Pollster Richard Czuba believes the Michigan presidential race is a dead heat.

A deep dive into his data later on.

That's our lead story.

Along with a dark horse candidate for vice president named Peters as in Gary.

Craig Mauger, Zoe Clark and Joey Cappelletti 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.

Good Friday morning in Studio C, where alive and lively with lots going on this week.

Let's start with you, Paul.

In the Detroit News.

This presidential race in Michigan is a dead heat.

We have a new presidential race completely different.

It's been reshaped, It's been redone, and things are starting over, generalized.

It's tied.

The race is tied as of our poll.

There seems to be some momentum behind Kamala Harris.

And what does Donald Trump do to try to turn this around now?

He's in a bad place right now.

I'll do a little deeper dive if I read the data correctly.

Some folks are coming home.

I think that's right.

I think there are Democrats, Democratic leaning voters who are returning back to their side now that Biden is not the nominee before, you know, month before we did this poll previously.

The number one issue in the race was Joe Biden's age, and that was dividing voters.

Joe Biden's age is now off the table.

So that's why this is a new race.

And with Joe Biden's age off the table, some Democrats are coming home.

You see Elissa Slotkin is lead in the Senate race against Mike Rogers.

Go up to five points.

It's becoming more of a traditional race in Michigan.

And now Donald Trump side has to find a way to define Kamala Harris.

But they've kind of made this race as I was thinking about this coming over.

They've made this a post policy race.

He's changed his stances on abortion.

He picked a running mate who was bashing him over and over again.

So how can Trump.

Now turn around.

And say, wait, let's make this about policy now.

It's going to be a tough turn to do.

Some of the folks coming home are younger voters, African-American voters, and maybe a little bit on the Latino side.

There's a really big sudden vibe shift.

We'll keep talking about how this was a viable election.

And what you see now is enthusiasm, particularly among Democrats that just was not there under Joe Biden.

And you can look at that, whether it's turnout.

Look at that Atlanta rally that the vice president had this week, a compelling to watch.

And then look at the numbers, $200 million raised in less than two weeks.

Kamala Harris for president, something like more than 60% of which was first time donors.

I mean, the enthusiasm there and I'm so excited to talk to Shuba about this, but also this poll that he did was days after.

And so now we've seen even a few more days where the momentum certainly seems looks like it is on the hair side now.

Let's also note we still have 90 days to go, which as we saw in the past, what, 35 days a lifetime can change.

But the enthusiasm, you know, what do we call the big mo right now is with the Harris camp.

The best thing the Republicans had going for them, I think, was the Democrats are somewhat resigned to defeat at one point, and now they see a path to victory.

And that's where this enthusiasm, I think, is coming from.

Republicans are saying, Joy, this is the honeymoon.

You would expect this to happen.

You know, that sigh of relief and over time that it'll it'll get back.

I think if there's one thing we've learned in this news cycle or this political season is how fast the news cycle does move.

I mean, we had an assassination attempt a few weeks ago and that is totally faded.

You know, there's so much going on that I think what is happening now is front of mind for voters and in two weeks, you know, I do think a little of this is, you know, VP Harris is kind of the shiny new toy.

You know, it's it's not Joe Biden.

It's this enthusiasm.

And I think we will start to settle more into policy things like that.

And I'm interested to hear, you know, the polling opinion on will some of these things kind of fade and, you know, as as you know, VP Harris kind of rolls out her platform.

Will this enthusiasm really stick?

One thing, though, is while the vice president has less time to campaign, Democrats also got this pop that is not usual in a presidential campaign.

That whole you know, that this and it's going to go right into the VP pick and it's just going to kind of roll.

And that's, you know, maybe 90 days that they can sustain this.

VP pick you've got coming maybe in the next couple of days.

Then you've got the Democratic convention where they're going to be able to likely lay out Kamala Harris, the story, talk about Joe Biden handing this to her.

You know, so that's two more weeks at least that the Republicans are going to have to deal with a lot of attention on the Democrats.

And as we saw this week, Donald Trump does not do well when the spotlight is not on him.

And he's trying it seemed like he was grasping for that spotlight a bit in the last few days.

So here Republicans, including down ballot, I mean, they've made this race, this election, this entire election.

