(suspenseful music) - [Tim VO] Welcome back pollster Richard Czuba here with new numbers on the race for Governor.

It's getting tighter.

That's our lead story, and on the OTR panel, we have Jonathan Oosting, Rachel Louise Just, and Craig Mauger.

Sitting with us as we get the inside out, off the record.

- [Narrator] 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 for a regular edition of "Off the Record", after the event we had here last week.

Nice to have you in those seats, by the way.

Jonathan, talk to us about the dust up going on between Tudor Dixon and Kevin Rinke.

This thing's starting to get ugly.

- Yeah, it is.

Tudor Dixon who has led in a couple polls.

The one we'll talk about today, she's slightly ahead, but within the margin of error.

In any case, Kevin Rinke is going after her in television ads, suggesting that while she is seeking President Trump's endorsement and publicly says she supports him, Rinke argues she's bank ruled by anti-Trumpers.

That's a reference, it seems to the DeVos family, which of course, were not anti-Trumpers.

They supported Trump's presidency.

Betsy DeVos worked for Trump as a US Secretary of Education, but then did resign and did publicly acknowledge that she discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office after the January 6th riots.

So, it was sort of an interesting balancing act for Tudor Dixon to try and walk according both Trump voters and the DeVos family support, and Rinke is taking the gloves off and trying to expose that connection.

- Well, he has looked at the data, she's got a seven-point lead with Trump voters.

Hence that's why the commercial is out there.

- Yeah, very well likely.

And we're now two weeks away from the election.

We still don't have a ton of, well, we don't have a clear front runner, as Jonathan has mentioned, but we also don't have a lot of kind of, I guess the word would be kind of, dust ups between some of these candidates so far.

And of course, one of the first major ones that we do see comes down to Trump, doesn't it?

That's just kind of goes to show how he- - What else would it be?

(both laughing) - Right.

How he still has this role in this race that he hasn't endorsed in yet, which I think is so striking.

- Yeah, I think this battle is about one voter who lives in Florida and doesn't have a ballot in this primary election, Donald Trump.

All of these candidates know the endorsement that Donald Trump could make in this primary election will likely be decisive.

And they're all trying to battle for his backing right now.

Kevin Rinke puts this ad out to try to undercut Tudor Dixon, who many expect is most likely to get the Trump endorsement.

We have just days to go here.

We're all watching our inboxes to see if Donald Trump's gonna weigh in.

- How can he endorse her with Betsy DeVos on her campaign?

If Donald Trump is a guy who likes to get even, why would he do something to endorse her?

I'm not there yet.

- Well, certainly that's the question, right?

The reason maybe he hasn't done so yet, but Trump also likes to win.

So, the poll that came out a couple weeks ago, showing Tudor Dixon in the lead.

There was a thought in the Dixon camp that that poll might help, you know, Trump, if he had cold feet to jump into the race.

He did not do so.

Maybe Kevin Rinke's ad played, had something to do with it.

Rinke did say, Tim, right after the debate here last week, he told reporters, "I wanted to make sure the President knew that."

So, he's not hiding the fact that that is, that commercial is a message to Trump.

He's also running it though in the exact same markets where a super pack is running ads, supporting Tudor Dixon, and including quotes from President Trump, who has said some kind things about her publicly.

So, Rinke's clear trying to undercut her message with Trump voters as well.

- Well it's interesting, the spot that I saw last night was about him can defeat Gretchen Whitmer.

And I'm thinking, "Wait a second, you know, you haven't gotten the nomination yet.

Where's the commercial in this area about Tudor Dixon?

Why a Whitmer ad?"

- I think Tudor Dixon's campaign just doesn't have the resources right now to put out a whole bunch of different messages.

They focused on one message, tying her to President Trump and all the polls indicate that that message is working.

There are voters out there that think she's already been endorsed by President Trump.

- Well, but he's got a commercial with Mr. Trump in it, too!

- But it was later, it was quite a few days later.

And it, that is another indication to me that they saw what was happening with Tudor's numbers and said, "Oh, that's working.

We need to get on that."

- Yeah.

All right.

What did you make of what happened here last week?

- Well, you know, I heard the word- - Did you stay awake?

That's the question.

- (laughs) I did.

- You did.

- I heard the word pork a lot.

I felt like I was at a barbecue at some point, 'cause we talked about that a lot.

I think what stood out to me a lot was just kind of what we've seen in the debates before, which is that these candidates are not afraid to say that they do not like how things are going right now.

