We are back now wit overtime with Senator McMorrow.

Nice to have you on the program.

We will talk about your book in a little bit.

Okay.

But I promised Joey a question.

The story in 201 was that the polls undercounted the amount of Trump voters in Michigan.

I'm wondering, you know, in Oakland County, in metro Detroit, do you think there's any chance that the polls are undercounting the number of of female women voters that might vote for Kamala Harris, that are in households that have Trump?

But you don't because of reproductive rights, might just not be sayin that they're voting for Harris?

Oh, absolutely.

And I think that there is just a heavy skepticism across the board right now with people wanting to answer their phone, even getting texts.

I get people screen shotting texts to me and they say somebody said this is a poll.

Is it true?

I don't want to click on it.

So this is why I take every poll with a grain of salt.

I'm that there is that on both sides.

I'm sure there's people who are voting for Trump and don't want to say it.

And I'm sure there's a lot of women who just don't want to answer the phone because of how many scam calls there are now.

I'm curious about on the state leve and what the the entire ballot.

You know, obviously the state House of Representatives is up for election, too.

You're in the Senate.

You don't have to worry about that right now.

But from what you've seen so far from this here in the state legislature, from the state office that are on the race, you know, we always talk about the dow ballot effect and whether or not the top of the ticke can help the down ballot races.

But do you see this as an opportunity or do you feel like Democrats have earned that opportunity or do you feel like Democrats have earned that opportunity for the down ballot race to affect the top of the ticket?

Absolutely.

Oh, my goodness.

You are talking my talking point that I've been using the last six years, which is we have to be talking about reverse coattails through my PAC in the cycle.

I am supporting 13 state House candidates have contributed will be contributing about $130,000 all in for state House candidates.

And we're also knocking on doors as a group in at least seven of them.

So I brought 14 volunteers out to knock with Matt Kolezar, we're going to be ou for Denise Mentzer this weekend.

And what I am pitching to, frankly, my donors and a lot of volunteers is that having a strong I don't even like calling it a bench because a bench implies that your job doesn't matter.

You're going to get promoted at some point.

This is the foundation.

And if we can ensur that we have a strong foundation in the state House, it improves the Vice President Harris's chances.

So we saw this in the immediat aftermath of of Kamala running massive uptick in fundraising for her.

She's had a windfall of cash that didn't necessarily trickle down ballot.

So that's the pitch that I'm making out is we've got to do all of the above.

And I am all about building the foundation.

But in terms of what th legislature has actually done, I guess, you know, obviously Democrats accomplished a lot in the first few months of their term of last year when they took over.

And this year the House had was had that even 54-54 split.

They couldn't get a lot done without Republican votes, which weren't there.

But do you feel like in terms of the politics of what have you done for me lately, that there is enough of that pitch there for voters that the legislature has largely been inactive since June?

They've don a few things here and there, but do you feel like it's done enough to catch the eye?

I think there absolutely is because of how ineffective and gridlocked Congress has been you know, in the last few years, they haven' been able to get anything done.

So when you're talking about many of the issues that the vice president and Governor Walz are running on, gun violence being a huge issue, that is something that we're able to point to on the state level and say, hopefully if this all goes the way that that we hope it does, Michigan and what we've been able to do on the state level can be a predictor of our future on the federal level when it comes to universal background checks and safe storage and red flag laws, which, you know, I led that legislation.

It was my first bill ever signed into law.

It took me five years.

And people, particularly moms going back to suburban women, this is a very salient issue for them.

And I think that is a message that we're hearing loud and clear on the doors as we see so many senseless gun violence, deaths continue to happen, that they want to see action.

So we can say we've gotten it done here in Michigan.

We have more to do and we're going to help all the way up the ballot, be able to get this done on the federal level as well.

Oh, so if you don't mind really quickly, if Republicans flip the state, how should we expect two years of inaction?

I wish I could say no.

You know, I served in the minority for four years and I voted with Republicans 98, 99% of the time.

I would never have voted against the budget, ever.

It would just to me completely dishonest.

You know, you get into this job the pass and there were a lot of line items in the budget that I disagreed with in my first four years, of course.

But at the end of the day, we needed to fund our schools and our health care system and our roads.

We haven't seen tha with this Republican minority.

They've voted against their own bills.

They voted against the budget, trying to get immediate effect on some things has been a real challenge, and I think it i the worst of the Mitch McConnell brand of obstructionism has taken over what has traditionally been a very moderate, functional Republican Party that we don't see anymore.

So, you know, my fear is that if Democrats lose the state House, the Matt Hall versio is to grind everything to a halt and we could see a government shutdown.

