S4 Ep55: Great Lakes, "Meh" Candidates (with Craig Gilbert and Craig Mauger)
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Hey guys, the bulwark is going on a swing state tour. We are going to be in Philadelphia on October 17th. We're going to be in Pittsburgh on the 18th and we're going to be in Detroit on Saturday, October 19th. Do not miss it. If you live near any one of these areas, come hang out with me, Tim,

Tim, JBL, George Conway, Bill Kristol. Egger's going to be there for one of the things. It's just, it's going to be a bulwark bonanza. So come hang out. You can get your tickets at thebulwark.com slash events. And we're going to put them in the show notes too. Come see us.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, and for these last few weeks before the election, we are going to take you state by state to cover some of the most important places for this presidential race and the big Senate races. So today we've got Wisconsin and Michigan. First up though, Wisconsin. And I'm chatting with Craig Gilbert,

Former Washington bureau chief of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a fellow at Marquette University Law School. Craig Gilbert, thanks for being here. Oh, it's a real pleasure. So no state has caused pollsters more headaches in recent presidential elections than Wisconsin.

What's the deal? I'll ask in a slightly more professional way, which is, what's the deal with the history of recent polling misses there? And how are pollsters in Wisconsin and around the country approaching that differently this cycle? Yeah, so I work with Charles Franklin, who conducts the poll at the Marquette Law School, which is a poll that has been in the field for 12 years, 80-plus polls, a massive polling project.

The two Trump elections were the two biggest misses we've ever had. You know, we did really well again in the midterms after each one of those elections. And so, you know, like pollsters nationally, people have been diving into this and trying to figure out and also doing some things differently. I mean, the Marquette poll changes methodology, not just because of this, but because of the cost of doing polls the old fashioned way. You know,

all telephone interviews, that's no longer the case. Different approaches to weighting. We try to be extremely transparent about the methodology, but we're flying blind in the sense that we don't know, we'll find out on election day or the day after, how close we came and whether we did better than we did in 2016 and 2020. I mean, we did do better than a lot of polls. I mean,

Wisconsin had some famous misses, I mean double-digit misses in some of these races from national polls. And it shouldn't be the case because almost everybody votes in Wisconsin, so it shouldn't be that hard to find the electorate.

My colleague, Jonathan Last, has a theory that I think is a good one that I agree with, having done so much qualitative research, which is that it's hard to do polling and weighting and all the stuff that one does when one's a real pollster when the electorate is moving as much as they are and realigning itself as much as it is.

Donald Trump has scrambled the political coalitions in such a way that I think it's very difficult to figure things out. Like if you're just looking at parties, obviously it still tells you a lot, but it doesn't tell you everything because not only is there just a segment of Republicans that he has been absolutely pushing away from the party, there's also a group of people who've been lifelong Democrats. I think about sort of non-college union workers who are culturally much more aligned with them. So I think it's

harder for pollsters, especially, you know, at the state level where you've got the electorate really moving around. Pennsylvania is another state that's kind of like this. It can get tough. And so I guess I'm curious, that being said, what does the pool of undecided voters look like in Wisconsin this time around? So what we're seeing, and you know, in our two most recent polls, Kamala Harris has had a small lead, partly because

She's really consolidated virtually all the Democratic voters out there. But there's still, you know, a small percentage of Republican voters that are Trump averse, that have qualms about Trump. And obviously, independents, as you'd expect, there's more undecideds there. So our universe of undecided voters is mostly Republican.

pretty moderate Republicans and independents, mostly people who dislike both candidates. So you've got, you know, the conflicted partisans and the double haters, as I'm sure you are seeing in your focus groups. You're talking to some people, they're wrestling with this and they have issues with Donald Trump. But there's also, you know, a reluctance to vote for the Democratic candidate as well.

When Kamala Harris jumped in the race, did that feel like it changed the vibes there in Wisconsin? Absolutely. I mean, one of the more unambiguous findings I've ever seen in polling has been a Democratic enthusiasm. And so we had this really striking and unprecedented pattern while Biden was still in the race over months and over multiple polls of a massive enthusiasm gap.

between Republican voters and Democratic voters when you asked them how enthusiastic they were about voting in 2024. And that started to dramatically disappear when Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the nominee. At one point, Democratic enthusiasm had actually overtaken Republican enthusiasm, and now they're kind of on a par, which is what is typically the case in these elections. And it's also more enthusiasm

overall than we had when there were so many double haters in the electorate who were just like deeply, deeply unhappy with their choices. Yeah. I mean, I've been doing focus groups in Wisconsin for a while and there's no doubt the double hater thing was super strong. I mean, there and in a lot of these swing states, um,

And there's a lot of RFK curious voters for a long time there because they were double haters. And she did quite a bit to consolidate her base, her people. But I agree with you that the available pool now of voters who still need to be persuaded are sort of center right, right leaning independent soft GOP voters and who have kind of been breaking for Democrats. And I think more about like the off year elections, like the most recent election for the Supreme Court in the state where you had, what was it, an 11 point win?

for Protaseowitz because I think that in the trade with voters, Democrats picked up a lot more of the high propensity. I always vote. I'm an independent, but I'm voting for Democrats right now, whether it's because of abortion or anti-Trump sentiment. Also, there's been a real ceiling on Republican performance in the Trump era. I mean, if you go back to the Scott Walker years, the former Republican governor, when he was hitting 52, 53% of the vote, since 2016,

Republicans at their best have topped out at just over 50%, which is all the more striking because the mix of voters in Wisconsin has moved in a Republican direction. I mean, instead of having a two or three or four point advantage in party ID for the Democrats, you've got maybe a one, maybe a two point advantage for Republicans now, but they've been performing worse in these elections because they've had more defectors and Democrats have been doing better with independents.

