REVISED: Some observations on Michigan's Republican Primary races for governor & a state Senate seat

What impact will Trump have?

        The mainstream media, or lamestream as Trump calls it, has been fixated on the power of the former President’s endorsement in the Republican Primaries this year. In making that a major focus, a scorecard has emerged that tallies candidates who won and those that didn’t as a means of measuring his impact.

   Accompanying it is often commentary that wonders if his influence is holding fast or waning.

   What’s less reported is whether the winning candidate would have probably won their primary anyway, with or without Trump’s seal of approval, and whether the losing candidate was so flawed or their opponent so popular that, even with the his support, they fell short.

    The storyline being presented, and it seems plausible given what’s happening, is that Trump’s endorsement is the political equivalent of “curing the lame and blind”…meaning his influence with the GOP faithful is so powerful that candidates who, without that backing, would have little chance of success, instead emerge victorious thanks to his touch. Conversely, those who would be considered frontrunners, by not receiving his favor or finding themselves the target of his criticism, suddenly are ‘on the outs’ with many Republican voters?

  In less than three weeks the Michigan Primary will take place and there are several races where Trump has endorsed a specific candidate. So we’ll see how the scorecard turns out.

* * *

    While Trump will be a factor, the state’s Primary is always an important vote, given that winning the party nomination in many of the legislative, county, and township races is tantamount to election.

   That’s certainly true in Livingston County where I publish my weekly newspaper, with its super Republican majority. The same holds true for the Democratic Party races in nearby Wayne County.

    But despite that importance, the turnout is rarely high; certainly not in the numbers you see for the General Election.

   The state holds its primary on the first Tuesday of August, on even-numbered years, which this year falls on the 2nd. That summer date is, to be sure, not conducive to drawing much interest in the campaigns that are waged—even in the hotly-contested ones. Summer fun is understandably of greater interest.

   There’s been talk in the Legislature of moving the date to spring, with the goal of ginning up the interest and giving the winning candidates, particularly those running for statewide offices, more time to muster their resources and reach the less-partisan voters with their message.

   While an earlier primary is probably inevitable, it would lengthen the election cycle and perhaps result in a loss of momentum between the end of the primary and the start of the general-election campaign.

    From my purely selfish point-of-view, I prefer the current set-up since I have plenty to do much in the spring—much of it being the coverage of end-of-the-school-year events

     The marquee race in this off-year election is for governor. Initially, there were ten Republicans vying to replace the Democratic Party incumbent Gretchen Whitmer, but five of them—including the two frontrunners—failed to garner enough petition signatures to qualify for the ballot due to their sharing a professional signature-gathering firm that was caught forging hundreds of names.

    The five remaining would-be governors have not drawn much interest, although it appears Tudor Dixon, a conservative radio talk-show host, might be gaining some steam in the Republican ranks. She has gotten endorsements from the DeVos family, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Right to Life, and the Detroit News.

    Ryan Kelley, a real estate agent and party activist, gained some notoriety with his recent arrest for his role in the Jan. 6th storming of the U.S. Capital building, even topping the polls shortly after charges were made.

     Dixon may also benefit in that Kelley and the other three GOP candidates—Oakland County businessman Kevin Rinke, Kalamazoo chiropractor Garrett Soldano and Farmington Hills pastor Ralph Rebandt—seem likely to split the vote among the die-hard partisans. While she’s not necessarily a moderate candidate, having the establishment endorsements might tip the scales in her favor.

    Of course that’s a far cry from ‘back in the day’ when such backing would have made her a shoo in.

   My guess is that support will quickly coalesce around her if she continues pulling away, making the primary less dramatic. If former President Trump decides to make an endorsement in her favor, jumping on the bandwagon, then it’s game over. On the other hand, if he gives his blessing to one of the other candidates, it might muddy the waters—making the outcome more difficult to predict.

   Certainly in these current times, the Establishment support doesn’t carry the same weight.

* * *

    A hotly-contested race—or at least it seems from the outside looking in—is the Republican Primary battle between incumbent Lana Theis and challenger Mike Detmer in the Michigan State Senate 22nd District (which includes Livingston County).

    I’ve had numerous dealings with Senator Theis, hardly any with Detmer.

    By any measure, except one, Senator Theis would seemingly be a darling to many of the Trump supporters. She has expended a lot of effort burnishing her social-conservative credentials.

     In a campaign ad, she pointed to her authoring one of the state’s toughest voter ID bills, authoring legislation to prevent biological males from competing in girls’ sports, and fighting Governor Whitmer on Covid lockdowns and taxes.

    She has contended that Critical Race Theory is being taught in public schools by left-wing educators and  gained national attention when a Democratic colleague called her out in a Senate speech for a Theis campaign appeal that called the Democratic senator “a groomer of young children.”

      But she also was on the Senate committee that investigated the 2020 Presidential vote in Michigan and, after several hearings and accompanying research, did not support the contention there was widespread fraud. With their report, the committee effectively refuted Trump’s claim that he had actually won the state.

    For her being on the committee and supporting their finding, the former president endorsed Mike Detmer. Detmer, in turn, has trumpeted those allegations, contrasting his stance with what Theis did.  His campaign web site, some of it left over from when he ran for Congress two years earlier,  states that he is  “fighting for the unborn and our Bill of Rights,” adding that “He wants to fight on Capitol Hill for border security, lower taxes, smaller government, and our very way of life in the face of this socialism plaguing our nation today.”

    Perhaps more telling was his statement posted on Facebook when he announced his candidacy for the State Senate: “The battle lines are being drawn folks and the long knives are out. For those few who are angry with what’s coming, I just want you to know…it’s not personal. But we the people politely encouraged you to do the right things. You were politely warned. You ignored us. And now, …well, you have a fight on your hands.”

    I guess you can take that as a metaphor for active, uncompromising engagement, or you might take it literally.

    He used similar martial language in a campaign appearance with gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley when he reportedly told the crowd that people should "show up armed" to protect Republican election observers' access to monitor the counting of ballots and used the phrase “lock and load” in reference to people having the responsibility to stop tyranny.

     "That's what the 2nd Amendment is for," Detmer wrote in a follow-up text message to a newspaper asking what he meant. He noted that “ideally you do it peacefully, but  "Worst case ... lock and load."

    Kelley, meanwhile, advised people at that gathering to “unplug voting machines” if they are at a polling place and believe fraud is occurring.

    In a different plot line that has developed,  Kasey Helton—a Democratic Party activist and candidate for a Livingston County Commission seat—is urging her supporters and other Democrats to cast their ballot for Theis since all of the party’s local races have only one candidate.

    Livingston  Post, an online news publication, reported her as saying : “I absolutely refuse to throw away a vote on myself in an uncontested primary when this upcoming primary election will be my only opportunity to vote strategically and effectively against  Mike Detmer. Those who say that there is no difference between Detmer and his supporters and Theis and her supporters are wrong.”

   Helton specifically mentioned the joint appearance by Detmer and Kelley and the militant actions they suggested.

   A significant crossover vote on Theis’ behalf would have an effect on the final tally.

   So, while the Primary does not usually generate widespread interest with the general public, this election cycle there’s plenty to be interested in.

Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and editor-publisher of the ‘Fowlerville News & Views’.