Thank you for coming back for overtime.

Zee, talk to us about congressional races.

Yeah, I mean, we're going to see a lot of new faces.

How do you mean?

Well, Jeremy Moss, I mean, we're it's, Donovan McKinney.

Give us something more than that.

That's what you're referring to.

Mike.

That's that's a prediction there.

Jeremy Morris.

I'm impressed.

I'm pretty.

Sure.

No, there's going to be.

I mean, there's the hazing.

McCann race.

These are these are going to be some really interesting congressional.

Funding to make a big deal out of.

What's the RT split in the Michigan congressional delegation?

Delegation?

Boys and girls.

That doesn't mean school.

I don't think it means squat, but it means squat.

If suddenly it helps to determine whether Hakeem Jeffries is speaker or not.

Yeah.

I think it also is something that you could potentially see a lot of people within Michigan's congressional delegation be within their firs or second term in Congress and.

Means that basically be relevant.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I mean, thi this race in in the Lansing area where we're sitting now between Tom Barrett and Will Lawrence, I think it's one of the most interesting to watch because it is just downright fascinating.

Barrett has been this really effective Republican candidate, and he's just kind of been muted this year by all of these issues that are coming up.

They're kind of cutting into his base, these data centers, artificial intelligence, these are issue that you would expect, Barrett, if you followed him to be kind of a leader on.

He's not been able to do that because of where the president stands.

Well, Lawrence has come in and just picked up voters on these issues.

And now it was wild yesterday to see Governor Whitme recording videos with Lawrence.

It's really one of those moments when you're just like, this is just what is this?

Who expecting.

This?

And then meanwhile, you got the fourth Congressional District in West Michigan, where you have a candidate, an incumbent bill he's got who is who literally has had the juice sucked out of them.

You know, D.C.

won't give him a chairmanship.

Trump told them he could run for the U.S.

Senate.

So he begrudgingly runs for reelection and runs the most wholesome campaign you ever seen.

I don't know if he's ever really been.

And now he's in trouble and now he's in serious trouble.

And it should really be no surprise.

But he was with a couple o cabinet secretaries yesterday.

But he holds no campaign rallies.

He doesn't talk to the press.

And meanwhile, Bob, Bob, Sean McCann, pops his friend, John McCain' running all over the district.

He's got they've got media pumping him all the time.

Like, I can't open up my inbox without getting two things from Sean McCann.

And now all of a sudden that's competitive.

West Michigan is going back to the regular program, is gotten competitive and Bill Hayes is in trouble.

Yeah.

We could see a lot of new a lo of new congressional delegation faces representing Michigan wins.

Would you like to you have to go okay.

I do I might be.

Excused.

If we talk.

We have to go for it.

I think right now we can push.

Okay.

Gentlemen, this is awesome.

Thank you.

See, let's listen.

Secretary of state and attorney journal.

And.

Goodness gracious.

I was at my in a mile in Detroit the other day, and I was driving down and I saw a billboard for Doug Lloyd and, Anthony Fellini.

They shared it together.

And I was just thinking i kind of just goes to show, like, how much attention has gone to the top of the ballot, that you kind of have some of the down ballot races in.

Attorney general and secretar of state aren't small positions.

Well.

But like they're almost an afterthought in this race.

And it's significant, I thin when you talk about the polling that's come out, which race of the Democrats hav the biggest lead in right now?

Secretary of state, accordin to our polling that Glengariff.

Garland, Gilchrist.

Garland.

Yeah, he had the biggest lead.

And you have this guy on the Republican side running Tony Forlini really qualified for the job.

He's he's a clerk.

Cler in one of the biggest counties.

He's won battleground state House district.

No money, no money in the environment.

If you want to see like how bad the environment is for Republicans, look at that race.

I mean, I think we had him dow like double digits in our poll.

I mean, that this is the first really qualified candidate for secretary of state they've nominated in a while, and he's just getting beat badly.

Meanwhile, in the attorney general's race, you got the candidate, Doug Lloyd.

He's basically living on Mike Rogers bus right now because that's the only way he can get any type of Mo.

I mean, he's got to hang around Mike Rogers because there' there's no money for TV for him.

He's got a great message.

And like Forlini is extremely qualified for the job, but he can't get an audience with anybody unless he's hanging around the guy who is getting the audience, which is Mike Rogers.

And one of the moments from this campaign that I'm going to remember, years from now is at the Trump rally.

You know, they have this hug crowd and there's some energy.

And I walk up to Doug Lloyd and I'm talking to him, and I say, you know, are you feeling energy?

And he pauses and he says, I'm feeling a quiet, quiet movement is what he says.

That's not what you want before an election.

You don't want a quiet.