Yep. Yep. Okay. We're going to get into the Senate race, but I want to start with a quick look at how the Trump to Biden voters in Wisconsin are thinking about the presidential election. And just to reiterate, these are people who voted for Trump in 16 that voted for Biden in 20. These are our flippers. Let's listen. Let's touch on the positive and that's Harris.

I didn't know much about her, if anything. She was pretty much in the dark. And when they first made this transition, I thought, oh, brother, this is going to be horrible. Having said that, and now watching her in action, renewing her background in the political theater, the woman speaks beautifully. She has a wonderful level of intelligence, consideration, and I feel true inner decency.

I would love to see this person have the opportunity to lead our country as a leader should be, and not this horrible, dark, constant bickering and whining and just tearing everything apart. She represents hope and renewal in our country, and I certainly hope she becomes our president.

So this is frightening for me that if Trump comes to office and something happens to him, that we get Vance as president. Yes. Oh, my God. He's worse. He's a junior Trump to me. So what am I thinking about Trump as president?

Well, he said that he wants to be dictator from day one. I don't think this country needs dictators. And he's ego driven. He's a narcissist. He's a liar. He's a criminal. He's got no ethics. And he doesn't come up with a policy. He's asked questions, just like Vance was asked questions and a

Doesn't answer the question and then starts name calling. Again, I like her policies. Her style is great. I just wish I could really learn more. And because of that, I'm not going to give it my full 100% because I just have to learn more.

See how things are going to fall out with this. Now, the vice presidents, too. Yeah. If I was a vice president doing the whole thing, hands down. OK, yeah. Vance scares the stuff out of me. I see him and, you know, Trump fighting it out with very strong, strong headed people. It's just like, oh, this isn't going to end well. And, you know, Trump is a little too. And, you know, there's a chance that, you know, he could end up, you know, succeeding.

I don't like when Trump opens his mouth. It scares me. Like, what is he going to say now? But at the same time, like Kamala just kind of, and she didn't come out of nowhere, but as far as being an option for me, when I'm voting, she kind of came out of nowhere and I'm not really ready to, to say which one I'm voting for yet, because it's like, do I vote on personality or do I vote on policy or,

That's that's what's really tripping me up this time, because it's like, do I vote on morals or do I vote on economy or health care? So that sounds like a pretty typical swing voter group to me, this Wisconsin group. And the things that stand out to me are we always get a couple of people that, you know, they they could get there on her.

her, but they need to know more, get some people enthusiastic for her. These are people where you see the enthusiasm jump who went from like Biden couldn't take it, he was too old, to now, yes, I'm excited about her, breath of fresh air, turning the page, a lot of that. A lot of people who are excited for the sort of the generational change, but with

Wisconsin's been on this knife's edge for eight years. Like, since 2016, the state has had a governor's race, a U.S. Senate race, and two presidential elections, each decided within 30,000 votes.

And it's hard to stay that way forever in a place. Maybe again. But like, which direction do you see Wisconsin moving over the long term and why? I mean, the most interesting thing about that to me is that I go back to the 90s and the 2000s. And if you remember the two George W. Bush elections of 2000 and 2004, it was also on a knife's edge. I mean, it was the same jump ball, 50-50 divide. But if you compare...

the composition of Wisconsin and a composition of that vote 20 years ago to today, it's very different. Somehow,

Wisconsin has remained on a knife's edge, even though there's been all this internal change in the state. I mean, it's a different map. And to be really simplistic about it, the Republican gains in rural Wisconsin and the Democratic gains in suburban Wisconsin, really the Madison and Milwaukee suburbs have kind of canceled each other out at the statewide level, including the growth of Dane County around Madison. All these things have sort of

turned out to be kind of a wash. And I think, you know, in the Trump era, the Republicans, you know, are struggling. They're certainly benefiting in legislative congressional elections. And, you know, they won the 2016 presidential election, which hadn't happened in a long time, but they've also paid a real price. And so, you know, when you were talking before about the challenge for pollsters, when you

are in this fluid environment, I thought, you know, it makes me think about the challenge for reporters and for people on the ground, because if you want to know which way the state is trending, it just depends on where you go and where you're sitting. And you're going to get a completely different vibe about the campaign if you're sitting in the suburbs of Milwaukee or Madison compared to Wausau or northern Wisconsin.

Okay, let's get into the Senate race. So Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin, she won her reelection by 11 points in 2018, which was a big year for Democrats. But she was on the same ballot as a razor thin governor's race that was won by a Democrat. And that was just two years after Trump won the state. So Baldwin is leading Republican Eric Hovde by

by about five points in the current 538 average, but people seem to think this race is tightening. I watched the Wisconsin polling quite closely and I've seen this race tightening. Let's listen to what these Trump to Biden voters thought of Baldwin.

Yeah, I like Tammy Baldwin, but God, she's been there a long time. You know, yeah, that's a tough decision on this one. If I go by just the advertisements, they make Eric Haldi look really bad and they make Tammy Baldwin look really good. So marketing has done a really good job. But I'm going to have to go with she's been there for a really long time and I don't know exactly what she's done. I get she's a quiet person. She does things behind the scenes a lot.

