Donald Trum having any influence on battle for control of the Michigan house?

Republican consultant Jason Roe has the answer coming up.

And battle for control of the house is our lead story as the two parties disagree on school funding.

On the OTR panel, Craig Mauger, Zoe Clark and Simon Schuster.

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 back to Studio C and got Everybody's in town again this week.

But let's talk about legislature was that great to see everybody right The D's and the R's have a disagreement over school funding.

Let's take a look at that lead story.

Earlier this summer, Hous Republicans pledged to restore $300 million to beef up school safety and mental health services.

Now come the House Democrats pledging to restore only 150 million for those items.

Parents just want their kids to be able to go to school and be safe.

We've heard you and we're taking action.

But the Republicans are clamoring for more money.

However given this political divide over how much is enough, this suburban Democrat argues the state can't afford to hit that $300 billion target responsibly.

We want to.

Make sure we're not overspending.

We want to make sur that we're fiscally responsible.

So we spent the maximum amoun of money that we were able to.

House Democrats have also set aside a $1 million fund to underwrite a tip line to report gun owners who are not storing their weapons safely if there are minors in the home.

Meanwhile, Republicans in the state Senate today tried to pour more state dollars into the budget, but they were shot down.

This debate over trying to protect school kid from a mass shooter comes right in the midst of a contentious battle for control of the Michigan House as Republicans are blaming the Democrats for not doing enough.

And the speaker of the House counters this is.

Meaningful change for Michigan.

Students.

Suffice it to say, House Republican leader Mat Hall disagrees on that analysis.

So, Miss Clark, the Republicans and D's now go back to their respective districts and the Republicans will say, we wanted to put $300 million into your schools.

And guess what?

The Democrats didn't meet us even halfway.

Is that a problem?

I mean, it was a problem i so much that we sort of all knew that this was something that was going to get passed.

Right.

The one day that the House came back and they were aware that this was something that Republican are starting to use in district.

Right.

And so they brought forward $126 million.

But as you say, it's sort of a halfway point.

And so I don't know that it fully I mean, you can you can slice the apple either way, right?

You can say like, look, we put $126 million in it.

Republicans can sa we're still 125 million short.

Is this a problem, Mr. Mauger?

I, I don't think it is.

I mean, I think that Democrats, by doing this kind of half step that they did really covered their base here.

But at the same time, shouldn't Democrat be putting things on the board right now to make th Republicans take difficult votes and it's just not happening?

I mean, that's that's the benefit of having the majority before an election.

You can decide what's being voted on.

And here they are.

Instead of playing offense they're kind of playing defense.

Is this a problem?

Well, I mean, I think if the legislators make one mistake is tha in a presidential election year, they tend to overestimate how much average voters are paying attention to them.

But I think at the same time, you know, when you look at that press conference that was held minutes after this supplemental was introduced, it was a who's who of Democratic front liners.

Right.

This is the ton of vulnerable Democrats up there.

And I think that they really see this as preparing a chink in the armor.

But as Craig said, this is a responsive measure, you know, towards Republican criticism rather than something proactive where they're sort of trying to chart their own path in policy making.

Look, we saw somethin that was surprising this summer.

We should note which was really a disconnect, the education community, teachers being very unhappy with the Democrats and what they did with MPSERS Right.

And so this is this.

Is the retirement.

This is their retirement fund also making it permanent, this 3% reduction.

Also this week.

So it was a really interesting.

Teachers do not have to pay into the fund.

Exactly.

And so what's really interesting, I think, was that we saw this dynamic over the summer.

And if you're Democrats and you're trying to get turnout and organization in, again, a really clos election, you don't want to be on the bad side of teachers and teachers unions.

If you're the Democrats.

Well.

It seems to me that they hav handed the Republicans an issue.

I would not be shocked to see a TV commercial in swing districts that points out that we wanted to do more for kids.

In the end, the Democrats did not.

For a mere $125 million, they could have taken some of the $400 million of the pork that went back home.

And simply even the score in the issue goes away.

Or they could have also voted for immediate effect and have the money come a little sooner.

Well, precisely.

There were ways around this They took a stand on an issue that they didn't have to do.

Well, that's clear.

I mean, they have gone back, as Zoe mentioned, and now corrected two things from the budget that were contentious for a couple of months.

And there's a lot of bad quotes out there now from school superintendents saying the Dem majorit let us down from the first vote.

Those quotes aren't going to go away because of the second vote.

They're out there.

