Breaking down Michigan's Senate race with two weeks before midterms

The balance of power in the U.S. Senate is up for grabs, and one race that could decide it is right here in Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed versus Republican Mike Rogers. And here to break down that race and some of the others is Chris Moyer, a former political speechwriter who's been on the inside of all these types of campaigns. He's now a public affairs guru for Truscott Rossman. Thank you for joining us, Chris. Thanks, Dave. Here we are, less than three weeks away until Election Day. What goes on? Take us inside those campaigns. What are they doing in these final march here? Well, people have already been voting for almost a month and early voting starts next weekend. So this is if they've been sprinting for a month now, they are trying to find every last resource that they can to make sure that they close hard by November 3rd. So these campaign teams are kind of like closing ranks here and making sure that everybody's kind of working overtime. Is it door to door knocks? Is it getting out the message? Is it just a blitz on social media? Is it all the above? It's all of the above. And and I will lift up that knocking doors for a period of time, particularly around covid. Yeah, that was that was looked down upon. And now both campaigns are hitting the streets, knocking doors wherever they can. That's really essential because it's those contact with voters and in an election year where not not as many people vote as as in a presidential election year. You have to make sure that you touch all the people that you think are going to be on your side. And the number of campaigns that you've probably worked on or kind of watched from the sidelines, where does this one rank in terms of the tenacity and the stakes? Well, the stakes are very high. The amount of money is very high. And the, you know, the close, how close it is, is really driving the pressure. So I think when you look at the Senate campaign in particular, there is a lot of intensity and that is driving some of this more intense negative rhetoric coming from both sides. Yeah, this is not a a friendly campaign right now. Both of these are good, earnest people, Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers, but they don't like each other right now. Right. And there's a lot of outside influence that's coming to bear. One hundred and thirty million dollars spent by Republicans to attack El-Sayed. Democrats are fighting back on this. And it's going to come down to the wire. And, you know, more money is going to be spent saying negative things about each other. Are there really votes up for grabs at this point? We've seen them, it seems like, for months at a time here in terms of their ads and the debates and everything else that they've made, all the media stuff that they've done. Are there really undecided voters out there? That's a phenomenal question. And I think the answer is a little bit. There are some voters right now that are leaning towards Jocelyn Benson. She has a more demonstrable lead over Congressman John James in the gubernatorial race. But the polling indicates that we're looking at a much tighter race in the U.S. Senate race. So there are some Democratic votes or independent votes that have not come over to Abdul El-Sayed that both campaigns are fighting over right now. And that's backed up by the polling and that's backed up by just some, you know, a larger number of undecided voters in that Senate race. Could we see a lot more split tickets than we normally would then for this race? Once upon a time, Michigan was the epicenter of a good split ticket state. And it has gone like the national direction, more straight ticket voting. But this year, I think we are headed for a very some some voters kind of crisscrossing their ballot and making those selections. Yeah. And that's particularly the race for Senate and governor. Is that where you kind of see the split? Absolutely. But it's even making its way down into the congressional districts. You've got a very tight race that's happening in John James's old congressional seat with with Bouchard versus Christina Hines. A race around Lansing with with Will Lawrence and Tom Barrett. There's there's some very tight races here that that's going to happen. Some of the other Detroit based races, they're more in the Democratic camp. But we could see some some interesting voting patterns between now and November 3rd. I mentioned that I was there when the vice president made a visit to Detroit. We're going to start seeing some more heavy hitters make their way. It just kind of emphasizes what this race means here in the state. Well, you said it at the top here that the fate of the Senate really kind of runs through Michigan. Right. And so that's why you're going to see the two heaviest hitters, President Donald Trump, President Barack Obama, both coming to stump for their respective candidates. And the whole point of both of those is to make sure their base turns out. The Republican base still responds very positively to President Trump. There is no more beloved figure in the Democratic Party than President Barack Obama. And they're making sure that their guy is going to be the winner on November 3rd. Yeah, because, you know, you're obviously preaching to the choir when you're going to these rally things, but they want to make sure that you're taking a friend with you when you go vote and make sure that everybody does go out and actually vote. And everybody should vote. I mean, we have eight days of early voting that's going to start next weekend. You can still get an absentee ballot and drop it off. You can register to vote through November 3rd. This is a great opportunity to exercise our rights from a voting perspective. Chris Moyer, we're just getting started with you as well. So thank you very much. It's going to be a long race to the finish here. But for now, let's take it over to Rich Luterman with a check of weather. Hey, Rich.