You know, the same complaint I have about presidential candidates. I'd like to see her more. Like, what do you do? And she's been there a long time. And I guess I'd like to see someone in there. I mean, I don't really have any strong negative views on Tammy Baldwin either. But yeah, I agree that the ads against Eric Hovde are pretty bad. And I sometimes wonder, like, who makes these? And then all the stuff that's coming in the mail, too. It's starting to get to the point where I just get angry. All this mail every day. It's like, oh, this is all...

just negative political ads. Baldwin has her hand in the pie, and she knows what she's doing. Wish I was more versed about, you know, the role or the solution. Tammy has been there a long time, and I hate that it's becoming a negative for her.

But I think, you know, she's probably running unopposed because she does. She has a record to stand on. And from what I've seen, I don't think it's a negative record. I don't hear a lot of bad things about her. So that definitely is a positive. I just think that people are looking for a change. They're looking for something different. So I think that is the only negative against her is that she's been there. It's a positive and a negative for her.

I am generally positive about Tammy Baldwin, and I tend to agree that the longevity is actually a plus. It's not a negative. People don't retain these jobs, especially in something as competitive as politics, by being unpopular or being unfit for the position. We used to honor experience in this country.

And I think that that is a plus for her. Yes, it would be nice to have some fresh alternatives. I agree with everyone's thought on that in all of these elections. But my caution would be, we thought fresh in 2016, and that was a horrible calamity. So

Trading or buying into fresh for the sake of the fact that it's fresh may not be the most prudent approach. So in this particular circumstance, I would have to say Tammy Baldwin is a far better caring Wisconsin individual that can continue to work for our state.

both of my young adult children are part of the LGBT community and she's been attacked for allowing transgender surgeries. Well, my son is transgender and thank God, thank God I had the ability to help

facilitate this transition. I think that we get the Republicans in any position, there's going to be issues with health care. Yeah, it's terrifying to me as a U.S. citizen as well as a parent to have kids that are, they want to leave the country. If Trump gets in, if we go that way, they want to move. And I can't outplay them.

So, Craig, this race has made Democrats nervous lately. Our friends of the show at Cook Political Report, they just moved this from lean them to toss up. And Democrats are having to play a bit of defense on the airwaves. So what do you think Baldwin's biggest liability is? And is it really just that she's been in Washington too long? Because that's basically all I heard.

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. She's only been in the Senate two terms, which I mean, in a state that, you know, has had some very, very long serving senators. It doesn't necessarily seem like a lot, but she's been in Washington for a long time. So it will be interesting to see if that turns out to be a liability for her. I mean, she has a really interesting election track record.

And part of that is for a liberal Madison Democrat, she's actually been more competitive than other Democrats in conservative rural parts of Wisconsin, which is not necessarily what you'd expect. She's got a tighter race on her hands this time. I'm not sure I see it as a pure toss-up just because –

My assumption is, is that she'll run better than Vice President Harris does. The Democratic margin in the Senate race will be better than the Democratic margin in the presidential race. So I think if Harris wins, she wins. If Trump wins, the question is, does Trump need to win by one point or two points or more to bring Eric Hovde over the finish line? And Eric Hovde's had some bumps in his campaign

as well. But a lot of money, a lot of pretty shrill messaging and advertising. Is she crushing him on the airwaves? Well, I think there was kind of a dynamic like that earlier on. I think now the volume of anti-Baldwin ads is up and the spending against her is up, even though overall, I think she's had the advantage in resources. We've seen this play out before in campaigns.

She's enjoyed the advantage in each of her first two campaigns, which she ended up winning by multiple points. But I think the playing field is more even for her in the closing weeks of this campaign compared to those campaigns. So it's a different experience for her. And when you listen to the Baldwin people talk about the race, they are not at all shy about playing up the competitiveness of this race because I think they want their voters to not take anything for granted.

Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Well, as you just pointed out, Hovde's had some bumps. So let's switch gears to him. Despite the tightening poles, it seems clear he's still not an optimal candidate for the Republicans. Let's listen. I think he's from California and doesn't really live here and wants to keep playing this. Oh, I went to like UWGB or wherever he says he went. And like, I don't think so. I think he would live in California. Yeah.

And I get that Eric, unfortunately, lives a lot in California, but he technically meets the requirement because he lived in Wisconsin long enough, whatever that is. But I really do believe he was voted like some big banking guy in California. I'm like, how do you get him to work in California? He's supposed to live in Wisconsin.

But I mean, he is new blood and he does own businesses. And I just, I'm leaning at least a little bit with Eric, but those commercials do not help him at all. Even the commercials that he made himself, they were terrible. He should not make commercials. He's just, he's just another Trump. I believe that he's got MS and that he speaks about the health care and he realizes how broken it is and that he wants to fix it.

I'm not really sure how from Wisconsin how he can fix it. It's just one state. We have nationwide where the system is fractured. I don't know how he's going to fix it or what solution he comes from. To me, he's just another rich banker that wants to buy his way into politics. And I'm not sure how true the ads are, but he's a representation of what for what I don't want.

But Hovde, he's just an outsider coming in. Another rich guy. I know people tend to place people that are successful in business or wealthy people. They think that they can apply that to politics sometimes, and that doesn't always work out well. I don't like him as a choice just because he's not even...

