WDET is talking to candidates vying to become Michigan’s next governor as the state heads towards party primaries and November’s general election.

That includes Michigan Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, who is part of a crowded field of Republican contenders for the top job in Lansing.

Nesbitt says Michigan’s next governor must focus on the state’s economy.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Sen. Aric Nesbitt: As a farm boy that grew up in southwest Michigan, I know how hard it is to make a living. I grew up baling hay and having to sleep on the main floor because it was 10 degrees cooler there. I worked my way through college, went to Hillsdale College and earned my economics degree. I had to take five different jobs there.

And the people of Michigan are hurting right now. It’s tough for families, for job creators and for kids to make it here in Michigan. We’re paying the highest insurance rates, the highest energy costs in the Midwest.

Our job creators are being crushed by regulations out of Lansing that are preventing them from expanding and growing and creating more wealth here in the state.

And then our kids, three out of five fourth graders can’t read at grade level. And we know if you can’t read at grade level, you have a nearly 70% chance of being on social welfare or in jail at some point. That paints a very tough and dark picture for the future of Michigan.

I want to paint a very bright picture for Michigan, one where every kid can read, every family can actually make it here in the state, and job creators can invest and grow so we can become a wealthy state again.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: If you were elected to the governor’s office, how would you try to address some of those issues?

AN: The first thing is to help families. I was in north Michigan a little bit ago talking to a guy that moved here from Tennessee. You don’t meet too many of those folks because Tennessee is a right-to-work state with no income tax. He said he’d added up his cost for utilities, energy and his local property taxes. He says he’s paying about $5,000 more per year to live in Michigan than he did in Tennessee. And as a farm boy, $5,000 is a lot of money.

So you start off by looking at energy. Right now the Democrats in Lansing and Gov. Whitmer mandated this 100% renewable energy, banned natural gas, banned nuclear. It’s industrializing hundreds of thousands of acres of farm and forest land. Makes me sad seeing all these good corn fields going into industrial solar panels. If we’re going to grow and invest here in the state, we got to repeal the Green New Scam and allow them all of the above energy proposals. Actually allow nuclear and natural gas facilities to be built. Lower the costs for manufacturing and for families. Families are already paying the highest rates in the nation. Got to bring it back.

You look at our insurance laws, at the costs of auto insurance and homeowner’s insurance. We’re paying the highest prices in the Midwest. Ohio has a more competitive market. So does Illinois. If you take their laws and bring them to Michigan, you can cut our insurance rates. And that’s the same thing with why I’m running on eliminating the state property tax. That’s the start of finding how you can make sure that you put more money in hard-working families’ pockets and less money being sent up to Lansing.

QK: If one cuts or eliminates some of those taxes though, then that eliminates some revenue coming into the state. Is there a way that you would envision trying to make up that revenue? Or do you think we can just tighten the belt and go forward?

AN: Over the last seven years under Gov. Whitmer and the Democrats in Lansing, the state government has grown by 50%. I don’t know anybody who’s gotten a 50% pay increase around the state of Michigan. Hasn’t happened in our family and hasn’t happened in our neighbors’ families. If you would have only used funds from half the growth of government at the state level, you could have eliminated the state income tax.

This is the point. We haven’t been seeing that 50% increase in terms of services. We are a top 20 state in terms of spending on education. Yet we’re a bottom 10 state in reading scores, science and education. The state demographer says over the next 30 years, we’re going to lose upwards of another 700,000 people in the state of Michigan.

We’re on target to go down to 49th in terms of per capita income. We could become a poorer state closer to Mississippi. If we’re going to grow as a state and make sure our kids are able to learn, we got to shake up the status quo in Lansing and stop just tweaking around the edges, which is what we’ve seen.

So, as the next governor Michigan, I’m going to lower the cost of living, increase wages, create better job opportunities and make sure our kids have a choice to either go on to college or enter a trade school. I think we’ve lost that here in Michigan, having a good solid trades education. Those people are actually career ready.

QK: Earlier this year you had mentioned you thought it might be necessary to have a federal monitor oversee Michigan’s elections to ensure they were fair and legal. Do you still feel that way? Do you think that’s still something that needs to be watched for?

AN: This is the challenge Michigan has. We have the worst secretary of state.

QK: Who would possibly be your opponent if you were the GOP nominee for governor.

AN: Yes, Jocelyn Benson. We’ve seen time after time that she continues to ignore subpoenas from the Michigan House of Representatives and subpoenas from the federal Department of Justice I think that she needs to allow for federal oversight of these elections because she has a very poor history of administrating them. That needs to be corrected.

This is why it’s so important this fall that voters approve a constitutional amendment that’ll be on the ballot that makes sure every person in Michigan shows a photo ID to vote. It cleans up the voter rolls and ensures that you’re a legal citizen here in the state of Michigan.

QK: What would you say to those that argue those requirements will hurt voter turnout, because some people may not have some of that identification with them?

AN: These reforms happened in Georgia. They were saying the same thing there, yet they had a higher voter turnout the other year than the years before. These are just straw man arguments.

QK: If you are elected, you’d be taking over the governor’s chair from Democrat Gretchen Whitmer. Obviously she’s in the opposite political party. But she has gained a bit of a national profile. She’s had discussions with President Trump that seemed to at least affect some of the issues going on in Michigan. What are your thoughts overall about coming into that office if you were elected following Whitmer’s time?

AN: I joined with Gov. Whitmer a year ago when President Trump announced the new fighter mission at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. We worked together to be able to get that done. And to block the Asian carp in Chicago from entering the Great Lakes. And I worked with President Trump to find help for victims of the ice storms a year ago in northern Michigan.

I’m going to continue to partner with the Trump administration to make sure that Michigan issues are on the list of things they need to address.

And this is why the status quo in Lansing needs to be shaken up. It’s not about establishing a national profile. It’s about solving problems for hardworking Michigan families. And it matters. Detroit and Saginaw are two of the 10 cities with the highest crime rates in the nation. We got some tough challenges as a state.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nesbitt says Gov. Whitmer banned nuclear power. But she has supported restarting the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in southwest Michigan. The plant is in Michigan’s 20^th state senate district, which Nesbitt represents.