They've made it about Donald Trump.

And if Donald Trump starts wailing like he has in the last couple of days, what happens in the U.S. Senate, what happens in the state House, when you make it about one candidate, you're betting everything on that candidate.

There was a.

Piece the other day they said the Trump camp was saying immigration.

Let's just focus on that, okay?

And then they sent him out on the street and there was no discussion of that.

What are the Trump people doing?

I think they're trying to figure that out.

I mean, in as much so that the former president is now complaining, Right.

That it's unfair, you know, that we knew how we were going to run against Joe Biden and that they don't know exactly how they're going to run against the vice president.

And we saw this week with the president having a very contentious issue or interview or at NABJ, the conference, the National Association of Black Journalists, that he was asked very tough questions and seemed to even be more contentious and say some really hyperbolic things.

And you know, what folks are saying is, is this him sort of spiraling or is this Trump being Trump to continue to make headlines?

And is he just trying to get the base excited?

I want to talk about that.

Shades of Obama is not an American.

Okay.

Remember that the thing.

Yeah, the birth certificate and all that stuff.

This is sort of true.

It's not the first time that the former president has done this and it certainly will not be the last.

I think also, you know, Craig, you had said, you know, the former president doesn't do well when he's not in the spotlight.

His best time this cycle was actually when he wasn't in the cycle and he was just letting Joe Biden, you know, kind of be front and center.

And now, you know, he doesn't have this momentum and it really feels like he's trying to catch up in that, you know, sometimes he does his best actually, when he a little bit fades and just, you know, let's.

Watch the support go.

Biden is your opponent and Joe Biden is out there causing error after year after error.

And if Kamala Harris can avoid that, you know, she can stay on the positive message that she's had.

It's going to be tough for Trump to just sit back and let this momentum continue.

He's got to find a way to intervene in this.

He's got to find something.

You talked about immigration.

I was talking to some Michigan Republicans and people involved in the party this week, and I said, do you all really think immigration is the key to this race?

And they said to me, yes, it is the key to the race.

And, you know, the polling is really mixed on that.

Whether this is the issue that's going to define this.

Race in the top three, it's it's.

Three.

But I mean, the economy, it's behind the economy, which is more people are focused on the economy.

And then when you get into immigration.

People have a lot of different.

Views for how to handle this.

Trump has said he wants to deport.

More than ten.

Million Americans.

That is much more controversial than just saying, I want to secure the border.

And the problem with that is that plays wonderfully with his base.

But go to an independent voter or go to some other folks who are not part of the base and they're going, why?

That's exactly what I was going to say.

As we're talking a lot about Republicans, we're talking a lot about Democrats.

But one of the really interesting things, particularly in Michigan, which is, you know, Whitmer keeps saying is the swing east, a swing states.

There is still this group of independents in Michigan who are just that.

They are independent voters.

And within that group and we'll talk to Richard Czuba about this is that's sort of where you need to look right now in the state of Michigan and also look at sort of the enthusiasm gap between the Republicans and the Democrats.

More in the other polls that we often talk to says he's got to find a way to attract more female voters.

He can't win with this base.

One of, you know, talking to people in both Oakland County and Wayne County these last few days, that's where a lot of the things he has them seems to be with these women voters, with these, you know, Wayne County's black voters.

And I think that was a lot, you know, especially in Wayne County before Joe Biden dropped his his reelection bid, there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm over there to his point about the middle of like, you know, moderate voters.

I do think that's very important.

But I think also if in Wayne County, you have this surge of enthusiasm, you get, you know, thousands and thousands of more votes, you know, that moderate might not matter as much if you're getting, you know, 50, 100,000 more votes from Wayne County.

Well, in the comment from one of the religious leaders down in Detroit, was he he hasn't seen this since 2008, which is the Obama stuff, which was off the charts.

It was.

And you know, exactly to your point, what I've always said is like, it wasn't so much that Donald Trump won Michigan in 16.

It was that Hillary Clinton lost Michigan in 16.

And a lot of that was exactly what you're saying, the Wayne County vote and just not seeing that turnout.

And that that speaks to.

Also, I just want to point out what happened with Trump at the convention when he sat there and kind of talked down.