He's technically a resident, but he's not really from here. I think it's just another person trying to get their hand in the pot and trying to influence things. And he has the means to do so. He has the money to do so. So I think this guy's a carpetbagging rich dude was basically what we heard from this group.

How would you evaluate Eric Hovde's campaign relative to other Republicans who've run against Baldwin, or I guess even relative to Ron Johnson in 2022? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to compare with Ron Johnson because Ron Johnson, you know, obviously was an incumbent. And if you look at the polling, what it tells us is that Tammy Baldwin's kind of been 50-50-ish for a long time. I mean, her numbers never get too high or

or too low. There's always a little bit of a name ID issue for her. But compared to Ron Johnson, who's been kind of like had some high ups and some low lows and carried some real negative numbers into his reelection campaign last time, but still kind of pulled it out at the end.

Tammy Baldwin hasn't had the negatives that Ron Johnson's had. Eric Hufti has struggled to get up to sort of treading water in the polling. I mean, he's been underwater. He's been net negative this whole time, even as he's become kind of much better known. It does sound like from your focus groups that

the Baldwin ads have kind of cut through. And, you know, that message has been absorbed, at least by these voters in terms of the way they've typecast Eric Hovde. I don't think he's a perfect candidate by any means. Whether it takes a perfect candidate to be Tammy Baldwin in this environment is another question. Yeah, well, let's now that we've talked about the Senate race, let's go back to the presidential politics of it all.

So Trump won in 16 in Wisconsin. He lost in 20, both by very slim margins. What's the vibe out there now on the presidential side? It's a familiar vibe, which you could sort of describe as like absolute uncertainty. You talked about the knife's edge. I'm not expecting anything really between now and election day to tell me with any confidence who's going to win at the presidential level in Wisconsin, just because I'm

My guidepost is much or more than the polling is 2016 and 2020. And we've got the same Republican candidate on the ballot. One of the signatures of 2020 was half the counties got redder and half the counties got bluer. That doesn't typically happen if you go back and look at presidential elections in Wisconsin. And so in that environment, it's just hard to imagine either candidate opening up much distance or not.

on the other. I mean, I think we can say with certainty that these are the places where Donald Trump is probably going to do a little bit better than he did in 2020. And these are the places where

where he's going to do a little bit worse. And so that brings us back to the very familiar jump ball scenario that has characterized last six presidential elections in Wisconsin. Do you feel like there are a lot of Baldwin Trump voters? Are there any reverse coattail effects you ever see out there? Because I agree with you that I think I was a little surprised Cook changed the rating on this one, just because nobody disliked her in that

That whole, even people who are like, well, maybe she's been here. That's just like moody, anti-incumbent stuff. That's nothing to do with her personally. People seem to like her and she has put up big numbers before. So to swing back so aggressively against her would, I guess, be a surprise. And I guess I just wonder if you think that helps Kamala Harris at all. I mean, maybe a tiny bit, probably not too much.

I think, yeah, you can find people out there who did vote for Trump and voted for Baldwin. Again, if you look at the small town vote in Wisconsin, she's losing it by maybe 15 points instead of 25, like most Democrats. She'll probably lose it by more because the state is so polarized because it's a presidential year. So that serves to kind of tighten up the race. But I'm

I'm assuming there's going to be at least one or two points on the margin separating these two races, which again is why I'm a little surprised too by the toss-up because if it's a toss-up in the Senate race, I assume that means it's a Trump one or two point advantage in the presidential. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That sounds right. Okay. Craig Gilbert, thank you so much for talking about Wisconsin with us. I really appreciate it. It's been my pleasure. All right. Thanks.

College degrees are pricey, but with low tuition and our $2,500 back-to-school scholarship, WGU makes it possible to earn your degree at a price you can afford. Apply today at wgu.edu. Now, we're going to turn our attention to Michigan, where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by about three points in 2020, and where Democrat Representative Alyssa Slotkin is running to replace Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow against Republican Mike Pence.

Rogers. My guest now is another Craig, second Craig of the day, Craig Mauger, political reporter for the Detroit News. Thanks for being here, Craig. Hey, thank you so much for having me. You know, we had a Wisconsin Craig. How about that? Wow. I had no idea there was one, but I'm happy to find that out. Yeah. Okay. So what

What do we need to know about the presidential race in Michigan? Like just level set for us. I mean, I think it's an incredibly close race and that's probably boring to hear. But from everyone that, you know, I'm talking to from both sides of the political aisle, people deeply involved in this race, they think it could be decided by a few thousand votes on either side. There are a lot of dynamics involved.

That are at play that are shifting small numbers of votes potentially and among different groups all over the state. And it's really a math problem for the two sides to kind of find out. I think the X factor is the Democratic Party has a very solid turnout opportunity.

in this state. And Republicans are going to try to find out if Donald Trump's ability to, you know, attract voters in Michigan, which he has shown over the last two elections, if that's enough to counterbalance what the Michigan Democratic Party's, you know, political operation can do.

Yeah. And Whitmer like dominated in 2022. Do you feel like there's been a shift at all since 16 in terms of the voting makeup of the state? Has Trump driven many of the normie Republicans into the arms of Democrats? You know, they've been feeling some not so great Republicans in these off year cycles. And what do you make of the the electorate there in the state now?

