It's full steam ahead for election campaigns in Michigan as candidates begin deploying ads to sustain and gain support heading into November. As WKAR Capital Correspondent Colin Jackson tells us, the next three months are going to be a sprint filled with ads hitting screens online, on TV and over commercial radio waves.
Jackson joined WKAR's Melorie Begay to talk about competition ahead and how one U.S. Senate candidate is creating synergy for a ballot proposal to get money out of politics.
Interview Transcript:
Melorie Begay: With Tuesday's election in the rearview, candidates are back on the campaign trail and back on your screens with new ads. That's as both Republicans and Democrats hope to maintain momentum and support heading into November. Plus, could a petition campaign to get money out of politics get a boost from sharing a ballot with the Democratic nominee for Senate? Here to break it all down is WKAR Capitol Correspondent Colin Jackson. Thanks for being here, Colin.
Colin Jackson: Good morning, Melorie.
Begay: I know you've had a pretty busy week. How are you feeling now that we made it to Friday?
Jackson: Relaxed and ready for this sprint until November.
Begay: Good. All right. So, the matchups for November are set, including one of the most watched races, which of course will be the U.S. Senate race, which includes former Wayne County health official Abdul El-Sayed. He'll be up against former Congressman Mike Rogers. We're already seeing ads make their way to people's screens. How important is it for these candidates to get out in front of people?
Jackson: I mean, name ID is a big thing when it comes to these elections. We saw in the primary Abdul El-Sayed overcame a major fundraising gap to his primary challenger Haley Stevens. One of the reasons he was able to do that was with a massive ground game. I think that's something that's really been overlooked here, or under looked here, rather. The importance of having people making phone calls, having people out knocking on doors. Yesterday, I was at an event with Republicans over near Grand Rapids, and Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, he also talked about having a massive ground game and spending his time knocking over a million doors for Republicans. And again, that's going to be major when it comes to reaching voters, because most people are not engaged in politics to begin with.
Begay: It kind of feels like it's all gas and no breaks up until November. What does this tell us about the next three months?
Jackson: It means that people are not going to be able to watch TV, they're not going to be able to watch YouTube, they're not going to be able to listen to commercial radio without hearing at least one ad for one of these campaigns. You don’t need me to tell you that. Republicans and Democrats are both seeing some of these top ticket races, the governor's race, the Senate race, as major crown jewels for them, and they're going to be throwing everything they have, all their resources, at keeping these seats if you're a Democrat or winning these seats if you're a Republican.
Begay: Now, you've been following this race closely over the past few days, but I'm curious: is there anything that you think that's maybe been overlooked?
Jackson: Yeah, the ground game component, absolutely, I think got overlooked. There was a lot of framing, especially in the Democratic side, as to whether this is something about progressive politics or establishment politics or moderate politics. I think in some of these races, the congressional district here in Lansing, the 7th Congressional District, William Lawrence's win. Some of that was just about his ability to get out there and connect with voters. I think that's the same thing with El-Sayed, and I think you're going to see that replicated.
Begay: Also, this week, there's a ballot petition, Money Out of Politics, that would essentially ban campaign donations from political committees linked to regulated monopoly utilities and large government contractors. Now, business-backed groups are asking the Michigan Supreme Court to block it from the November ballot. But I'm curious, given the name, how well do you think this could do, if it does make it, considering one candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, is using this phrase as part of his campaign?
Jackson: I don't think it's coincidental that you're seeing this come up while we're seeing El-Sayed winning this primary election. I think that this is a moment where you're seeing, especially the Democratic electorate, really get tired of seeing big corporate PACs flooding their airwaves, or big political action committees in general flooding their airwaves with ads during election season. I do think there's some natural synergy there. And like you said, this is going to court soon. I don't know how successful that challenge is going to be before court, especially given if it does, like the Supreme Court does agree to do something about this, there's a vast liberal majority here.
Begay: Now, beyond the primaries, what else will you be following?
Jackson: Again, when it comes to some of these ballot measures, there's another major ballot measure hoping to get on the ballot before voters. This is a proposed constitutional amendment to tighten Michigan's election laws. Some people could compare it to a Michigan version of the SAVE Act that you see in Congress.
Right now, the simplest way to describe this is they submitted signatures to get on the ballot, and that signature review process, rather than going through all 700,000 signatures, election officials typically take a sample of that and look through to check to see how many of that sample are valid and base whether or not this should actually get to the ballot on how many signatures in that sample are valid. And that sample recently became available.
Now, today’s the deadline actually for opponents to challenge it, by saying, "Oh, these signatures are invalid for this reason.” Maybe someone wrote their address wrong. Maybe there's a duplicate. Maybe someone wrote a fake name or whatever. And elections officials are going to go through all those. They're going to go through on their own, see how many they think are real, and make a recommendation for whether this should be on the ballot. And that meeting where an elections board will do it will come up pretty soon.
Begay: Colin Jackson is WKAR's Capitol Correspondent. Thanks for being here, Colin.
Jackson: Thanks for having me.
