle somebody made to eating the dogs, eating the cats, which has come up on my social media more times than I can even imagine.

So it's there was a lot more to the debate than that.

But that was something that is persistent on social media.

When I said earlier, that's the part of the debate that a lot of people are going to remember.

That's because that that's what went viral.

Trump would have liked an embarrassing moment for Harris to go viral, but instead it's him.

Instead, it's him on his own social media sit the next morning, tweeting out questionable links, trying to back up his claims.

I mean, it did seem like he was scrambling to explain himself after the debate instead of actually, you know, going on a victory tour despite his claim he won.

as you said, something on this program a few weeks ago that I think is really important now, now that this first debate is over and we don't kno if there'll be another debate, I think for the Harris campaign, it is very important that she gets to these swing states and starts talking to people that are sitting around this table and doing one on one interviews and more personalized interviews than these big mega crowd things, because there's stil a lot of people out there that aren't quite sure what they think abou Kamala Harris and her policies.

Donald Trump has been out here for a long time.

If you don't know Donald Trump, you've been Rip Van Winkle and you've been asleep.

But there's, She still needs to define herself.

And what better way than to personalize it by getting in and doing some of these type of interviews that you in answer the questions that the local media is going to ask tha the national media may not ask.

All right.

Let's tal about a new development we have.

They're putting the band back together.

We had Governor Engler and Mr. Blanchard.

We had Mike Bishop, the former Senate Republican leader, and John Cherry, former lieutenant governor, part of a national group that is going to bird dog the rhetoric from these campaign Lots of luck.

make no mistake, over the years, former governors Jim Blanchard and John Engler, along with former Lieutenant Governor John Cherry and Senat Republican leader Mike Bishop, all four of them have ha their political disagreements, but they are definitely united on this assignment, wanting to debunk the notion that the fall electio may not be on the up and up, but we come here to call out any politician, Democrat or Republican, or any organization that's intent on sowing doubt, distrust about this very foundation to a democratic society, which is the actual process.

This bipartisan reunion of sorts comes at a time when former President Trump is still questioning the last election, and Republican Mike Bishop argues, let's move forward.

I believe that our country is at a crossroads.

And if we don't unify behind a shared vision, we will continually will continue to dwell on the past.

And I think it's a big mistake to relitigate the results.

The previous election.

Governor Engler advises all candidates to not plant the seeds before the election, suggestin that the outcome may be rigged.

Is that counterproductive to the goal of this group?

Sure it is.

It is.

It's counterproductive to the candidate, I believe.

I wouldn't say that.

You know, Mr. Trump or the people around hi or anybody else that, you know, it's rigged before it's even been held.

These four politicians and their staffs will monitor the statements of candidates, and when necessary, they will step in to try to refute any claims about alleged unfair voting.

So we want to make sur that when people raise the idea that elections are rigged o not accurate or there's fraud, that we can make sure everything is investigated, but we will beat it down.

Michigan joins other swin states in bird dogging, voting with this special bipartisan Protect the Democracy project Beth, some will say this is a noble assignment.

How am I going to pull this off?

Well, I'm not sure.

We we quite understood that at the end of that hour long press conference, which was supposed to be 30 minutes.

Yes.

Yes, I but it sounds like these these folks, these former leaders from Michigan are making themselves available.

If if there is an issue, if there are allegations about the election, that they're going to come forward and and swat them down and say no, this has been investigated, this is what it means, or there was an audit here.

And this is why we can say that this process works the way it did.

So they I thin they're just making themselves available, a is former leaders of this state, who may or may not have continued influence on on people's thoughts on the election.

I think even they acknowledg maybe maybe people won't respect what we have to say at the end of the day.

Maybe maybe we are kind of from the past of the state, but they're also sayin or we can be a respected voice out there talking about the integrity of Michigan's election system in the people who put it together.

I think it speak to how a lot of public officials on both sides of the aisl saw what happened in 2020, saw the destabilization that happened, and are really trying to avoid that in 2024.

I think everyone who covered or observed the 2020 election and its aftermath in any capacity, you know, a lot of people were disturbed by how long and how pervasive a lot of these claims about the election were.

So, yeah, we may not know exactly how this group of former elected officials is going to address some of the concerns coming up or anything that could come up in the future.

But, you know, it does speak to their interest in nipping it in the bud.

No offense to Mr. Engler, but I do not think the hardcore MAG crowd is going to be persuaded by a former establishment Republican.

You know Trump has moved the party beyond the John Engler's of the world.

In fact, after the 2020 election, when Trump was claiming the election was rigged, John Engler told me, Rick Snyder, another former Republican governor, told me the election should be certified.

It's over and that still didn't change the mind of a lot of people because January 6th happened after that.

So sounds like an interesting cause.

I I'm not sure how persuasive these folks are going to be.

I also think it puts Mike Bishop in particular in an awkward position.