I mean, a lot's changed since 2016. The Michigan Republican Party in 2016 was kind of an example of a well-functioning, well-funded state GOP. And that's not what it is right now. They've had to deal with party takeovers, inner party struggles. Some of the donors that were giving before are no longer there. There are a lot of Republicans who are in the middle who have parted ways.

with the state GOP and a lot of them are voting Democratic. We have a former Congressman, David Trott, who served as a Republican. He's endorsed Kamala Harris. So there's shifting taking place. And 2016 was a high turnout election. It wasn't one of our highest turnout elections.

And in the two highest turnout elections that we've had in this state, 2008 when Barack Obama won and 2020 when Joe Biden won, Democrats turned out more voters. And the question from like a political insider perspective that I'm kind of watching in this is,

Can Republicans win a high turnout election election where in Michigan, that means to me more than five million people vote? Are there enough Republican voters in this state to win an election with that kind of turnout? And that's going to be the test this fall.

And Wes, you're out on the trail or you're watching the candidates out on the trail. Unlike Hillary Clinton, where she kind of didn't give her the old college try in Michigan in 2016, both the candidates have been there a lot. And what do you see them focusing on on the trail or like what kind of campaigns are they running specifically in Michigan to try to win the state? Yeah, I mean, I think Trump and Vance have been here before.

Almost every week, both of them, for a few weeks now, they have clearly emphasized showing up in Michigan, trying to get their voters excited. The topics they're talking about are the auto industry. Every time one of the Republican candidates comes here, they're talking about the future of the auto industry. And in recent weeks, we've seen Democrats, Kamala Harris most notably, begin to push back on this. And it's all about electric vehicles.

Donald Trump is saying that the U.S. essentially cannot win a battle with China over electric vehicles. He has said directly during his campaign appearances in Michigan that China will, quote, dominate electric vehicles. And there's essentially nothing the U.S. can do about this.

Kamala Harris and Biden have laid out a different path where they believe that the U.S. needs to marshal large investments to try to bring the supply chain, bring the manufacturing of electric vehicles to the U.S., get us in a position where we can compete with China so that the U.S. has a future stake in this industry. For Michigan, where we have such a large auto industry presence, Ford's based here, GM is based here, so many people's livelihoods.

not even just people who work directly in the auto industry. So many people's livelihoods are tied to this industry. This is the topic of conversation. Electric vehicles have all of a sudden became a very partisan issue in the state.

And it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Now the Democrats are trying to make an argument before they weren't really kind of meeting the GOP on this issue. Now they're going there and saying, hey, we can't just cede the future of this industry to China.

And that is their argument. And they're saying that there are investments that the Biden administration has made that are set to come to Michigan to build electric vehicle plants, build battery plants. And they're saying if Trump gets in, these investments could be in jeopardy along with the jobs that go with them. And that is essentially the back and forth right now. Does that play? Is that playing? It seems to me that it is. I mean, I think for Democrats, the strongest message that they've been able to deliver on the economy in Michigan

in Michigan in recent days has come up on the topic of one major auto plant that we have in Lansing. It's a few miles from where I'm sitting right now. It's a longtime GM assembly plant. And this plant, it's slated to receive a $500 million grant from Joe Biden's administration to convert the assembly plant that makes Cadillacs now, traditional Cadillacs, into an electric vehicle plant. Right.

And the Biden administration and GM has said that this $500 million grant is going to save 650 jobs. And the Democrats have focused very directly on this one plant and said, hey, if Trump wins, this plant might have to shut down because it's not going to get this $500 million grant. And I think it's been a stronger argument for them because it's been something really tangible that they've been able to point to. Yeah, that makes sense.

Okay, we're going to talk a little bit more about that as we go, but I want to get into the Senate race, starting with former Representative Mike Rogers. He's a Republican and retired from Congress after the 2014 election.

Now he's back and running against Democratic Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin. But it was clear that our flippers, so our people who voted for Trump in 16 and then Biden in 20, classic swing voting group, didn't remember much about Rogers. Like they don't have a real frame of reference for him. Let's listen. I couldn't tell you a single thing. I have no idea who he is other than if he's a male Republican from Michigan, then he's probably a good old boy, which means we probably don't have much in common.

where i felt like with rogers i think i hear more negative about him that he wants raised like medicines and also that she's a woman too so i i like slotkin more than rogers

Especially if he has got Trump endorsing him and favoring him, then that clearly says to me that he is not interested in doing the people's business. He is not interested in actually doing anything for the people. All he wants to do is help the Republicans retain power. And that's not what government's supposed to be about.

Mike Rogers, he's Republican, and I think he's been in politics for a while, a long while, but I don't think he's lived in Michigan very long or he like bounces around. Well, I also know that Trump really favors Mike Rogers a lot and that he had him on stage at one of his rallies, too.

He hasn't even lived in the state for the last so many years. And that instantly is a red flag to me. And then being endorsed by Trump is another red flag. So other than that, I didn't do a whole lot of searching into it. I just didn't feel like I really needed to at that point. My decision was kind of made up.

I ended up just sort of like perusing his website a little bit because I didn't know anything about him, really. And then from that, I saw that Trump has endorsed him, which gives me a negative opinion. It seems like we would not be in agreement about the border or his opinions on he seems to think like Chinese communism is a big threat.