They're already in ink and print, and you'll probably see some of them on on mailers.

But I think Simon's exactly right.

Is this breaking through?

There's so much politic going on in Michigan right now.

Is this an issue that will break through the Trump Harris domination of the spotlight and voters will take note of?

It's possibl these can be very close races.

They also they always say local politics is local.

True?

Sure.

And there's talked about there's about a dozen toss up seats in the House right now.

And I mean, these these candidates and these are sitting officials need to and want to be in district telling a good message an what they have done in Lansing.

Simon, we talked about this last week also with a great piece by Jordy Hermani from Bridge about that the House met the fewest number of days this year.

Actually, we.

Get votes for that back home.

Well, but this is what we were talking about, right?

It's either or so.

Okay.

You spent fewer number of days in Lansing than, you know, since 2019.

But instead then you're i district are knocking doors.

So.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, I think that the extent to which this is a problem is again like cursing, breaking through.

And I mean, when we look a what we're seeing from ad buys right now, the House Republican Campaig Committee is having a good year.

But the sheer amount of money that the Democratic Party is pouring into these House races is unprecedented.

And so they really nee the money to make that message.

And I don't know if we're seeing the sort of numbers that sort of carry that home.

And one X factor here for people to watch, there is money still sitting there that could go, you know, if they land a major economic development project in the next month, which there's a lot of chatter around Lansing.

We've done some reporting on this.

Others have that there's a massive project that the state of Michigan is trying to land in Mundy Township.

There's, it appears, setting aside some money, holding it back to use as incentives for projects like that.

If they can land that, if that money all of a sudden becomes useful.

I mean, that's a gambl that the Democrats are making.

Why don't they say that?

Because a lot of them signed NDAs, as you know, they're not allowed to talk.

About, but they can say there could be something back home that'll help Genesee County.

Okay.

And that's part of the reason we're holding back.

Look at I buy the argument we need to be fiscally responsible.

Okay.

But does that resonate if your school kids are not getting the education they want?

People don't say, well, that's nice.

Okay, where's the money?

Show me the money.

Yeah.

I think that, you know, the governor's team has really sort of they were sort of prickly about the coverage of this, saying that, you know, this is not a cut.

Right.

That this was money that was in the budget, in the draft.

Looks like a cut, smells like a cut and barks like a cut.

It's a cut.

And then I think something that was really telling is, you know, this is a couple of years of one time funding in the now it' coming in through a third year.

And when we talked to some of the co-sponsors of the supplemental after it passed, they said, I asked, you know, what's going to prevent thi from happening again this year?

And they said, we've made it clear to our districts that this is one time funding, that this isn't something that's going to happen again.

So this is not gettin at sort of the structural fix.

And we should also quickly note, like we are going to be seeing more and more of this over the next few years as COVID relief dollars dry up.

Right.

This is part of an issue that's going to happen in Michigan, in states around the country wher there were an influx of money.

I mean, we're talking, remember, like seven, eight, $9 billion of state money, almost like too much money to know where to go for and what we're going to start seeing a budget year after budget year is those dollars starting to shore up and lawmakers having to figure out wher these cuts are going to be made or are they going to put additional money in and where that money is going to come from.

Problem is all the schools got a sugar high over this.

This is what I'm saying.

Okay.

And now they're taking their sugar away.

You know, people don't like that.

That's what I'm.

Saying.

We're seeing is a dichotomy, right?

There's local units of government who on one hand, some of them treated it.

This is a one time windfall that they were able to look at special projects that.

They didn't hire a million new people.

Right.

And then I think the other folks who you see here, like we're going to change the way we operate, you know, this is our baseline funding.

And now that's at a higher floor.

They're the ones who are feeling the pain right now.

All right.

So you wrote a piece this week that Pete Hoekstra is saying they're going to steal votes.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

We got our hands on some audio from a fundraiser Monday in Oakland County.

And Pete Hoekstra told this crowd.

How much did this tape cost you?

Nothing, nothing.

Sources bring us information.

Tim, come on now.

And and essentially, Pete Hoekstra said he was cautioning the crowd, saying, hey, I'm afraid that if the US Senate race between Mike Rogers and Elissa Slotkin is close, that the Democrats will, quote, steal some votes and swing the race away from Rogers.

And it points to all of this that's looming over this election.

Republicans many of them subtly suggesting that this election might be stolen and raising concerns about absentee ballots, mail in voting while they're also encouraging Republican voter out there to do absentee voting.