And I don't think that's acceptable.

And I think voters should hold them accountable.

And to that point, you know, from from your perspective as you know, not not on the ballot, but obviously very involved, What what's the strategy for Democrats to keep it?

It's not quite as simple as driving people out and turnout wise, it's a little more complicated in these competitive regions.

You know, what's what's the strategy to make it happe and keep Democrats in control?

You know, I think that we have to be very honest with ourselves.

Most people don't know who their state legislators are, so we can't disconnect ourselves from national politics.

But the challenge that Democrats have had traditionally tha we're finally catching up on is we haven't had the resources to compete in getting our own message out there.

I know that the state House has ads running all around the state right now, and Democrats ar outspending Republicans 10 to 1.

So $30 million on ads for State House candidates versus about $3 million from the Republican side.

That stuff matters in local races.

And what we saw when the Senate was last up i 2022 was being able to get out early with bio led messages.

You know, Veronica Klinefelt is one of my favorite people and she's the most Macomb County senator you could ever see being able to introduce her to McComb County as somebody who rooted out fraud and corruption at the local level from both Republicans and Democrats was really important.

So that's the strategy that I know we're replicating now is is getting out there with ads, getting out there on doors.

That's why I'm so committed to getting out and canvasing with many of these candidates to say, you know, I'm in a weird place in my life now where people recognize me.

If they happen to watch CNN o MSNBC or occasionally Fox News, who called me liberal Karen with a headband once.

But if they see me at their door and they recognize me, I can tell them very confidently about my colleague in the state House, why I'm here, why it matters, and how they're going to make their life better.

Senator, assuming tha the Democrats do, can maintain control.

Assault weapons banned in the new year?

No.

Why not?

So this is something that people ask me about all the time, especially every time there's a mass shooting event, is can we move an assault weapons ban?

And I understand.

And the reason for that ask I'm somebody I lost a friend in the Virginia Tech shooting.

It's deeply personal.

I lived it for God Now, 20 years.

But the reality is that a majority of gun violence is not with AR-15s.

It's with handguns.

It's with guns that are left out.

And it also doesn't factor i the fact that we border Indiana.

And if we were to pass a assault weapons ban in Michigan, I don't think it would do anything to stem the flow of illegal guns from Indiana.

This has to be something that's done on the federal level.

I'm also a part of the White House's Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

And it is something that we're talking about with other state legislators and on the federal level.

But I can tell you, I' working on legislation right now related to ghost gun and how we deal with the inflow of 3D printed weapons, kit purchased weapons and how we manage that.

So there's a number of different issues we're looking at relate to gun violence, but I wouldn't.

Correct my memory.

Didn't the shooter in Oxford have a semiautomatic weapon like an AK 15 and was in your backyard?

Yeah.

From his da and became the first You know, I have to give a lot of credit to Karen McDonald for prosecuting that case.

And she flat out said when she took it on that this is not a home run because we didn't have safe storage requirements as law in Michigan yet.

That was one of the most egregious cases you've ever seen of a parent buying their son the firearm training on it, you know, ignoring so many cries for help and cries for counseling.

But again, you know, I don't think that an instate assault weapons ban prevent that from happening.

If you've got parents who either already have access to it or it comes in from out of state versus many of these other things that we are now seeing where we became the first state in the country to successfully prosecute and hold parents accountable for a school shooting that is now leading the rest of the country.

Let's put a ribbon on this.

But before we do.

You've written a book.

Yes.

Is it failing better than the governor's?

It's not out till March, so no, I've sold zero copies.

Thank you for asking.

And why did you write a book if you weren't running for governor?

I have.

I used to be a writer so before I got into this job, I was a journalist, if you can call automotive journalism journalism.

So I wrote for Road and Track.

I contributed pieces to Jalopnik and Jezebel largely about sexism and misogyny in the auto industry, which, as you can imagine, made me very popular in the comment section.

But I've always loved writing, and over the last few years, after I gained weird notoriety from an attack on me in 2022, I've had the ability to travel the country.

I have talked to people, thousands of people of all different backgrounds who say some version of I'm so overwhelmed, I am so exhausted by what's going on.

I want to get involved an I have no idea where to start.

So I've had thousands of these conversations and I wante to put it all down in one place.

So it is a very practical guide for people, for the reader on I want to know how to interac with the government effectively.

I want to know how to tell a story.

I want to know how to network my neighborhood.

And it was important to me to inspire other people and something I really like.

The name of the book?

Hate Won't Win: How to Find Your Power and Leave This Place Better Than We Found It.

Thanks for showing up.

Thank you.

Good to see.

You.

You too.