But I do like that he's concerned about the rising cost of living, but it didn't seem like he had a plan for impacting that at all. He was just sort of like, this is a problem. He was more telling a story about it than coming up with solutions to fix that. I also think he's been living in Florida the past like 10 years or something like that, like not actually living in Michigan. So that also kind of feels like he's just sort of coming back just for politics and

And that kind of gives me a negative opinion of him as well. So not a lot of love for Rogers in this swing voter group. And like Eric Hovde, who we were talking about earlier in the show from Wisconsin, they have like this major generic Republican guy vibes seems to be what they're giving people off. Like they don't know a whole lot about him. There's not a lot of details about him that are breaking through other than people seem to think he's a carpetbagger, which they also felt that way about Hovde. And, and,

He's just like another guy in a Brooks Brothers suit to them. No offense to Brooks Brothers. I wear a lot of your clothes. They're great. So what do you think is the formula for a Republican to win statewide in Michigan? Because they haven't really gotten there a whole lot since Trump won in 2016. Do you think Rodgers can?

I think it's possible that he can. I mean, I think the comments I'd be interested in your perspective on this and turn the tables on you. But that's the problem with you reporters. You listen to the comments people are saying, and it lines up with what we've heard as we're out talking to voters. And we're writing a lot about the presidential race, trying to get further down into these congressional races. And a lot of voters are so focused on the presidential race.

I mean, it's driving everything this year. Am I wrong on this? I mean, it seems to be driving. No, you're not wrong. And actually, this is a good question to ask me right now because I just got back from Nevada. Yeah. And in Nevada, I was doing them for PBS. So we were filming it. Yeah.

And I did 90 minutes. And when I brought up the Senate race, I had two groups of swing voters. And each time they were like, yeah, I don't know anything about it. Other than they know they're spending a gajillion dollars on ads, but like they couldn't name the Republican for the most part. And they they're sort of in an anti incumbent mood. I couldn't even tease out enough.

for a podcast. They knew so little about it in this group. And it's wild given, you know, the tens of millions of dollars that are being spent to tell people about these Senate candidates. But, you know, when we do polling that our newspaper helps pay for and

we get the list of contacts of people who participate in the polling and we can ask them additional questions. A lot of times if you call them up and ask them, well, why did you say this about the Senate race? It always comes back to, well, this person's on the side with Trump or this person's on the side with Harris and Biden. And that is not something that has been the experience, at least that I've had in previous elections, to the extent that it's happening this year. I mean, I do hear this often.

We all know there's a phenomenon going on. It used to be that all politics is local. Yeah. And now it feels like all politics is national in part because there's been just such a hollowing out of media at the hyper local level. You'll still have like a couple big papers in a state. But like, is that why? Because you're right. People know have so much more information about national politics than they do about their local races right now.

I think that's probably part of it. I think that just the nature of this presidential race, I think the nature of the candidates, you have an incumbent president who was running

and now an incumbent vice president. So people have a lot of opinions about the people who have been in office for four years. And then you also have a former president running who is a lightning rod for controversy on both sides. And I think it's just the amount of attention that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are able to gain just from being locked in this race is

Yeah. Yeah.

years and they would have to decide whether she deserves another six years. Now you have two candidates who, you know, as you said, not a lot of people knew a lot about Mike Rogers when you were talking about he hasn't served for many years here. Not a lot of people know him. He's reintroducing himself to voters. You have a U.S. representative, Alyssa Slotkin, who represents one thirteenth of the state, who's now trying to make herself known to the entire state. So it is a different race than some of the races we've had in the past.

Yeah, let's talk about Slotkin because I'll just admit she is one of my favorite up-and-coming national Democrats. I've been watching her career when she got elected in 2018. Like, I followed that race. She's an interesting candidate, and she's leading by about four points in the 538 average. And like many of these sort of Senate races and a lot of these swing states, she is running ahead of where Harris has been. Like, there's been a little bit of a gap

So let's listen to what the Trump to Biden voters thought of her. I like her stance on guns and gun violence. I appreciate that she worked in the CIA. It feels like she has a lot of experience, government experience. I like that she wants to work to expand the middle class and that she's sort of pro-civil rights, pro-women's rights, pro-LGBT rights.

I appreciate that. I think there was a significant portion of her life where she didn't live in Michigan, if I'm correct. And so that's slightly off putting. I think I would prefer someone who was like born and raised Michigan, rather than someone who maybe moved here later in life.

I don't know a ton about her, but what I know I do like, she seems very level-headed. She seems a little bit more moderate. I know she's worked under Obama and President Bush and obviously Republican versus Democrat and seems to be able to get things done with both parties. So it's like just because someone's a Republican or vice versa, she won't shoot a bunch of stuff down.

I really don't know much about either one of them. And I'm going to vote for her just because she's not a Republican. And apparently none of the Republicans can be trusted.

Alyssa, I think she's good. The only thing that worries me is that she comes from big money. And I think when you have people in power that come from big money and don't come from people who actually go to the grocery store and feed a family on a budget, I start to get a little bit nervous. I will still vote for her because she is the Democratic candidate, but...

I'll always have my concerns if people are not on the same level as the general public in that state. Yeah, I haven't been really close, but I would 100% agree with Erin. I've heard, you know, she comes from big money in the background. So that instantly is a red flag in my mind. I just want somebody that

Because I'm in our state going through the same thing that people in our state are going through and understand our actual concerns and normal people like average Joes that actually work. And so, yeah, big money scares me if we're just jumping into politics for a freaking hobby kind of over that. I think I like her more than Rogers. She's worked under Obama. In fact, I think I just heard the ad this morning on the radio, him endorsing her campaign.