I mean, that kind of he directly talked down to African-American female journalists who were trying to ask him very real and honest questions that need to be answered.

He talked down to them.

He made comments that were just baffling, saying immigrants are taking specifically black jobs.

I mean, that is a baffling comment.

Those are the type of comments that are going to get voters who maybe would have stayed home if Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket in places like Detroit, in other areas of Wayne County, who are going to say now I'm engaged in this race, what is this person saying?

I mean, it's going to change the race.

Trump is leaning into something that I think Democrats want him to lean into.

So.

All right, Let's switch to the U.S., The state Supreme Court minimum wage, the restaurant industry has become unglued.

Just an absolutely huge ruling from the Michigan Supreme Court this week.

We shouldn't be surprised that the ruling came out right.

The court is wrapping up.

We've been waiting for it.

So we knew it was coming.

But it was a fascinating 4 to 3 decision.

Right.

The progressive or liberal justice Democratic justices, of course, they're not Republican or Democrat, but the more liberal leaning progressive, 4 to 3 decision that really is going to completely upend what the minimum wage looks like in the state.

This has been a fight since 2018, folks.

I mean, we are going on five years of this and this all goes back to the Republicans, really controversial strategy of adopt and amend.

This was a ballot question that had gotten enough signatures.

Republicans basically took it.

They passed it, and then they amended it.

And the Supreme Court this week said you can't do that.

In the same session.

They basically said they took away the right of the people to decide what the people wanted to do.

But the legislature was saying, we are the people, we represent the people.

Yeah, well, and it's a little difficult because it was never voted on.

You know, it was it was brought to them with these, you know, a citizen led petition, but it was never actually put on the ballot.

So I do think, you know, some of the the outrage over this decision, you know, the justices weren't deciding whether it was a good measure or good, you know, policy.

They were deciding whether it was constitutional, unconstitutional, what was done.

So I do think some of the issue was obviously the adoption amend strategy.

We don't really know how people would have actually voted had it been put on the ballot.

A good idea by the fact that they adopted it and amended it.

I mean, for people like we don't know how voters would have done this, Arlen Metcalfe clearly had an idea how voters are going to vote on this, or he wouldn't have done that.

But it's just it's just a devious move.

I mean, we can't say anything other than that to say, hey, we're going to adopt this before Election Day, keep it off the ballot, and then come back after Election Day and then change it.

I mean, that's just what are we doing here?

But whether it's constitutional or not, that's a separate question.

But is that what our government should be doing, keeping voters from weighing in on something?

I mean, that's that's wild.

But now the restaurant industry is saying many businesses are going to close because what they'll do is raise the pay for some workers.

But in order to do that, they'll get rid of other workers.

That's what they're certainly saying.

I mean, look, this is what they've been saying for years.

There still seems to be sort of a unsure number of how many folks in Michigan this is actually going to affect.

One thing I think we do know for sure is this is going to take up likely a lot of oxygen when lawmakers come back in the fall.

This is suddenly an issue that that lawmakers are going to be talking about and possibly trying to figure out.

Are there votes to shift it a little bit, which they can, of course, because adopting amend, was it happening in the same legislative session?

We are in a completely different legislative session.

Gary Peters going to be vice president?

No.

Yeah.

Is that story a waste story?

I don't know if it's a wasted story, but you didn't you don't hear his name talked about among the.

Top of all the guys.

Yeah, he's not talking about my schedules cleared.

I don't know if anyone's asked him if his schedule was cleared this weekend or not.

Yeah, but I haven't heard any reporting on that.

I mean, he's not.

When when I talked to Sean Fein, the president of the UAW, he didn't bring up Gary Peters as someone that he was watching.

You'd think that he would be talking about someone in his home state if he was in reports.

That the UAW wanted Peters were absolutely, positively wrong.

I don't believe that to be true.

And I talked to Sean Fein yesterday.

He said that he favors Andy Beshear, the Kentucky governor, and Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor.

Those are the two people he says he's most excited about from.

Two states which are not swing states.

All right.

Let's call in Mr. Czuba, who's in.

Good morning.

How are you doing?

Hey, good morning.

All right.

So look at when you were pawing through all of this data.

When was your aha moment?