Even if that means criticizing fellow Republicans, who they will work with, potentially as soon as next year.

So, I think the question you asked about, you know, the bipartisanship there, are you willing to, you know, maybe there are some things you don't know here and how are you gonna get those deals?

I think those were interesting things for voters to chew on, because, if they're not willing to make those deals, if they're not willing to say that they don't quite understand how some of the things are going, though I did notice that a couple of candidates say, "I don't quite know this."

And of course, as journalists, we do love the transparency there.

I think that that says something to voters of, you know, is this gonna be someone who's a lone wolf who can't work with the legislature?

- Yeah.

I mean, I think in all of these debates- Well, first of all, I think we were all a little disappointed that Tudor Dixon did not participate.

Nothing on you, Tim, but we would've liked to see all of the candidates.

Of course, including Dixon, who's led in some polls.

But at the same time, I think we've seen in a lot of these debates, the candidates have different styles.

A few different, you know, main pillars of their campaigns, but they agree on so many things.

I mean, across the board, whether it's abortion, guns, et cetera.

There's broad agreement, only minor differences.

And I think, you know, a take away for me was, you got (laughs) the candidates to admit one difference.

Garrett Soldano was the only candidate who said he would have supported incentives for General Motors to build here in Lansing and in Orion Township.

You know, maybe not the biggest issue for voters in the world, but at least we got them on record stating, discussing and debating one policy.

- Well, if you were in the business community, did you go, "What?"

- I think there were some questions, obviously left unanswered and that happens in a debate, right?

I mean, you had these candidates put out some statements, as they've been doing throughout this whole thing about, "Hey, I wouldn't do those incentives, or I would cut the budget."

Well, if you're going to create this culture that attracts businesses, how do you do that?

They haven't been extremely transparent in how they would go about doing that.

When it comes to cutting the budget, they have not identified these cuts that they're going to make, and you pressed them on it, and did a good job doing that.

But they still haven't identified these things.

And the budget is set up in a way, where so much of it is allocated to specific things.

There's not a lot of money there that can just be thrown out the window.

- Well, the other part of this is, is that they, the three of them that were against the GM deal, reflected what John Engler thought when he first came into office, which was, "We don't do this."

And then Mr. Engler being Governor discovered that jobs were going to Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and all other places, and we gotta get in the game.

And so, it's an easy thing to follow the Mackinac Center and say, "This is corporate welfare."

But at the end of the day, it's unilateral disarmament.

Is it not, in the economic game?

- Well, the states that are winning some of these projects right now in large numbers, are also giving them those type of deals.

So, I'm sure the, the MEDC would say, "Hey, what do you want us to do?

This culture thing is not winning in any of these states.

What do you expect us to do?"

- Yeah, look, we saw Rick Snyder do the same thing as Governor.

He actually scrapped.

- [Tim] He's a gardener.

- Yeah, he actually scrapped most of the state's incentive programs when he came into office, and by the time he left office, he was creating new incentive programs.

So, yeah, as you mentioned, you know, the political rhetoric is easy to say, "We hate pork, we hate incentives."

But you know, people who have been around Lansing might tell you, as you mentioned in the debate, Tim, "Sometimes this is what it takes to get deals done in this town."

And, you know, on a campaign trail, I mean, no candidates gonna wanna admit they're gonna do that.

(laughs) So, I wasn't surprised by their answers.

- Well, look at, the heart of the matter is, if you're a Governor and you've got a top priority and you need a one vote, are you gonna give them a skating rink back home?

Of course you are!

Aren't you?

- I think definitely.

Governors have been doing this for a long time.

Even Rick Snyder- - [Tim] For a couple years.

- Who says he wasn't a horse trader or whatever, was clearly trading horses at different moments.

So- - Yes.

- I think these are questions that they're going to have to face and whoever the eventual GOP nominee is, Governor Whitmer is going to demand answers from them, from that person on these topics.

- All right.

So, we're about to get to Richard, but before we do, what did you think of the polling data that came out that says, basically this is a statistical dead heat, almost between four people.

- I mean, it's crazy.

We have less than two weeks before the election.

There's no clear front runner.

Undecided has led in every poll of this race.

- [Tim] 38%.

38%.

- And continues to do so.

I mean, I think it speaks a little bit to candidate outreach while two of the candidates are on television.

You know, people I talk to say there hasn't been clear concerted efforts by any of the campaigns to reach out directly to voters, whether it be mailers, text messages, to get them to return absentee ballots, for instance.