You know, just like with Homeland Security, you know, she was some kind of assistant under Obama. She's for the middle class, you know, trying to lower prescription drug coverage.

So that's just one focus group. Yeah. And it was all women, which was just an accident. Sometimes that happens. But this focus group was a clean sweep for Slotkin. And there was even one Trump voter in there. They were so all going her. Look, it's just one focus group. But I did a lot of focus groups in Michigan in 2022 and in 2020. And I guess I feel like the state...

So you live there. So tell me if my vibes are off. But it does feel like it's gotten more friendly to Democrats over time. And I have more swing voters in Michigan. Like when I do swing voter groups, I feel like

many of them have moved to be firmly in favor of Democrats. Like I heard a lot of people in that group, they knew more about Slotkin, not so much more though, but they were just like, this is it, I'm voting for her because I'm not voting for Trump. Just hear that, the Rogers has that Trump stink all over him with the swing voters.

So what do you think? How do you think she's been running this race? I mean, I think it defines a lot of what's happening in national politics right now. Slotkin has been someone who is a Democrat who has represented Republican-leaning areas and won in races that a lot of people didn't think she was going to win.

But her party and the day and age that we are in gives her permission to run ads like the ads she runs every time she runs. It shows a picture of her working for Barack Obama and a picture of her working for George W. Bush. So she can go out and try to appeal to people who are in the middle, maybe leaning one way, leaning another way. You know, that's important in Michigan. You know, it's a closely divided state. If you can win over a couple percentage points on the other side, that's the path to victory.

And then you have someone like Mike Rogers, who also has a background of working across the aisle. He worked for CNN after he left Congress. He said things critical of Donald Trump after he left office. But he can't really tap into that because where his party is at

does not give him permission to run those type of ads. You don't see him running those type of ads. You don't see him out there promoting. Here's where I disagree with Donald Trump and here's where I'll do things differently than Donald Trump. It's not the tack that you see them taking. I don't know why that fully is, why Democrats can do that and Republicans can't do that. You sure you don't know why that is? Tell me what you think it is.

Well, because you you cannot cross Donald Trump or you are excommunicated from the tribe. You're out there. Your political future is tied to the person at the top of the ticket. You take a huge risk if you do anything that could possibly be seen as alienating to that person. Slotkin has been able over many years to walk a line where she has disagreed with Democrats.

openly sometimes. And I think that's why probably she did well with that group of voters you were just talking to. There's been reports that she is concerned about how Harris is doing in the state. Do you know what her concerns are? We have a long history in Michigan of our Democratic Congress members being concerned about

about what's going on in the state and voicing that through media or, you know, leaks that happened in the national media. You'll see people, you know, Debbie Dingell is long known to be someone who's always saying, hey, Democrats, it's not looking good for us in Michigan right now. We need more resources. We need more of this. We need all of these things. And, you know, it's funny to kind of smile about because it's gone on

for so long, but to hear Slotkin doing that now is not completely surprising. You know, her numbers, you know, in our polling that we've done, she was up, I think, like more than six points when our last poll, and now she's up like three points. Her number is starting to look more closely to Harris's number in this state, even though it's still a little bit better. And I think if you're Mike Rogers, the path to victory here is, it seems to be Donald Trump's coattails. Like if Donald Trump wins, can he pull Mike Rogers across the finish line

as well, because it doesn't seem like right now Mike Rogers is pulling voters that Trump isn't getting, which makes his path more narrow than Slotkin's. I actually wasn't planning on asking you this, but now that we're talking about it, I want to. So Donald Trump's

path is with these low propensity voters that he turns out at just a rate that most other Republicans can't. I mean, like Whitmer smoked what's her face? Tudor Dixon. Tudor Dixon. That's right. God, I used to I was so into that race. And now I get all the memories I stored from 2022 of people who lost so I could replace them with the new races.

And Trudeau Dixon also like killed herself by saying early on, I remember doing the focus groups out there. She said something like a 13 year old who was raped, had to carry the baby. And everyone knew that it was on her. It was the only thing people knew about her. And it was she was too extreme. And even though people were a little mad at Whitmer about covid. And also, I don't know if she's done enough to fix the roads. People are very concerned about the roads in Michigan. It comes up in all the focus groups.

But I guess the big wild card, it's like such a cliche in my office. I told the other guy this, we have this joke about like, it's all going to come down to turnout. Like we talk about all the ins and outs, whatever, and then it's all going to come out to turnout. Right.

Does Donald Trump have a big share of low propensity voters that he has yet to turn out in Michigan that he could newly turn out there? That's the gamble the Republicans are making, right? They believe that there are these voters out there that didn't vote in 2016, didn't vote in 2020, you know, a year when we had a record turnout in this state, that there is someone out there who decided it wasn't worth going out to vote in 2020 that's going to turn around four years later and decide that it is worth going out to vote now.

It's a bet that I mean, I'm not going to say now money on that bet. I would not put money either way because that's not what I do. And I wouldn't say that there's no way that it works because in politics, sometimes things work. But he's trying to lay out different paths to victory, I think, too. I mean, it's definitely centered on low propensity voters, but he's also trying to cut into Democrats margins with African-American voters, African-American males.

