There’s much more on Michigan’s 2024 election ballot than the presidential and U.S. Senate races. At Michigan Public, we’re also highlighting other items appearing on ballots across the state.
All of the seats in the Michigan House of Representatives are up for election this fall. Michigan voters will also be deciding a number of key congressional races.
For a closer look, Zach Gorchow, the president of Gongwer News Service, joined Michigan Public Morning Edition host Doug Tribou.
Doug Tribou: Voters across Michigan will be choosing their representatives in the Michigan House. All 110 seats will be filled this election. The Democrats currently hold a 56-54 majority. What are the top two or three key races you’re watching to see if that majority holds?
Zach Gorchow: There's really three Democratic incumbents we're keeping a very close eye on because they represent districts that former President Trump won in 2020, meaning the environment there is going to be challenging for these Democratic incumbents.
Those members are Representative Jaime Churches from Wyandotte, Nate Shannon from Sterling Heights, and Jim Haadsma from Battle Creek. Trump is kind of his own turnout machine. He gets these lower-propensity voters to show up and vote. And so there's going to be maybe 10,000 people voting this time who were not there in 2022, which was such a great year for Democrats. So it's going to be a very different environment. We think these are the three Democrats who are probably up against it the most.
In 2022, Democrats won control of both the Michigan House and Senate for the first time in nearly 40 years. The 2024 election will determine the future of their narrow majority in the state House.
DT: In 2022, when Democrats won majorities in the House and Senate in Michigan, and retained the governor’s office, the initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution was on the statewide ballot. Some observers felt that helped push turnout and helped Democrats overall. This time around we’re, as you say, in a presidential election, but there’s no statewide initiative. Does that benefit one major party over the other?
ZG: You know, in general, I'm not a huge believer that the ballot proposals can drive turnout in a presidential year. Really, it's the presidential candidates that are the major drivers of turnout and initiatives and whatnot tend to be more bit players, but they can be very important in a midterm for sure.
DT: If Republicans can flip at least two seats, they would regain control of the House. But the Michigan Senate won’t be up for election until 2026, so there’s the possibility of a split legislature with a Democratically controlled Senate and a Republican-majority House, and a Democratic governor in Gov. Whitmer. Again, this is a hypothetical, but what does history tell us about the effectiveness of a split Legislature here in Michigan?
ZG: Well, I think we would see far fewer pieces of legislation make it to the governor's desk. It'd be pretty clear that a new Republican majority in the House would be coming in to stop this Democratic freight train that has been passing a lot of left of center policy in the past 20 months. So those kinds of core, bread-and-butter Democratic policy ideas would definitely come to a halt.
By the same token, any Republicans out there who think that bread-and-butter, conservative Republican legislation is somehow going to become law, they can forget about that, too, because it's not going to get to the governor's desk either. [Laughs]
So it would probably end up becoming more about the budget and then some amount of horse trading on policy ideas that are not going to offend the basic partisan sensibilities of each party. Those kinds of things might move forward, but it would definitely be a much less active legislative environment.
"This really should be a McDonald Rivet advantage, I think. But this is an area that is trending Republican, and it's an area where Donald Trump is very popular historically, so Junge has a fighting chance here."Gongwer News Service's Zach Gorchow on the tight race in Michigan's 8th Congressional District
DT: Let’s turn to Congressional races. The 7th District race has gotten a lot of attention because the current representative, Democrat Elissa Slotkin, is running for U.S. Senate. The candidates to replace her are Democrat Curtis Hertel, Jr., Republican Tom Barrett, and Libertarian L. Rachel Dailey. What other congressional races seem especially interesting to you?
ZG: Well, there's two others that are very competitive. One is up in the Tri-Cities, plus Flint. That's the Bay City, Midland, Saginaw, Flint area. This is the district now represented by Dan Kildee. It's been represented by a Kildee for 50 years. But Dan Kildee is not running again.
So we have state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet, first term Democrat from Bay City. And Paul Junge, who lost to Dan Kildee by a pretty large margin two years ago, is the Republican nominee. This really should be a McDonald Rivet advantage, I think. But this is an area that is trending Republican and it's an area where Donald Trump is very popular, historically, so Junge has a fighting chance here.
DT: And what's the second race you're looking at?
ZG: The other one I'm watching really closely is down in metropolitan Detroit, where Rep. John James, first-term member of Congress, Republican, is seeking a second term. The district is essentially southern Macomb County. It's also got Rochester and Rochester Hills.
It's a rematch between him and Carl Marlinga, a longtime Democratic prosecutor in Macomb County. He's also a judge. And two years ago, that ended up being a very close race, even though Carl Marlinga had no financial support. So this time around, the Democrats are not making that same mistake. They are spending millions and millions of dollars and they have outspent John James. And everything we hear is this is really close.
Editor's note: Quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full interview near the top of this page.
