Five weeks before we vote, the polls are showing the Democrats with a huge advantage over the Republicans nationally, and in Michigan. The Democrats running for statewide office –– Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General – all have healthy leads over their rivals.
Nationally, the New York Times reports Republican strategists have given up hope of keeping their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and indeed, they are pulling back two million dollars they had planned to use to help reelected two-term Congressman Mike Bishop. That’s a clear indication they think he is going to lose to Elissa Slotkin.
And yet, and yet … pollster Bernie Porn and I both remember 1990, when on the final weekend of the race, Governor Jim Blanchard had a 14 point lead over his Republican challenger, John Engler. On Election Night, the story was very different. Turnout was truly horrible, and in perhaps the biggest upset in Michigan history, John Engler won.
That wasn’t any kind of a red wave election. Polls had also shown U.S. Senator Carl Levin well ahead of his challenger, a young Bill Schuette. And Levin indeed won easily, the only race Schuette has ever lost, at least until this year.
So –I’m not saying we are going to see any kind of stunning upset this year. Most years, what the polls predict does happen.
However… there was also that Presidential election two years ago. Here’s what we do know: People tend to vote against the party holding the White House in midterm elections. Donald Trump is more unpopular than most presidents, and any movie about the Republican-controlled Congress wouldn’t be titled, “Dearly Beloved.”
But here’s what we also know: Nobody has voted yet. Indeed, if you aren’t yet registered to vote, you still have another week to do so.
We don’t know if there will be any last-minute political surprises, we don’t know whether there will be some sudden economic news — good or bad — and we don’t know who is actually going to bother to get up off the couch and vote.
There is something else we know: Between now and November 6th, literally millions of dollars are going to be spent on campaign advertising, mostly on TV, some on radio.
Some will be paid for by Republicans. Some by Democrats, and too many by shadowy “dark money’ groups who we allow to legally hide the identities of their donors. Virtually all of the dark money ads, and far too many of the others, will be negative, designed to attack and defame someone. The idea isn’t to convert many people, but to raise doubts among a candidate’s supporters, maybe get some to just stay home in disgust.
Sadly, this sometimes works. This is toxic and corrosive to our democracy, not because of any particular election, but because of the overall impression it leaves with the voters that all candidates in both parties are a bunch of sleazy incompetent crooks and traitors.
This isn’t good for anybody. Twenty-four years ago, Republicans took back control of the U.S. House of Representatives in a landslide helped by a document they called their “Contract with America.” Whether you agreed with it or not, it presented something positive — program they promised to enact if they took power.
That seized the public imagination. This year, I want to see Gretchen Whitmer and Bill Schuette and all the candidates tell us, not why their opponents are bad, but what they will do with us for our state if they win. I don’t know if that will happen.
But if it did, wouldn’t it really be a breath of fresh air?
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