The United Auto Workers (UAW) endorsed Abdul El-Sayed for Michigan’s open U.S. senate seat and Jocelyn Benson for Governor.  

For UAW Region 1A Director Mark DePaoli, this move puts the union “back at the forefront” in terms of political influence.  

To determine which candidate receives their endorsement, DePaoli said the UAW Community Action Program (CAP) Board schedules meetings with candidates to ask questions and vote on who best reflects their values.  

“They ask a lot of tough questions because they want to be able to hold the candidates accountable for their answers,” DePaoli said.  

UAW rules require a two-thirds majority of CAP board member to agree in order for an endorsement to be made. 

“The best part about it is whether you’re one of the CAP reps from the plant, you’re one of the three Michigan directors, or you’re the president of the UAW, everybody’s vote weighs the same,” DePaoli said.  

Selecting a senate candidate

The CAP representatives came from each plant and facility represented by UAW, DePaoli said, and ended up voting in favor of El-Sayed.

Another way UAW members learn more about the candidates and their beliefs is through a public debate in which the candidates discuss their values.  

“It was live stream for all of our members, and the consensus at the end of that debate amongst everybody that was talking was that Abdul was the clear-cut winner,” DePaoli said. 

The vote was a surprise in some circles since the other two candidates—Congresswoman Haley Stevens and State Senator Mallory McMorrow—both have some background in the auto industry.

Stevens worked on the 2009 auto bailout in the Obama Administration. McMorrow trained as car designer. In autoworker-heavy Michigan, both candidates have leaned into drawing the interest of organized labor.

DePaoli said he was “dreading” the endorsement decision because each candidate had values that the UAW supported, but he decided that El-Sayed would be best suited to tackle the issue of healthcare, which DePaoli  referred to as “the biggest problem” for the majority of Americans.   

“We seem to be the only country where it’s acceptable for big business to make profit off of our illnesses,” DePaoli said. “Why not a health care expert in the U.S. Senate to help try and fix some of these problems?” 

El-Sayed said he was “deeply honored” to receive the endorsement from UAW. El-Sayed makes it a point that his campaign is built from union members instead of “corporate PAC money, AIPAC and Washington insiders.” 

“Together, we’re going to take on corporate greed, rebuild an economy that works for working people, strengthen collective bargaining and ensure that the future of Michigan manufacturing is built right here by union workers,” El-Sayed said.  

In the past, the UAW has almost exclusively endorsed Democratic candidates. According to DePaoli, UAW leadership invited all candidates for the U.S. Senate seat, and only three Democrats attended. Republican Mike Rogers did not attend.

“It makes it hard to endorse somebody that doesn’t even bother to come out and listen to the questions and hear the concerns of your membership, let alone give an answer,” DePaoli said. “I don’t think they even try to get Labor’s endorsement because they know they’re not going to vote any policies in favor of Labor.” 

Why Jocelyn Benson?

In the race for Michigan Governor, Jocelyn Benson has a financial advantage over Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson. She also has a lead in the polls.

According to DePaoli both candidates were worthy of backing and recently discussed their positions for the CAP board at UAW Local 600.

“Two great candidates coming from completely different backgrounds,” DePaoli said. “At the end of the day, we don’t completely trust in polls, but we were comfortable that Jocelyn Benson was the correct decision.”

None of the Republican candidates for governor showed up.

At the time, former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan was in the race and in the forum.

“I think a lot of people were surprised at how well he did,” DePaoli said. “But I think everybody had gotten to a point to say, well, even if we don’t endorse him—if he does win— we’re comfortable that we can work with him and get things done for labor.”

Duggan dropped out citing concerns over money and no path to victory given a recent surge for democrats. 

Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode

• How do we currently nominate secretary of state and attorney general?
• Reactions to this new proposal

Johnson says that having voters choose secretary of state and attorney general nominees allows for better representation for both the Democratic and Republican parties, as opposed to party conventions which are dominated by “insiders and special interests.”

“Anytime you have more people involved, you get a better reflection of society,” said Johnson. “It’s time to move forward and present this choice to the people of Michigan.”