I mean, this is another major factor in this electio for people to keep an eye on it.

Interesting that he didn't include the presidential race in there.

He was standing next to Mike Rogers.

I mean, I think it was a fundraiser where Mike Rogers was there.

And he mentioned this while he was promoting Mike Rogers as a candidate, saying Mike Rogers knows how to win close races.

But if we don't want it to b that close because of his fear about this race being stolen.

Clearly Mr. Hoekstra has some problems with Ms.. Benson, the Democratic secretary of state.

Yea.

Yes.

I mean, Republicans in general don't like some of these administrative rules.

And in fact, in the statement that you got right after you sort of called the Republican Party on the statement was something along the lines of, well, we have mistrust of Benso and we've we're suing and sort of, you know, the statement didn't actually say walk back what the chairman said.

Right.

And said it said we have w have a reason to be concerned.

And it's a there's a two fold reason for Republicans to attack Jocelyn Benson right now.

One they question, how she's running the election, two She could be the Democratic nominee for governor in two years.

And all of the attacks that they can leverage against her right now might pay dividends down the road.

And it puts Jocelyn Benson in a very difficult spot.

I'd actually add a third reaso to that, Craig, and that's that this is part of a larger gambit by Republicans to say, look at all the, you know, efforts that we're making, all the ways that we're bending over backwards to promote, quote unquote, election integrity, all the ways that we're suing the Michigan Department of State.

And that because of this, you should embrace early and absentee voting and that because they can do this if they believe that their base can get a, you know, markedly higher proportion of them to vote early or absentee as opposed to 2020, then they can go after these low propensity voters.

Whether that's actually happening or not, though, I think that really remains to be seen.

I do think we also need to know, right, because I think this gets a little muddied because not everyone is an elections director or whatever is Jocelyn Benson does not count votes.

Right.

Republican city, county clerks, Democratic county clerks, they're the ones lik both parties from both parties with challengers watching are the ones who literally are counting handling, processing ballots.

It has nothing.

Jocelyn Benson is not part of that process.

Republican are trying to satisfy their base by firing, you know, firing off all of these lawsuits about what Jocelyn Benson is doing.

And they do have some concerns about some aspects of how the election is being administered.

They've raised a lot of these concerns.

Previously, they filed litigation over a lot of these issues.

Previously, a lot of these are not new subjects, but they have to recognize from someone who's watching this play out, they have to recognize tha there is somewhat of a bet here that they're making, tellin their voters, go vote absentee.

But then also subtly telling them, hey, this election might be rigged no matter what.

I mean.

And that that sends a message to peopl who might vote for Donald Trump.

Does my vote.

What's the message?

Does my vote Really matter?

I mean, at the end of the day, They say, why bother then?

Well, that's the.

Question that I have Is that being communicated to anyone out there that suddenly your vote might not matter in this by some of these things that they're saying, of course, people's votes will matter.

Of course, there are people from both parties who will be administering this election and ensuring that people's votes matter.

But I think the question, if you're if you're a Republican official out there, are you concerned that these statements might drive some people not to vote?

We're about to find out.

All right.

Let's call in our guests today to pursue our conversation about the impact of Donald Trump in the House races working for the House Republican caucus.

And I assume you think you're going to win the seats back.

So we'll go to the question number two, which is does Donald Trump at the top of the ticket help you or hurt you in those swing districts?

I don't think there' any question that he helps us.

I think if you look back to 2022 and what happened in that election, you had in Gretchen Whitmer, an $80 million campaign against Tutor Dixon's $8 million.

Whitmer won the state by 11 points.

Then you had the Proposition three initiative to codify abortion in our state constitution, which outspent the yes side, outspent no, 60 million to 20 million that passed by double digits statewide in a big part of what Prop three did was turn out a number of low propensity voters that vote Democrat and that actually helped the Democrats significantly.

There was no counterbalance on the right to drag out our low propensity voters.

And that's where Donald Trump, I think, fills the gap.

We're not going to go into an election where the top of the ticket is the drag that we experienced in 2022.

And so I do think that, you know, Republicans are in a much better position going into 24 than they were in 22.

But for the sake of argument, some would make the point that when it comes to some female voters who might be independent voters who could help decide these elections in these swing districts, their distaste for the gentleman who used to be president is loud and clear.

And those folks are not going to show up and vote for him.

Listen, that argument could be made, and that's what everybody was saying going into the 2020 election.

But when you actually look at what happened in the 2020 election, Trump actually held consistently with women.