I think the numbers that really stuck out to me, we asked this question, does Biden leaving the race make you more or less excited to vote or does it have no impact?

And 26% of voters said it made them more motivated to vote.

But when I looked at who those voters were, 48% voters, 18 to 29, 38% African-American voters, 37% strong Democratic voters.

There is just a wild enthusiasm on the Democratic side.

We were not seeing with Joe Biden playing out.

Now in this race.

As you heard in our discussion, could that fade with the morning sun?

Well, you know, one of the benefits Vice President Harris has now is, you know, we've always talked about complained about how much we hate these long campaigns.

Just a very short campaign, 100 days.

I think that could be very much to her advantage in the enthusiasm here.

Losing them does not wane as you get closer to an election.

It increases.

Unless you're Hillary Clinton.

Everybody remembers this clerk.

Hi, Rich.

Hi there.

Hey.

So, you know, we've been talking a lot about Trump.

We've been talking a lot about here.

We have not mentioned yet, though, of course, RFK Jr. Who is on the ballot in Michigan.

Talk to me a little bit about your thoughts about him in this race and what that could portend for November.

Sure.

First of all, our polling found that he was getting nearly 10% of the vote, and it's almost entirely from independent voters in Michigan.

I just want to say, first off, any polling in Michigan that does not include Kennedy just should be dismissed.

He's on the ballot.

We have to factor that in.

So when we look at that vote, one thing we've been seeing all year is that there are a lot of voters who are not happy with Trump or Biden who are just parking themselves behind Kennedy.

We don't know if that's permanent or temporary.

But one thing I will say is Kennedy to keep those votes, it's got to have money and an organization.

And I don't think he does.

I think you are going to see both the Trump and the Harris campaign cannibalize those voters.

And when we look at the U.S. Senate race, we see that Elissa Slotkin is winning those voters by 15%.

She has a big lead right now amongst those Kennedy voters.

I wonder, you know, typically we look at the top of the ticket to indicate what's going to happen below.

We may need to be looking at the U.S. Senate race to see what's happened above here.

If this is my hypothetical question to you, if you were advising Donald Trump right now, you look at these poll numbers in Michigan, what would you advise him to do to turn around this trend?

What is the advice you'd give him?

Well, I doubt he'd take it if it was hypothetical.

But first of all, he couldn't afford you.

But go forward.

So, you know, as I watched what happened in Chicago, the thing that stuck with me was that I think Democrats should be excited by what they saw in Chicago, because what it told me is Donald Trump is an old dog that can't learn new tricks.

We've seen this shtick before.

We've seen him play this out before.

And what it's saying is they don't know how to take on Vice President Harris.

She's a whole new factor in this race that they haven't prepared for, which is shocking in itself.

What I would have suggested is coming through that convention.

First of all, make an appeal to women, a direct appeal to female voters.

And we didn't see that.

In fact, he doubled down on his strength amongst male white male voters.

Second of all, he had this opportunity after the assassination attempt to actually be contemplate us to actually be unifying.

And that lasted all of about the first 5 minutes of his convention speech.

And he's dismissed it now.

I think they've missed that opportunity to actually grow their coalition.

And one thing we know about Donald Trump, he has a very high floor, very low ceiling.

He's going to get the votes.

He's going to get.

What they missed is the opportunity to grow those votes.

And I think that was a big strategic mistake coming out of the convention.

And just quickly, we should note not only he didn't appeal to women voters, has a vice presidential candidate who seems to want to fight female voters.

I mean, this cat lady, it's just it's.

What do you make of that, then, to even like kind of not only like not do it, but just actually push back even farther?

You know, we're seeing in the numbers that there is a massive gender gap on both sides of the aisle.

Right now, women are about 14.5% moving towards Harris.

I suspect that's going to grow.

Men are at 15% for Trump.

So by doubling down on these attacks on women, frankly, I think these attacks of she's a candidate are particularly devastating to the Trump campaign.

They're backfiring and they're backfiring because talk to any woman in the workplace, she's heard this.

And every time they accuse her of being a DEI candidate, somebody who's not prepared, someone who isn't qualified for the office, one more woman just lines up to vote for her because those women have all heard it.

Now for the Harris campaign.

They need to go after men.

They need to do better amongst men.