You want one that's audible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

These races are important in the people here.

We'll get to the ballot issues in a second, but people really don't pay attention to those races.

People don't pay attention to these races.

When I ask people about, you know, what are their top issues, who you're looking like to let go, Craig say, like who are you excited to vote for?

You know, from the conservative side, I still have heard election integrity is the top issue for quite a few people.

I will say.

But, you know, for the Democratic base, new and for a lot of other people planning to vote Republican, I don't necessarily thin that some of these issues that are associated with the secretary of state or attorney general are really top of mind.

It's a kind of a dumbing down, really, though, of the campaigns.

I mean, the the type of material that we're getting to consume has gotten really pretty weak.

Like, I got a mailer the other day in the seventh Congressional District that was modeled after a Doctor Seuss, book.

Yeah.

Did you get that one?

Yeah, it was like The Lorax or something.

I don't remember, but I'm thinking, you know, this is really going after the lowest common denominator, because these campaigns are trying to go after as many votes as humanly possible.

So they're going after these low propensity voters like Craig was talking about earlier in the show that, you know, typically wouldn't vote.

But if we can get them out, they'll vote our way.

And so we're really getting campaigns that are devoid of a lot of substance.

It's eating just a ton of sugar without any meat, potatoes.

Any nutrition at all It's a great it's a great point.

And it's something, you know, it goes to a larger poin that Michigan has this history of this split ticket voting that everyone always talks about.

Oh, they voted for Gary Peters, and then they also voted for Rick Snyder.

And then they voted for you know, go back even further, Terri Lynn Land, and they voted for Granholm.

This election is going to be a test, whether that is a storyline that's still relevant here or not.

I mean, it seems like people are voting right now.

There is a huge amount of people voting on pro-Trump or anti-Trump.

Grebner said in the interview that we didn't use in the piece 54% of the people who are Democrats vote straight tickets, and.

That's checking the box for straight, right?

That's not everyone that's filling in everybody.

Right.

And it's 37, 37% for the Republicans.

And he thinks that gives the Democrats a slight edge in some races to have that street ticket going down your side.

I mean, there's places where it's higher than that.

I mean, their place.

I did a breakdown of Detroit's vote, and I think something around 74% of the votes for Slotkin in 2024 were in Detroit.

This is just 74% of them were straight ticket votes.

And then I think if you went back to Peter's election, it was like 84% were straight ticket votes.

I mean, there are some places in the state where there's an enormous amount of.

Straight ticket vote.

If more Republicans voted straight ticket, we'd have Senator Mike Rogers right now.

That's true.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

But let's think of this though.

All right.

So what do you thin the difference will be between the Benson James race and Mike Rogers Abdul race.

Like so if what's the possible gap like seven points I mean something like that.

Will Benson overperformed Abdul by I mean you can't even think like ten points.

I mean, to think even ten points is unimaginable.

So it's it's I mean, that's how close things have gotten.

Like, like, I can't imagine a window that's even greater than even 5 or 7 points.

So the question is, why would that be?

Because of the nature of the U.S.

Senate race.

Because of this nationalization of our elections, where it's all about Trump and when it's all about Trump, if you're with Trump or against Trump, it's really hard for Mike Rogers to make an argument when he's been endorsed by Trump.

He's embracing many of Trump's policies.

It's hard for him to go out there and make an argument that hey, I'm different than Trump.

I it just doesn't seem like voters are poised to buy that right now.

Or they're interested in talking about the nuances of Secretary of State and whether this is a. Buyer for the war.

And now you're calling for it to end, but you're still kind of arguing for the war.

It's a really tough.

Yeah.

Or if you're running for attorney general, you know talking about human trafficking, I mean, he's talking about human trafficking.

We're talking about whether Abdul's a terrorist or not.

I mean.

It's and I think when you have a candidate, a different type of candidate like Abdul I think for better or for worse, he's shaking up what we're seeing right now.

And so I think part of that i you have yes, it's about Trump at the top of the ballot, but you also have i about a duel to a certain extent to and I think that also gives Rogers in in Con con.

How many people know what Con Con is.

If you you know what I did a story with Mr., Turner in Secretary of State.

Gilbert.

What's his name, Lieutenant governor.

Oh, yeah.

Garlin Gilchrist.

Okay, okay.

Thanks for helping me out.

I asked him on camera.

Are yo how are you voting in Con con?

You look me right?

And he says, What's Con con?

That was an April vote.

That was April in April.

It wasn't in April at the convention.

All right, so I'm sitting on this because I can't run that stor without getting to you know who.

Yeah.

Mr.

Forlini.

Mr.

Forlin what's your position on Cancun?

Pause.

And what does that represent?