He actually lost with suburban men.

He he gained with blacks, Latinos, LGBTQ.

The only place he net lost voters was suburban men, not suburban women.

And so I think when you look at the issues also, I mean, obviously there is abortion, which in Michigan is already codified in the Constitution, still a battlefield, but then there is inflation, there is gas prices, there is home energy prices, there is rent, there is mortgage interest costs.

There's a number of economic factors that women care about as well.

And so I think when you look at Kamala Harris, she's yet to close the deal.

She should have given all the advantages that she has from money, from the political environment to her opponent, is should be opening up a significantly.

She has not been able to close the deal because she is tethered to the Biden economy and she walks with Biden on this.

And I think that's going to keep us in the game as well.

Ms. Clark.

Is there some kind of actual message from House Republicans writ large about what a Republican House would look like come 2025 with the fac that you are still for two years going to have a Democratic governor, you are still for two years going to have a Democratic Senate.

What is the actual plan to get anything done vis a vis Republicans?

Or is it simply just vote for us to be the opposition?

Well, first of all, you know, HRCC and the Republican caucus did lay out an agenda of what that would look like.

But the reality is we ar the opposition party right now.

We have a government that is completely controlled by Democrats and the things that people are experiencing throughout this state, particularl when it comes to the economics, it is the responsibility of the majority.

And so as the opposition party we point out where they are failing and offer an alternative vision of where we're going to go.

But the reality is this is a referendum on Democratic control of the House.

And if you don't like the direction that Michigan government is going, then you need to make a change and have a check on Governor Whitmer and the wildly progressiv agenda that she rammed through.

And listen, if you thought 2023 was ambitious, wait until lame duck when Democrats are on their way out.

Matt Hall is becoming speaker.

The things that they're going to jam through on Michigan voters in the lame duck are going to make 2023 look like child's play.

You probably heard the conversation we were having earlier.

I just want to give you a chance to respond.

I talked to a voter in Flint last week who told me he had never voted in any election before.

He does not trust the government, but he's planning to vote for Donald Trump this fall.

If your party continues to talk about the election potentially being stolen.

Jocelyn Benson Rigging the election, do you have any concerns that voters like that guy I talked to in Flint might say, hey, maybe it's not even worth showing up?

Well, I think what was missing from that conversation is Chairman Hoekstra wasn't doing some public even broadcasting this to the world.

He was at a political even with Republicans firing them up and the reality is Republicans have legitimate concerns about the administrators of our elections.

You talked a lot about Jocelyn Benson and the Republican accusations and lawsuits.

You did not mention that the courts actually in two occasions found that she violated state law in her management of our election system.

In 2022, she extra legally sent out absentee ballots to every voter in the state of Michigan.

That was illegal.

She illegally instructed county and township clerks to ignore signature verification.

The courts told after the fact the election's already been done, but the courts did come in and rule.

So she has a history of doing things that are not in state law.

And so it is perfectly legitimate for Chairman Hoekstra and anyone to say, Can we trust her?

Zoe's right.

She doesn't count the votes, but she does set policy.

And a lot of these clerks that are counting the votes have to respon to what she sets out as policy.

And she's already proven that we can't trust her.

Can, can, can I just set the table and ask you just very quickly, do you believe that this election here in Michiga in 24 will be safe and secure?

Well, I do.

And I've argued this for some time.

The you know, doing this my entire life, one of the hardest thing to get volunteers to do is Election Day poll watching.

It was not the sexiest thing in politics.

So I guess one of the positive benefits of 2020 is activists are very eager, eager to become poll watchers.

But there's an additional benefit.

The clerks are training their staff and their poll workers better than they have ever been trained.

Both parties are training their poll watchers better than they have ever been trained.

And guess what?

Now we have the eyes of the media looking at Election Day operations in ways that we never have before in 2022 across the country.

I don't remember hearing one controversy about an election outcome other than the kook that ran on our statewide ticket for Attorney General and Secretary of State.

Recounts of two ballot proposals in 2022 done by... Yeah, I mean, I mean paying attention to that stuff.

But I mean, the controversies similar to 2020 did not exist because there is so much attentio now being paid on this process.

I think, you know, if someone wants to cheat, I think it's going to be really hard to do with the amount of eyes that are now on this process.

You know, I'm curious, Jason.

Notably back in 2021, you know, you had said that Trump blew it in the 2020 election.

Is there something substantively different from what's happening this time around other than the person that' on the other side of the ticket?

Absolutely not.