The campaign is sort of being run on Facebook (laughs) and in television ads right now and smaller public gatherings around the state.

But we haven't seen the kind of coordinated, statewide campaigns that usually lead to victory.

- Well, I think that we'll all be surprised come election night.

I think, you know, that you've always been to election night as a journalist saying, "It could go certain ways."

But I think truly it will be a shock which way it goes.

I think that Governor Gretchen Whitmer's office is also very aware of the fact that, right now they don't know who's going to gonna be going up against them, but they do have a lot of money.

They need to learn how to spend that, you know?

Going into the general.

I'm sure they'll get more, but they have a huge war chest right now.

And as you saw with her last ad, she's not focusing on these other candidates at all, because she doesn't know which one of them she's gonna be up against in a couple of months from now.

- There's some decent cross over and vote for some of the lesser known candidates to get a bad candidate to run against her.

Or is that too far fetched of a conspiracy theory?

- No, there will be some Democrats that are going to do that.

They've already stated that they're going to do it.

Will it impact the outcome?

We don't know.

But another thing to just keep in mind, Republican voters in this state of Michigan have been highly unpredictable in the Donald Trump years.

You know, there have been people voting in Republican primaries for the first time in high numbers, there have been people who haven't told pollsters how they're going to vote.

Numbers have changed right before election day previously.

So, this thing is a wild card, if Donald Trump stays out of it, as everyone has stated.

- Some of the data in the cross tabs were interesting.

Mr. Rinke has a lead with people that have already voted.

She has a lead with people that have their absentee ballot, but haven't voted.

And so, that's one thing.

And also, she has a lead in Metro Detroit by 15 points, but we all know, there's not a heck of a lot of Republicans in Detroit, last time I checked.

And he has a lead of three points in outstate Michigan, where we think maybe this election might be decided.

This is a jump ball, isn't it?

- It's a complete jump ball.

I mean, it's a complete jump ball as we sit here.

I could make an argument for any of these four candidates for why they could be the winner on August.

- Well, the other two gentlemen, Soldano and Mr. Kelly have their strong support on the people that vote on election day because they don't vote absentee.

So, on that, let's bring in our guest to pursue these numbers with Richard.

Richard, how you doing this morning?

Nice to see you again.

- Good morning, good to be back.

- All right.

So, have we said anything here that you agree with or disagree with?

(Tim and Richard laughing) I think this race is a big pile of steaming mess.

I think that's the only way to describe it.

Here we are two weeks out from election day, nobody is pulling at even 20%, and undecided continues to be at 38%.

And I think it's a reflection of the fact that Republicans do not have their A-list candidates in this race.

They have five candidates who don't have a big basis support have never run for office, and have no experience raising money or running campaigns.

I think it's showing now.

- [Tim] Great.

- No, I think so.

And I would ask you, how much do you think that the absentees are gonna be factoring into this decision here?

'Cause a lot of people have already started voting.

Of course, we know Republicans don't vote as much absentee as Democrats do, but how much is that gonna factor into things as well?

- Well, about 1/3 of the vote here will be absentee ballot in the Republican primary.

Far less than then on the Democratics, in Democratic primaries.

But what we see in these numbers right now, is that Dixon and Rinke seem to be the only ones currently doing what I would call a chase program to these absentee voters.

Which is kind of campaign nuts and bolts 101.

Is, you know, these are definite votes, go get 'em.

And those two campaigns seem to have either a chase program going, or I think in the case of Dixon, has organizational support that's doing the chase with those absentees.

I think that's gonna help on election night, but you know, 2/3 of the voters here are gonna vote on election day.

And what we see there is that Soldano and Kelly both have a slight advantage with those election day voters.

- Richard, your poll had Tudor Dickson in a slightly, but within the margin of error here, so, no clear front runner.

But correct me if I'm wrong, this poll was conducted before Kevin Rinke started airing, or right around when he started airing these attack ads, suggesting she's supported by anti-Trumpers.

How effective do you think that messaging is gonna be based on other numbers you've seen, you're seeing, you know, in terms of support for Trump among the GOP electorate?

- So, this poll was conducted from Wednesday to Friday of last week.

So, it was before these ads started.

You know, you said earlier and I would agree, it seems to me, these four candidates are running a campaign to one person, and that's Donald Trump.

And you know, the elephant in the room here is we are all just treading water in this race to see what Donald Trump does.