And I think the target is college men.

That is the most likely strategic target for them.

So a vice presidential choice.

I'd be looking at what male candidate helps you with college men at least pare back those numbers, because that could make the difference.

I think the two demographics we need to watch in this election are college men and non-college women.

Kind of going off of that.

But there seems to be a split right now with the vice presidential, you know, with the veepstakes right now and who she's going to choose.

Progressives seem to kind of have like pressure, like walls in Minnesota and then, you know, more moderate kind of voters seem to like.

SHAPIRO Josh SHAPIRO, governor of Pennsylvania.

Two questions.

You know, how much will that vice presidential pick really matter?

And is there kind of a group you just mentioned a little bit right there?

But, you know, if the goal is 270 electoral votes and not just you know, riling up your base, you know, is there really a candidate, you know, voters that she should be going after with with this this pick?

You know, I think there are three criteria they should be looking at in the vice president, first and foremost.

Are they prepared to govern?

Simple criteria, I think.

Secondly, do no harm.

I think we're seeing from the Trump selection J.D.

Vance is doing harm right now.

The only person he appeals to is his base.

He didn't grow potential voters.

So who does no harm?

And the third element is what do you bring to the ticket?

And in that regard, I think I don't know the internal polling of the Harris campaign.

I don't know the strategic concerns they have.

You know, can.

SHAPIRO deliver Pennsylvania?

That's an enormous get if you put him on the ticket and he can do that.

I tend to think that vice presidential candidates don't add a lot, quite frankly, I'm not sure having SHAPIRO on that ticket can deliver Pennsylvania.

It's up to Harris to deliver Pennsylvania yet, But if he can make half a point difference.

Boy, that's a big difference.

Mr..

I go ahead.

Mr. Trump over the years has made inroads into the African American men voting bloc.

And some people say that that is a critical bloc.

Are there signals that those folks are coming home?

I think it's something we're going to watch.

But I want to I want to clarify that point.

I don't think Donald Trump was actually making inroads with male voters.

I think he was raising doubts about the Democratic candidate with male voters, black male voters.

There's an important difference in that.

And we're not seeing in any of our polling and we haven't all year, frankly, that Donald Trump is doing particularly well with black male voters.

If they're if they have a concern with the Democrat, they're parking themselves behind Kennedy right now.

And I think, you know, Americans love to think that we're the center of the political universe, But I think we need to look at this from an international perspective.

And what we've seen is that far right governments win when the opposition is divided.

And I think what we're seeing Donald Trump, do you know, we've seen this, for example, in Poland, where Donald Tusk won by uniting the opposition.

We saw it in France, where Marie Le Pen's party was held back because the centrist and the far left and the left unify.

So here I think what we're seeing is a strategy of Donald Trump knowing he cannot grow his vote, but what he cannot afford in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin is for a unified black vote.

So I don't think he's going in to try to win black votes.

I think he's trying to go in to divide black votes to raise doubt about the Democratic nominee, divide that vote to make sure that they are not a unified vote for Harris.

Can you talk about quickly the subject of immigration and what the poll found on that?

I mean, it's very complex.

It's not as simple as Donald Trump is strong on immigration.

So voters like Donald Trump, but it's much different than that.

Can you talk about it?

Sure.

I mean, what we know from the polling is that first and foremost, voters across the political aisle want the border secured.

That's the first hurdle for any candidate.

And Donald Trump understands that.

He gets it.

I think the onus in this immigration conversation is on Vice President Harris to get across to the voters that she supports a secure border and has a plan to secure the border.

Once you get past that initial hurdle, boy, voters attitudes are very different.

We asked, for example, do you support Donald Trump's plan that he's talked about in the Time magazine interview?

To use detention camps to deport 11 million people without legal immigration status and use the military to round them up?

Boy, they don't support it by large.

Majority do not support those tactics.

But more importantly, when you present the argument, if you can secure the border and deport people who aren't here legally, or you can secure the border and offer a pathway to immigration.

Mr. Speaker.

I'm sorry.

I have I do have to jump in they're playing music in my ear, which means I got to say bye bye.

Thank you very much.

It's good to see you again.

Also, our thanks to our great panel.

Next week, more off the record.

Right here.

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