He is working fo the Michigan Republican Party, which is right now is suing Jocelyn Benson over several election administration rules and in the process making some pretty provocative statements about her ability to manage a fair election.

He's legal counsel for the party, but he says he's not involved in the politics.

He's doing the law.

Well, the lawsuits are political.

Oh, really?

Okay.

I had none.

Let me write that down.

I think it was a proactive move.

I think it may turn out to be more important to have those voices after the election than leading up to the election because we can all pretty much be sure that no matter how this election turns out, whoever ends up being the winner and the loser, according to the popular vot and the Electoral College, that it's going to be challenge in some way, shape or form and one side or another is going to say the system is broken, the system didn't work.

And these are people that we can go to.

These were all four people who were part of this electoral system.

They won and they lost through this system.

And they are saying in Michigan, it has been proven that the system has worked and all the legal challenges last time around didn't mount up to anything.

I don't think they're worried necessaril about trying to change the MAGA crowd out there, because I think it's probably not going to change.

But is there a swath in the middle that may be still questioning whether or not the system is really fair?

That may be the time when those voices are needed more than ever before.

I sort of sat back as an hour unfolded and I kept thinking to myself this is the way it used to be.

There used to be political cooperation between both parties.

They had their differences, but they were able, at the end of the day, to put those aside and do something that perhaps helped the people out.

But the idea of the cooperation of the four of them coming together, and look, they've had their battles with me, John Engler and Jim Blanchard were arch rivals.

Okay.

And Mr. Blanchard took that loss in, as you all know, in that gubernatorial thing, very hard.

But here these two guys now ar back there doing their mutton.

Jeff.

They're run, you know, they're laughing and scratching and having a good time.

And they're doing something that they believe in.

And it just it just struck me that it was a period of time that was certainly different than the stuff that we're covering now.

But Blanchard never said the system, the electoral system robbed me.

Yeah, he was he was upse with John Engler and John Engler out campaigned them and and he won by a whisker.

But it was a it was an upset.

But he never said the things that you hear Donald Trump now saying in the middle of a of a high presidential debate about what happened four year ago after it's been litigated.

Yeah, let's be clear.

Trump has not only continued to claim the 2020 election was rigged, he has said multiple times in this campaign that the only way Democrats will win is if they cheat.

So he is already sayin the same thing in 2020, right?

Absolutely.

So we have two minority party candidates remaining on the ballot.

What's the significance, Lauren?

The significance is it could be significant if it's a very, very close election.

That's what a lot of a lot of people on both sides with Democrats, Cornell West and Republicans, Robert F Kennedy, he is it's a concern becaus it's going to be a close race.

It's going to be something that is you know it could come down to the wire.

We've seen that in Michiga elections over and over again.

And it's something that could be it could continue to be an issue.

But at the same time, not a huge one.

It might be a couple percentage points.

Well, in a close race, that's the game.

In Michigan that's the game.

I mean, it's pretty significan for Michigan because Michigan's presidential elections of late have been so close.

And and that could b the determiner.

And for people.

I mean, even though Kennedy has said he he is withdrawn and supporters of his may recognize that if at the end of the day, they get to the ballot box and they can't stomach voting for the Democrat or the Republican, there's still that option for them.

And I think that's what both campaigns are trying to whittle down those those outsider options that that people may have at th last minute at the ballot box.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Trump people concerned that people that don't kno that Kennedy is not a candidate will show up and vote for him, which is a potential vote for Donald Trump?

Oh, it is.

And that's why you see this huge legal battle going on so far.

He's won in North Carolina.

He hasn't won in Michigan i getting his name off the ballot, He's gone to the US district court.

So he's still trying and is still holding up ballots going out until then.

So in the swing states it can make a huge difference.

And you factor in also th Arab-American vote in Michigan in which they are saying we may not vote at all, or if we do, we may vote fo a third party as a protest vote.

All of those things in a close race can make a difference.

There's no uncommitted vote in the general election.

Unlike a primary, Cornell West gives those disgruntled Democrats another option, along with Jill Stein who is going to be speaking at a Arab-American gathering in Michigan today.

I believe so, yeah, in both.

In both cases, you've got now another protest vote option for voters who don't favor either of the major party candidates.

You got to wonder if the Trump people are going to run a campaign that said Kennedy is not a candidate folks.

Vote for me, you know, address the issue.

And it's possible that there are still voters out there who see Harris as an extension of Biden.

There was a lot of concern from voters saying this is just the same old same old, same as 2020.

That was why some of these independent candidates gained traction in the first place.

So certainly ther could still be people out there, even if they kno that one of the Kennedy is out.

I imagine you'll se Robert F Kennedy Jr in michigan before the election telling his supporters same story.

Thank you for your insightful commentary and analysis, as always on our program.

More of the same next week right here for OTR.

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.