And whatever Donald, whoever Donald Trump chooses to support, if he chooses to support somebody is likely to emerge as the nominee.

So, from a Rinke perspective, putting those ads on the air, you know, plays right to Donald Trump.

The surest way to win this primary is to go win Donald Trump's endorsement.

- Well, let's get philosophical here for a moment.

This is kind of a broader issue.

Garrett Soldano tweeted recently, he said, all of these polls are "Hot, garbage."

That's what he told his followers.

There's a distrust among people who vote in GOP primaries about polling, public polling.

They see that Donald Trump has outperformed the polls.

If you were sitting here talking to a Garrett Soldano voter, who says, "Why should I trust this poll?"

What would you say to them?

- I'd have nothing to say to them actually.

For the simple reason that they don't trust the media, they don't trust fellow Democrats in this country, they don't trust anybody but themselves.

And they're talking in an echo chamber at this point.

And I think one of the bigger problems as we widen out beyond the primary race is, in Michigan, independents decide this race.

It's 20% of the electorate.

We all focus on the polarization of Democrats and Republicans, but they've always voted for their own candidates.

It's these 20% we should be focused on and nobody ever pays attention to.

And what I'm saying is, these candidates are not speaking to that 20%.

Gretchen Whitmer has already pivoted to them.

She pivoted, I would say by early autumn, last autumn, we saw this pivot take place.

She's been very effective.

She has 61% job approval amongst independent voters.

What are these, whoever the Republican nominee is going to be, what are they saying to these independent voters?

'Cause right now, they're not having a conversation with them, and I think more importantly, we all talk about August 2nd, I wanna focus on August 3rd.

Because on August 3rd, you are likely to have a Republican nominee who is not particularly strong, does not have strong name ID, has demonstrated they really can't raise money, they're not great at running a campaign, and they're gonna be staring down at Gretchen Whitmer's tens of millions of dollars.

And I remember back in 1994, Howard Wolpe limping out of the democratic primary.

And the day after that primary, team Engler was up beating the heck out of Howard Wolpe for the next month, and he never recovered.

I suspect the same thing's gonna happen.

- Richard, talk to me about the experience issue, vis-à-vis the legislature and the process.

All of these candidates are running as the consummate outsiders.

After, on August 3rd, do they begin to pivot to something else, or do they have to stick on that message?

- Well, you know, I think Matt DePerno, who's running for Attorney General, is a good example of how far that gets you.

It gets you the nomination perhaps, but then you gotta work with people.

And I think he's facing a lot of internal blowback within the Republican legislature saying, "Well, hold it.

You called me a rhino.

You want me to work with you, but I'm a rhino?"

You know, you've gotta work with people and independents in particular, want to know that you can work across the aisle, want to know that you're gonna get something done instead of just chit chatting about this stuff.

And you know, I always talk about voters don't care how the sausage gets made, they just wanna see the sausage on the shelf.

And I think this is a case of, anybody who runs it as an outsider.

You know, Rick Snyder ran as an outsider, but Rick Snyder also knew how a lot about budgets and a lot about government.

And right now, we're looking at a lot of candidates who don't know anything about the jobs they're about to, they're running for.

- Richard, we talked about the possibility of Democrats crossing over to vote in the GOP primary.

And the conventional wisdom is, perhaps they'd back a candidate like Ryan Kelly, 'cause they think he's most defeatable.

However, your head-to-head general election polling suggested Kelly was the closest to Governor Whitmer.

Could that strategy backfire on Democrats?

- Well, I think Kelly is the closest because he has a highest name ID.

I mean this race, the Governor's race is likely a close.

I mean, let's just be honest.

The Michigan races get closer as election day approaches, this one will, also.

So, I think what that tiny little, you know, advantage he had over the other candidates was simply due to the last name of Kelly.

And that's a great name in Michigan politics, let's be honest, but let's talk about this idea of Democrats crossing over to vote in Republican primaries.

I'll just be blunt, it doesn't work.

It rarely happens.

The one time it happened was when unions organized to show John Engler, you know, teach him a lesson in the 2000 GOP presidential primary, and they voted for McCain over Bush.

Otherwise, there are tons of Republicans, and I, you know, former Congressman Schwartz, you know, this was a strategy.

There was a strategy to try and get independents and Democrats to cross over in that primary against Wolper, never materialized.

I'm hearing the same thing about Pete Meyer right now.

It's not gonna happen.