And, you know, I think he demonstrated that in the debate with Kamala Harris.

I mean, when you go back to 2020, you know, he blew it i the first debate with Joe Biden.

All he had to do was let Joe Biden hang himsel and he wouldn't let that happen.

But listen, there's n new information on Donald Trump.

I think that's kind of a big difference.

And I think that's why you've seen the polls consistently within the margin of error, whether it was Joe Bide or whether it was Kamala Harris.

There is no new information to to get about Donald Trump.

It is now incumbent on Kamala Harris to convince those undecided voters that they can take a chance on her.

The fact that those undecided voters still exist means they are still open to Donald Trump.

And so I still think that, you know, regardless of what he does, it's really incumbent on Kamala Harris and I frankly think that this very well choreographed rollout of her campaign hidin from the press, from interviews, it's going to end up backfiring.

I hear anecdotally a lot of frustration from not political people, but just average voters that can't understand why this woma won't take positions on issues, why there is not any kind o examination of her policy flips other than casually mention that they happened.

And I do think that this is going to end up backfiring on them.

I've been talking to voters in some of the like traditional conservative bastions in Michigan, the places that were the foundation of Michigan Republican politics in Midland outside Grand Rapids.

And what they're telling me is, you know, they're conservative they're fiscally conservative.

They voted Republican all their lives.

But then there's these particular issues like reproductive rights like January six that they can't let go of.

And as a result, they feel like they can't go back to the Republican Party afte the 2020 election, after 2022.

How do you what's your strategy there to sort of allow these voters to overlook these, you know, really pretty integral issues and turn toward back towards the GOP?

Well, I think that's candidate quality.

And I think when you loo at the candidates that we have, not just in you know, 13 or so House seats, that we are on offense going after incumbents.

And but when you look at the Senate seat, the competitive congressional, we have good candidates that should be able to help voters get past that.

But in spite of people that may feel that, you know, disaffecte Republicans look at the polls, it is still a neck and neck race.

And I think we all can acknowledge that Donald Trump voters hav always underperformed in polls.

He never had a lead at any point in 16.

He never had a lead at any point in 20.

And he has from time to tim had leads in the 2024 election.

So in spite of some of that resistance, he still is competing within the margin of error.

Mr. Roe, are you uncomfortable with Donald Trump?

I'm no the biggest fan of Donald Trump.

You know, people have suggested we have a binary choice.

I think not voting is a third option in this.

But you know, listen, I think there is a reality.

But you know, listen, I think there is a reality.

Donald Trump promised us tha we would get tired of winning.

And in 2016, he won.

And then in 2018, we lost control of the House in 2020, we lost control of the Senate and we lost the presidency in 2022.

For all intents and purposes, he chose our nominees.

And four US Senate primaries around the country, deeply flawed candidates that cost us retaking the Senate.

So, you know, to me, this is about can we win?

I do think we can win in this cycle.

I think he has definitely course corrected in a lot of ways.

The candidates he's throw his political influence behind have been credible mainstrea candidates that can win, backing Pete Hoekstra for chairman ove to DePerno and Kristina Karamo I thought showe more of a commitment to winning.

And he did that in other states like Arizona.

So I do think that the Trump campaign is better managed this time.

I think he has been more disciplined, which, you know, there's shades of discipline, but I don't think he's a liability in 2024 the way he has been in previous elections.

So you vote for him and you hold your nose.

Some people do.

I don't know.

But I asked you.

My my vote is private.

I will to do that in the voting booth.

Jason, just really quickly, like 10 seconds, Jason, just really quickly, like 10 seconds, what is the likelihood that the state House goes Republican, but Michigan goes for Kamala Harris?

Matt Hall will be speaker of the House.

You know, we are on offense in 13 seats around the state.

If you are a Republican and you survive 2022, you will get reelected in 2024.

We only need two seats.

Republican candidates down ballot have consistently run ahead of Donald Trump as long as he keeps it within the margin of error.

Matt Hal will be the Speaker of the House and I think Mike Rogers still has an opportunity to win that Senate seat.

Mr. Roe.

At what age did you start watching off the record?

I was probably three.

I don't know that I was conscious of it, but I do remember as a young child sitting in the family room with my old man watching.

That explains so much.

The old man was the executive director of the Republican Party back in the day.

Jerry Roe.

Mr. Roe, nice to see you.

Have a nice weekend.

We'll talk to you on the other side.

Okay.

Thanks, guys.

More off the record right here next week.

Come on back.

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