Pre-Convention Thoughts: Both Michigan Legislative Project & Others
The Primaries are over, Gretchen Whitmer, some people running without competition, and some interesting Congressional nominees (Haley Stevens in the much discussed MI-11, Rashida Tlaib in MI-13, and Matt Longjohn in the “maybe it’ll be competitive” MI-6, which range from not bad choices to the best ones possible) we have our State Party convention coming up with a lot of decisions to make, work to do, and hopefully some fun and networking to be had.
On a Michigan Legislative Project front, we did have some surprises in Michigan State House primaries, two in particular, though a couple safe seats had some surprises also.
State House Post Primary (Michigan Legislative Project #14.5, a mini-filler issuer in-between full issues)
The pick-up opportunities only had some so many competitive primaries: MI-19, MI-30, MI-38, MI-40, and MI-45 (kinda).
MI-HD-19 (Livonia)
To start with MI-19 (essentially Livonia) was a *huge* upset as microbiologist Laurie Pohutsky defeated Livonia Shool Board Member (and University Development Official) Dan Centers by a very respectable 54% to 45% (6,221 to 5,149). I’d put this down to a couple of reasons: One, is that in a default race, lately women have held an advantage this year in the voting booth. The other has to do with local media: To be fair, I have yet to see this interview myself, but apparently when Hometown Life (the website for the newspaper for Livonia) put up interviews for the candidates, Pohutsky came off really well while Center didn’t (which is suprising as Dan Centers has been used as an intro speaker for other candidates). Some will say that this cost us a pick-up shot, but I don’t think so as Pohutsky is pretty charismatic and has a dedicated group of volunteers so she does have a shot.
MI-HD-30 (Macomb County-Utica, parts of Shelby Township & Sterling Heights)
And that brings us to a seat that we probably *did* lose a pick-up opportunity as Entreprenuer, University of Michigan educated Attorney, State Party Finance Committee member, and Chaldean Community Activist Wisam Naoum lost a positive *shocker* to car salesman & 2016 candidate John Spica by 53% to 46% (3,389 to 2,922 so it wasn’t by much), especially as Spica raised no reported money this time and didn’t appear to campaign. Poor turnout might have played a part as, by comparison, this race had roughly half the votes that the 19th district had. In addition, Sterling Heights is one area that race was considered to have possibly played a part in 2016 so it does make me wonder whether that played a part this time. Aside from that, fellow Michigan Election DK analyst ADJ7 pretty said they had no idea WTF happened? Neither do I really. Unless Spica can show something I don’t expect, this seat just got eliminated from mention in future MLPs as it should be safe Republican.
MI-HD-38 (Oakland County – Lyon Township, South Lyon, Novi, Oakland County portion of Northville, and a portion of Walled Lake)
This was a surprising combination of a friendly and surprisingly packed primary as businessman Joe Petrillo, Dentist Aditi Bagchi, and Novi City Councilwoman Kelly Breen ran a clean primary that pretty much focused between Bagchi (who raised the most money) and Breen (who, as a Novi City Councilwoman had the largest base in the primary). In the end Kelly Breen had a fairly comfortable (for a three way race) win over Bagchi 48% to 34% (with Petrillo taking 16%, a raw votes breakdown of 5,237-3,670-1,822). The total votes breakdown between parties in the primary was surprisingly close as Republican had 10,268 votes cast vs. 10,729 votes for the Dems total. So definitely a competitive race for the general.
MI-HD-40 (Oakland County – West Bloomfield Twp, Bloomfield Township, Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham)
Opean seat, two good & well funded candidates for a Michigan House seat? What’s not to like? Well nothing, as former State Department Employee & Dingell Congressional Staffer Mari Manoogian and 2016 Dem nominee & Nutritionist Nicole Bedi ran a primary that was everything you’d like in a primary as it focused on telling voters why they should vote for them and not mud slinging. In the end, in a relatively close race (8,877 to 7,856 votes, 53% to 46%) Mari Manoogian was the victor and will go on to face Republican small businessman & former State Party Vice Chair David Wolkinson in the fall in one of the top pick-up chances for Dems.
MI-HD-45 (Oakland County – Rochester, Rochester Hills and portion of Oakland Township)
Not a huge surprise but bartender & high school football coach Kyle Cooper defeated doctor & perennial candidate Ted Golden, and goes into a seat that we are behind in, but as I’ve seen writte-up on Daily Kos, the ballots cast were surprisingly close so maybe…
Convention
We are having the state party convention over two days in East Lansing Michigan where a lot of things will occur: The State-wide non-primary candidates have to get signatures to be put forward for nomination (Attorney General, Secretary of State, Justices for State Supreme Court) despite having to do that back in April for the nominating convention, the nominees for all state elected boards will be voted on (Michigan State University Board of Trustees, University of Michigan Board of Regents, Wayne State University Board of Governors, and Michigan State Board of Education) and nominated, and the Lieutenant Governor will be formally voted on and nominated.
Michigan State Trustees
And, while everyone tends to ignore the various state boards they can and do have real power (as the State Constitution of Michigan gives those three universities some degree of independence). Given the massive fall out of the Larry Nassar scandal at Michigan State University, there are at least 10 candidates seeking the office for 2 nominating slots (no incumbents are running), I hestitate to suggest choices but I do like MSU Alum, Non-Profit development director Kelly Tebay who has pledged to change the culture towards sexual assault at MSU as well as work to develop a program similar to what U of M has that offers free tuition to families from Michigan with income below a certain level, I also like Muskegon Attorney Brianna Scott & corporate compliance professional Matt Clayson.
Michigan State Board of Education
There are currently 4 Democrats who have committees seeking 2 nominations (both seats are Republican held) but the most active campaign has come from Disability A-Team & Community Collaborative founder (a disability advocacy organization) Lily Cheng Schulting has probably had the most active campaign (https://www.lily4michigan.com/ ). Judy Pritchett is the only other candidate who has raised money and I believe she was a school system Superintendent in Macomb County and currently has a position with Macomb County ISD so she’s qualified. The other two candidates don’t seem as strong as Tiffany Tilley is making her third run for office (she lost a State Rep primary this year and she’s lost a Southfield City Council race in the past) and I believe Raymond King Jr. is the 19 year old who lost a race for Kent County commission this year, if so he’s just a bit too young at this point. So I’d back Schulting and Pritchett for the 2 nominations.
Lieutenant Governor
Gretchen Whitmer is supposedly going to put forward former Detroit Director of Innovation & Emerging Technology, Political Activist, and Detroit City Clerk runner up in 2017 (in one of the closest municipal races of the year) Garlin Gilchrist (https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/19/garlin-gilchrist-gretchen-whitmer-lieutenant-governor-candidate/1037317002/ ), which politically is a good thing as it is someone who generated a great deal of excitement in Detroit despite losing an insanely close race.
Hopefully this convention leads to a united party and a big push behind Whitmer, Benson, Nessel, Gilchrist and the State Supreme Court Justices Bagenstos & Cavanaugh. As well as behind all other candidates.