They don't come out in crossover, in large enough numbers to make big differences.

Yes, there will be anecdotal evidence, but overall, this is not gonna happen.

- [Tim] You got one?

- Yeah.

Because this is looking like it's a four-way tie at this point, are we gonna expect to see, I mean, I'm sure we'll see some questioning of election results, but to a whole nother level, 'cause it's gonna be four people in that, questioning those results.

- I'm gonna be as fascinated as the rest of you on this question.

(laughing in unison) You know, suddenly, we have people who question every time anybody loses.

Well guess what?

Politics is about winning and losing.

People lose.

And you know, I think it's a bigger question we have to deal with, not only as a state, but as a country, the fact that we just don't- We have a large segment of the population that doesn't trust elections anymore.

And they don't trust elections 'cause they're not winning them.

Well, that's poor sportsmanship.

That's being a poor loser.

And I think we need to go figure out how to go back to those days where every vote mattered, we counted those votes, and the loser graciously admitted defeat.

But I don't know what's gonna happen on election night if it's a close race, and who's gonna challenge the results.

- Richard, you mentioned Peter Meyer earlier.

I'm curious, your polling showed Trump having high favorability among primary voters.

63% of primary voters looking to his endorsement as at least somewhat important.

These races that we have unfolding right now, that put up a Trump-backed candidate versus someone else who is not endorsed by Donald Trump.

Do you think this data is an indication that these Trump-endorsed candidates are gonna do very well on August 2nd?

- Yes I do, actually.

We've done a lot of polling in other races and primaries, and one thing we find is that when you tell voters- You know, generally voters don't know who these candidates are, particularly for legislative races, but when you tell voters, Donald Trump has endorsed them, those Republican primary voters shift wholesale to that candidate.

And I think we're seeing a lot of it.

We're likely to see quite a few incumbents go down on primary night to Trump-endorsed candidates.

And that's really unique!

I mean, that may make this a very rare election night, but again, I also have never seen a primary night in which a former President of the United States is endorsing in legislative primary races.

That's how unique this all is.

- Your abortion numbers that you have out, what do they tell us?

- Well, what they tell us, you know, we did both the general election poll on abortion and the primary poll.

Overall, in the general, we find consistent numbers that the overwhelming vast majority of voters in the state of Michigan supported leaving Roe v. Wade in place.

These numbers were a jolt, frankly.

Roe v. Wade was a jolt to Democratic voters and it motivated them to levels we saw- to levels we're seeing in 2020 and 2018.

So, turnout is gonna be at '18 and '20 levels, not at '14 and '16, by any stretch.

I think particularly on this question of the rape and incest exception, we're gonna see this front and center in a whole lot of races in Michigan.

The fact that we have a constitutional amendment on the ballot regarding abortion, will dominate the conversation from top to bottom on the ticket, in all races.

There is no escaping if you're a candidate, where you stand on Roe v. Wade, where you stand on this constitutional amendment, that voters are likely to face.

And I think Republicans are really in a tough position.

They always did well on abortion, when they nibbled around the edges, when they talked about taxpayer funding of abortion or third trimester, but we've never argued the central question in Michigan of, should abortion be allowed?

Let alone, should abortion be allowed for a minor child who's been abused or raped.

And what I find interesting in all this conversation is Republicans don't seem to have a clear coherent answer on the rape and incest question.

And that really is a motivating factor here for voters, particularly independents, Southeast Michigan independents are really gonna focus in on this issue.

- Is Governor Whitmer, final question, is Governor Whitmer vulnerable on her handling of COVID?

- You know, I think voters have moved past COVID to be honest.

I think there's a branch of the Republican vote that still wants to talk about this.

In the same way that there's a branch of the Republican vote that wants to re-litigate 2020.

Well, independents, as I said, make these decisions, they've moved on.

They've moved past COVID, they've well moved past 2020, they don't wanna re-litigate 2020 again.

And the more Republicans are talking about those issues, they're losing.

They need to be focused on the future.

- In your private pool with the other pollsters, who have you got for Governor?

- (laughs) I have, honestly, this is a complete toss.

I don't think anybody can tell you who is going to win this nomination.

We just don't know.

- Richard, great to see you again.

Thanks for your great answers.

Also our great panel, appreciate you guys, as well.

See you week after this with more "Off the Record."

See you then.

- [Narrator] 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 Martinwayire.com.

For more "Off the Record", visit wkar.org.

Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production costs of "Off the Record."

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