The other two states that don’t use voters to nominate these roles are South Dakota and Indiana.

Johnson said roles that he and his group may focus on next includes Michigan Supreme Court seats and university trustees.

More from WDET

• Current and Former Secretaries of State Talk Transparency To Kick Off Sunshine Week
• MichMash: Attorney General Dana Nessel talks ICE detention center lawsuit, data centers and more
• MichMash: Secretary Benson on presidential primaries, election security

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is widely interpreted as strengthening the connection between Canada and the United States, making travel easier and cheaper. It’s seen as a win-win project that Canada paid for and jointly owns with the Michigan.

But President Donald Trump has tried to block the bridge’s opening until Canada meets certain trade-related demands with the U.S. and compensates America for it, even though Canada already paid for the bridge. 

The upcoming opening of the bridge has now been delayed. In an email statement Thursday morning, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said, “Although we would all like the Gordie Howe International Bridge to open, Canada need not fall on bent knee to make it happen.”

Producer Sam Corey spoke with Dilkens yesterday before the ribbon cutting was canceled. He says the bridge is “the ultimate symbol of connection” and friendship.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand.

Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro

The Michigan Senate is set to lose three women of color from Detroit-area districts.

Erika Geiss, Stephanie Chang, and Sylvia Santana are all term limited.

Eboni Taylor is running in the 3^rd district – and was recruited to run by Senator Chang.

There are 10 other people in the primary including: Kimberley Hill Knott, Latanya Garrett,  Adam Hollier, John Conyers III, and Korey Hall.

Taylor is also the Vice President of Programs for Higher Heights for America, a political action committee with the goal of increasing Black women’s elected representation. Taylor spoke to WDET’s Russ McNamara about the challenges Black women face in campaigns and where she finds the most support.  

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Taylor: All federal races, all statewide executive races, according to the state’s constitution, and the only local race that we partake in is top 100 cities for mayor. So, really excited that my organization, with me at the helm of the program and the political work, was very proud that we were able to support our now Mayor Mary Sheffield. 

McNamara: Does Mayor Sheffield endorse your campaign currently? 

Taylor: I think that Mayor Sheffield is currently staying out of it because it is an extremely crowded race. There are 11 people in the race, but I know that she does believe strongly in Black women’s leadership, and Black women stepping up and deciding to run. So, I do know that she holds that value. 

McNamara: What are the challenges that go into getting a woman of color elected? Black women specifically. 

Taylor: Women in general, it takes them four to five times to be asked to run before they say yes. A woman of color, it takes even more times for them to be asked before they decide to run, and when they do say yes, the issues that they face are numerous, but the number one issue is that it’s hard to raise funds. As the Vice President of Programs and the political work at Higher Heights, I’m in conversations with candidates all across the country, all different walks of life, and that is probably the number one thing that rises to the top, is that it’s hard to raise money in comparison to their white counterparts, to their male counterparts. It’s hard to get campaign staff that actually can put forth products and put forth a campaign that’s in their voice, because these are folks who are cookie cutting from campaign to campaign, instead of understanding that a Black woman’s voice and a Black woman’s way of running a campaign might be different, not always, but it might be different, and for us to not have just across the board, campaign managers, finance directors, who don’t understand the importance and the uniqueness of a Black woman or a woman of color running, we need more of that, and so those are probably the top two issues that we’re seeing.  

McNamara: Does that surprise you? Since one of the key pillars of the Democratic base are Black women. 

Taylor: Yeah, and Black women, we have been key to the Democratic party. We have been a very strong voting block. We have been essentially the architects, the purveyors, if you will, of democracy, and for us to not be at the helm, at the vanguard, and the forefront, is a problem. And I think that the Democratic Party, it’s high time for them to step up—and I think that they are—to see the uniqueness that Black women bring and the community and the network that comes with Black women, because we are at the center of our communities, we help support our immediate families. I was just on the doors with a woman who was talking about making sure she got to all of her neighbors on her block, that they got out and voted, or they submitted their absentee ballot, and so this is the work that Black women have been doing to ensure that they can feed their families, to ensure that they can go to work and not worry about being treated unfairly, and that’s the only way that they can do it if they do it themselves. 

President Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. Justice Department has been “weaponized” against him.

But one former Justice official argues the president is not just weaponizing the government but running it like an organized crime syndicate.

Author and law professor Barbara McQuade served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017.

She successfully prosecuted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on corruption charges.

Now McQuade is out with a new book, “The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government.”

She says the book stems, in part, from what she found during the Kilpatrick trial.

Focus: Hope was founded in 1968 as a way to bring Black and white Detroiters together in the aftermath of the 1967 rebellion.  The organization has grown and changed in the last six decades, but still faces challenges.

Portia Roberson is the President and CEO of Focus: Hope.  She spoke with WDET’s Jerome Vaughn at the Mackinac Policy Conference last week.

Roberson says changes in federal funding priorities have made it harder for the non-profit to achieve its goals.  The organization had its federal funding slashed for Head Start.  She says those funding cuts endangered early learning opportunities for more than 200 families.

At the same time, Roberson says the Focus: Hope food program is growing because more people across the state are dealing with food insecurity.  The non-profit is feeding between 45,000 and 50,000 Michigan seniors every month.

In this episode

• What is in the Money Out of Politics group’s proposal?
• What are the reactions from the supporters and opponents of the bill?

Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

A ballot measure that would prohibit political spending by Michigan’s regulated utilities and large state contractors could appear on the November ballot. As part of WDET’s weekly series, MichMash, Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow and Alethia Kasben discuss what’s included in the proposal and how supporters and opponents are responding.

The co-chairs of Michiganders for Money Out of Politics, Sean McBrearty and Christy McGillivray, stop by to discuss the proposal.

Opponents of the proposal say it infringes on their right to free speech. McBrearty disagrees.

“They’ll still get to play a role in the political process. The utility executives will be welcome to go out and canvass for any lawmakers they support,” he said.

McGillivray added, “They won’t be able to use money to shut the door on everyone else who wants to have a conversation with their elected officials.”

The group is confident it will gather the 356,000 valid voter signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.

Producer’s Note:

MichMash reached out to Consumers Energy and DTE Energy, as well as Protect MI Free Speech, the committee opposing the ballot proposal, to share their perspectives. However, we were unable to schedule interviews with them. We will continue to cover this issue and hope to have them on the show in a future episode.

More from WDET:

• DTE Energy is building the region’s largest battery energy storage center at old Trenton coal plant
• A Republican outlook on Michigan’s 2026 elections
• The Metro: Can a new coalition remove big money from Michigan politics?

You probably learned this as a kid: When something goes wrong, you call 911. Someone answers, and help is on the way. But across America’s biggest cities, more than 1 in 5 911 centers can’t answer calls fast enough to meet the national standard.

Often, there simply aren’t enough people on staff to pick up the phone.

Reporter Byard Duncan spent a year finding out how often emergency calls go unanswered. His reporting was the source of recent episode of the investigative podcast Reveal called “911, Please Hold.” His search took him from California to Capitol Hill, and one common theme emerged: emergency call centers dispatchers are not classified as first responders.

In the federal government’s eyes, they sit alongside receptionists and bill collectors. There’s a move in Congress to change that, and this past winter, a team from Detroit’s 911 center went to Washington to fight for it.

Why aren’t emergency call dispatchers considered first responders? Duncan joined The Metro to share his findings.

“911, Please Hold” was produced by Byard Duncan for Type Investigations in partnership with Reveal.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro

Eli Savit is the Washtenaw County Prosecutor and the Democratic endorsed candidate for Michigan attorney general.

Savit spoke with WDET’s Russ McNamara about his campaign and the importance of younger voters in this year’s elections.

The following interview was edited for clarity and length.

McNamara: Take me through the process of the convention this year – it was a little bit wild for Democrats’ sake, but something that was pretty clear was that the people at the convention voting much prefer you over Karen McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor. Why? And I don’t mean that as an insult.