Arab American voters in our state. I mean, they have some ideas, I think, that if they can cut into some advantages Democrats have had with some of these demographic groups and then also turn out some extra voters who didn't show up in 2020, that they have a path to narrowly win the state. And I think it would be a narrow win if they're able to do it from all the data that we're seeing currently, if things continue to hold. But that's the path.

There are a lot of Arab American voters out there who are ready to vote for Donald Trump. I mean, there are some that are out there talking about how they're going to vote for Donald Trump. The question, I think, is are there some who are just not going to go out to vote? Yeah. And if those people stay home, what happens? That, to me, right, is the concern from the Democrats. It's less that they go vote for Trump and more that they sit it out because of Israel and...

Michigan was their big concern about choosing Shapiro. It seems like it, right? Yeah. Yeah. I guess it would be if those people still stayed home, that would be tough for winning the state. College degrees are pricey, but with low tuition and our $2,500 back-to-school scholarship, WGU makes it possible to earn your degree at a price you can afford. Apply today at wgu.edu.

Okay. I want to talk about another Michigan Democrat that I've mentioned a couple of times, Gretchen Whitmer. We had a lot of goodwill for a future Whitmer presidential campaign in this group of Trump to Biden voters. Let's listen.

I love what she's doing for having preschool accessible to kids. I just think that's so important. I think that even though I may not have agreed 100% with every single thing that happened with COVID, I think she did a really good job and held her own. There were some things that happened and I thought she just was a strong woman and I was really, really proud to have her as our governor. She seems like

tough, but still also like feminine. Like she's not afraid to wear bright pink blazers and say like, I am a woman, but also, you know, you can't push me around. I think I would definitely be interested in seeing her more, but I also really appreciate that she, she feels very Michigan. Like she's a Michigan state fan and like, just seems really passionate about the state. Like this is her state. And I feel like that reflects in her leadership.

I have had no complaints. You know, at first I was a little wondering how it was going to go, but absolutely. I am proud to say that she is from the one representing us and I would back her if she went to the national level, a hundred percent and see where it could go for sure. Yeah. I've enjoyed Whitmer. Um, I like the way she handled COVID. I really want to read her book. I heard it's pretty good, but, um,

I was hoping that she would have been considered to be a vice presidential candidate with Harris. And as she would have been, I think there would have been no doubt right away. I would have said, OK, I'm voting with Harris and Whitmer for the presidential election. Waltz has been great, too. But Whitmer, I've been very impressed with. I'm glad that she's been our governor. I think that she has been, I think, governor for six years now.

And she's really made a lot of improvements. I really like how she speaks to everybody. And when she just goes to the house floor and she's really outspoken for people and she really steps up and she really speaks her mind. She will sign some bills and she'll look over them. She doesn't ignore you. And I think that you will get a response from her if you try to write her.

like her actual office, I think they will send you a response. So I think it's pretty awesome. I mean, that is big love in a state from the swing voters. That's not your base. Those are swing voters. Is she as popular as she sounds? I think with the majority of voters in this state, she is popular. I think there are very vocal detractors of hers. But I mean, if you look at her election results,

winning by 10 points over the Republican Tudor Dixon two years ago. And you look at where we are now with the presidential race, where it's neck and neck and essentially on a razor's edge. Even I sometimes have to think back and I'm like, well, how did she win by 10 points in this kind of environment? I mean, it's pretty impressive for her to have pulled that off

You know, she is very good at speaking to issues the voters care about. And it's it's almost Trump like in some ways where she is able to put her finger on an issue that people are talking about early enough and then say, I'm going to do something that will directly address that issue directly.

that is in the forefront. And there's no doubt about it. I mean, it's a direct response to it. It's not like, here are some policies around this. It's like, here's a direct response. She is very good at that. I mean, she comes off authentically to people. I think people like that. You know, I'm guessing you're going to ask about, you know, what her prospects are going forward. That is my next question. Yes. What do we... She's got good political instincts. What do we make of her national prospects? Yeah, political instincts. I mean...

I think, you know, someone talked about, you know, her being a vice presidential candidate. I mean, she has no foreign policy experience right now. She had a bit of an issue last year when she gave kind of differing responses to the attack on Israel on October 7th. And she had a social media kind of mistake that her team made. And then she tried to walk that back and she was facing criticism from both sides, you

about that for a few days. I mean, it was kind of an example of how she has managed to do very well with this slate of issues that confront a governor, the slate of issues that confront someone who's in federal office are completely different. And, you know, it seems like those will be things she'll have to get familiar with if she wants to run for president one day. Do you get the sense that she does?

You know, I get the sense that she does. I mean, I get the sense from, you know, being around her, being around her team and

that she does not want her political career to be over when her gubernatorial term ends. I don't know if that means running for another office or if it means working for some organization that's prominent or being in media. I mean, she studied media at one time when she was in college. She wanted to go into sports media. Who knows what one of those things it will be, but...

I mean, I think she will stay involved in politics for sure. Yeah, there are crazier paths to the presidency than sports media. Now, that's probably like the best thing she could do right now. Yeah. Who knows? Not quite reality TV. Yeah, not a game show. But, you know, the world's gone crazy. So who knows?

Okay. Craig Mauger, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for joining us and telling us about Michigan. And thanks to all of you for listening. That was our Great Lakes preview. Pennsylvania is going to get its own show. I want to thank both the Craigs for joining us. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the Focus Group podcast. We'll catch you next week. And in the meantime, subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube and become a Bulwark Plus member at thebulwark.com. And we will see you next week.