Yeah.

Okay.

So the two guys who would be running the departmen okay, that would be overseeing the con con constitutional convention did not know what it is.

So if that's our starting point, what's the average voter going to do when they walk in and look at prop one.

Well I think they'll end up voting no and all.

Your poll said they would vote no.

It seems like they.

Would seem so.

But I mean if you read the actual language, I mean, the electorat has the potential to vote.

Yes.

There's just has not been any movement toward it.

There hasn't been anybody who's openly going out talking about it, spending money about it and advocating for it.

When you really need a party, whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats, to come out and say, yes, we need a con con.

But for various reasons, neither one are doing it.

So it's just very hard to to expect that to be a. Yes, including right to life, which you thought of all the groups that would like to revisit the Constitution, they would be at the top of the list.

I mean.

That's what you'd expect thes conservative groups to want to, you know maybe us to change some things, but they're reading the room and they're saying al these things we want to change.

If it got put up by this convention, would have to be voted on.

And they're looking at.

And so these aren't going to pass like something to change the, the, or you know, pro-choice constitution right no it's probably not going to pass.

It's hard to draft something that would pass.

I think it takes without some sort of institutional support from a party.

It takes a certai burn it all down type of voter to independently go in the polls and say, you know, I'll need a new state constitution.

And I don't think you're getting that.

You know what I mean?

I think for like a lot of voters, even right now, it's all, what are my friends thinking?

What are my family thinking?

What are my circles thinking?

What are the endorsements I'm thinking what are the groups I'm saying, what's the endorsement list going around in these WhatsApp groups?

Okay, none of those are saying pro con con.

And finally, on prop two get money out of politics.

If I want to say this, if governor Governor Whitmer said yesterday she's voting for this.

For them, for the money.

I'll if Governor Whitme yeah, she said this yesterday.

She's giving back the money.

If Governor Whitmer is voting for prop two who is going to vote against it?

Well, it's hard to wonder.

But it doesn't matter because the courts will decide this.

Do we not agree?

I think it's going to matter.

I think it's going to matter what this margin is.

I mean, if you're the court and it's 90 to 10, but if you're in the courts, you're going to be like 90% of Michigan.

Wait a minute or, oh, we're going to let that decide what the Constitution says.

After the vote.

I think for people to say that's not a factor, don't understand.

I mean, these judges are al people.

They're looking at this.

And if you say, hey, this is about First Amendment rights, while striking down something that a massive majority of people voted, used their First Amendment rights to vote for, how do you balance those two things.

If you're a federal judge?

Yeah.

I mean what about your federal judge?

I mean, a federal judges appointed, but how.

You are going to argue this is what I mean.

This is fascinating.

This is violating people's First Amendment rights.

While 90% of the voting popular or 80%, whatever it ends up being used their First Amendment rights to vote for this.

I mean, that's a that's a tough situation to be in.

The other thing is, too, is tha it's kind of symbolic, really.

Okay.

So if you take if you go ahead and you this.

Is a feel good.

Vote.

Yeah.

Because if is told all righ now you can't have your employee pack anymore.

You can't label it as such.

You just create a new pack and it outside of the confines of DC and call this.

No, they can't do that.

Know the energy.

You can't know.

You get a third party to run a pack.

And if you are somebody who works at TW and you want to contribute to that pack that's outside of anything tha you have to do as an employee, they need need to it.

They can't give I mean, they can't give it to candidates.

So they couldn't do that.

They could form a superPAC and get spen independently of the candidate.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, the but they their ability to give directly to people would be, it it's more than symbolic.

It's a first of its type policy in this country that is going to start a conversation very likely, if it passes about whether other.

States, the fact that they are not, they're spending $0.

If my information is correct, t fight this thing at the polls.

They had no chance to beat it, though I know.

Precisely I mean, saving their money for the attorney.

Yeah.

I mean, this is a popular idea that they kno they are not going to beat it.

And if they spend money, it might drive u even more people to vote for it.

I mean.

All right, let's put a ribbon on this thing.

Yeah I don't necessarily know if the like it's like what Craig said.

You know, there's a lot o popular momentum towards this.

It's a feel good vote.

You feel like you're doing something money out of politics to spend I'll say campaigns, you know main rallying call this whole time for the opposition.

You know, you have the business groups.

I don't think the business groups are necessarily having a moment where there's people clamoring to take their side right now.

And so I do think prop two wins at the polls.

But like Kyle said, you know this is a court problem.

Yeah.

If we go for 20 more minutes is always going to come back.

I'm want to see.

That's right.

I think we're there.

All right.

I'll check.

Outside.

If you haven't voted, folks should do it to it.

Okay.

And we'll see you next week.