Savit: I give a lot of credit to our team and to the organizing efforts that we did. We made a conscious effort to speak to people that have felt shut out by not just the party, but by the political process, especially younger people. We had tremendous turnout among youth, among college students. The convention was during finals season, and we didn’t just have kids from U of M come in. We had a group of kids from Northern Michigan University make the drive down in the middle of finals season to be there to cast a vote on a Sunday when you got to go back to school the next day. We had a tremendous surge in youth turnout. The youth in turn organized for us, right? They volunteered for our campaign, they called voters, they came to convention, and they worked for our campaign because they found something to believe in.

I’m tremendously honored that I was the candidate that they saw fit to support in that regard, and I think that’s what we need if we’re going to keep building our party into the future. So, it was a great convention for us, for them, but now we’re focused on moving forward to the general in November.

McNamara: Do you think that enthusiasm by the youth vote can carry over into the general?

Savit: Well, it’s certainly something that we’re hoping remains in the general, but it’s not the only thing that we need to win this race. We need to talk to everybody, we need to talk to all communities, but I will say we’ve seen drop off in youth turnout, not just in Michigan, but across the country in 2024 from even 2022. We need that vote, we need young people in the fold if we are going to win general elections, and that’s something that our campaign has, and it’s momentum that I’m hoping will carry forward, even as we talk to every group in every constituency in the state.

McNamara: Do you think part of the problem in 2024 with the youth vote staying home was the candidates, whereas there wasn’t really a candidate that this younger generation was excited about?

Savit: I think to some extent, but here’s the other thing that has really been crystallized to me over the course of this campaign: I’ve got young staff too, so we spend a lot of time in the car together and have some pretty long conversations, and they’ve emphasized to me, listen, when Donald Trump came down that stairway in 2015, if you are 18 years old, that is your entire political life. You know nothing other than a politics that has been dominated by Donald Trump. It’s baked in. So, running a campaign just on a message of we’re fighting back against the Trump administration. Young people know that what’s going on in D.C. is bad, but they want something more. They want a positive vision. They want to know that the future that they thought was promised to them is going to be secured, and we can’t just talk over and over again about how bad Trump is, because really, for young people, that’s about all they know intuitively in terms of the political landscape here.

So that’s something that’s really been important to me, and we’ve tried to go out and talk to young people and say, okay, what are the issues that concern you, and it’s things like AI. Am I going to have a job after college graduation? Things like, am I ever going to be able to afford a home and start a family? Talk to young people, they want a secured future, and we’ve got to talk about their issues and really listen to what their concerns are, not just hammer home the message over and over again about how bad this administration is.

McNamara: We’re here at Mackinac. I talked with Jim Runestad, the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, yesterday. He thinks you are a gift to Republicans because you do skew progressive, and it plays into the messaging by Republicans that everybody in the Democratic Party right now is a radical leftist. I don’t know if you’re necessarily radical, but you are a leftist.

Savit: I actually would not categorize myself as a leftist. I would not, and I actually don’t think that pinning down what I stand for ideologically makes a lot of sense. Here’s what I stand for, especially in this race. If somebody is screwing over the people of the state of Michigan, whether that’s a criminal on the street, whether it’s your boss who’s stealing from you, whether it’s a corporation who is ripping you off and price gouging you, whether it’s a corporate polluter or whether it’s the President of United States himself, the attorney general needs to be there standing for the people of the state of Michigan.

If you want to put ideological labels on that, go nuts.

But I think that the people of the state of Michigan, when you say, ‘Don’t you want an attorney general who’s going to stand up to the corporation that’s contaminating your local water supply? Don’t you want an attorney general who’s going to stand up to your boss if he’s stealing from you? Don’t you want an attorney general who’s going to actually do something about price gouging?’

They say, yeah, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. So, I look forward to having that conversation.

McNamara: But you have been supportive of things like bail reform; that’s not even universally adopted in traditionally Democratic spaces. So, is that something that you would like to see? You don’t have that power, but is that something you would continue to advocate for if you get the big office?

Savit: We need to move beyond, just as a policy matter, cash bail system, but that doesn’t mean—I want to be clear about that—that everybody who’s arrested for a crime gets to go free. I want to hold people if they are dangerous pending trial, right? And if you’re not, I don’t think you should be held, but money shouldn’t play a role in this, and here’s the thing that I want to ask people who say bail reform is bad. Why do you think it’s okay that Jeffrey Epstein, the first time that he was arrested, was able to bond his way out of jail and continue to harm people? It didn’t matter what you set that price at. Jeffrey Epstein was going to be able to buy his way out. I think people like Jeffrey Epstein, that are wealthy, that are dangerous, that are going to continue to harm people if they’re released, I think they should remain in jail.

And so, if you’re defending that system, you are essentially defending a two-tiered system of justice in which wealthy people are able to continue to go out and harm people simply because they’re wealthy. And I don’t know why anybody would be comfortable with that.

James Tate is the latest in a long line of Detroit city council presidents as of January.  He attended the Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island last week and sat down to speak with WDET’s Jerome Vaughn.  

Tate has been on the city council for years, but now he’s learning how to perform in his new role as president. He’s had conversations with current Mayor Mary Sheffield about her transition from council member to council president.

The city council president says he looks forward to working closely with Sheffield on an issue that he sees as Detroit’s biggest challenge: poverty.  Tate hopes potential opportunities posed by transit could help ease some of the effects of Detroit’s income gap.

For the past few years, Michigan Republicans have been fractured between the historically small government variety and the Trump fanatics who lean into conspiracy theories.

State GOP conventions have been a flashpoint for controversy and fighting.

“We have had fisticuffs, kicking in the groin—you name it, all videotaped and spread all over the nation,” said Jim Runestad, Michigan Republican Party Chair.

“When I first went to the RNC, they said ‘you’re the groin kickers’ and I was saying, ‘well, this isn’t really a good reputation for a state party to have,’ particularly when people decide where they’re going to put their donations.”

In an interview at the Mackinac Policy Conference, Runestad—who is also a state senator—tells WDET’s Russ McNamara that he feels like the in-fighting has largely stopped.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Russ McNamara: What brought about this change from fighting to relative peace?

Jim Runestad: I said I’m not going to engage in (factional infighting), I won’t tolerate it. We’re going to run a unified party, and the people who want to have drama and fights are going to get thrown out or ostracized. Everybody liked that message. They’d seen what it was like in the past, and it was, it was very unifying. So I’ve been really pleased. That’s what I ran on. This is what I’ve been able to accomplish when I’ve been in front of the convention or the state committee.

McNamara: You’re fairly prolific in getting bills passed through the state legislature. Do you think you brought some of those skills of negotiation to bring everybody together within the Republican party?

Runestad: You’re the first person that I’ve talked to who mentioned that. The last year Republicans were in control (of the state legislature) with the Democrat in control (of the governor’s office), I had the second most number of bills signed into office.

Frankly, I wasn’t exactly the favorite of the majority leader Republican (Mike Shirkey) at the time. That adds to the complication, but a lot of it was reaching out to members of committees, chairs of committees and explaining why this is a good bill.

Sometimes it’d have 20 to 30 people in a meeting, all stakeholders to get them to either yes or neutral. And when a chair sees you have a very complex bill that’s a great idea, and you have no opposition, that’s how you get a bill through. And that’s what I really specialized in doing over the last 10 years in office.

McNamara: You don’t have a lot of control over what happens nationally, but the national perception of the Republican Party, of President Trump, can affect how people vote in the state of Michigan. What are you kind of doing to overcome some of that, because these are the worst poll numbers that we’ve seen for the president since his second term started.

Runestad: A lot of it comes down to the candidates you have running for these particular offices. I’ve never been more excited for what we have in terms of the candidates coming out of our convention. We have just such a great cadre of candidates. Mike Rogers is running by himself, and they’re (Democrats) beating themselves up in their primary. Our primary is going to be a tough one on the gubernatorial side, but we’re going to have a fabulous candidate come out of there.

On the national level, I think what we’re seeing is just a result of price of gas. I believe that that can be reversed relatively quickly.

So I think we’re going to be very, very good going into the November elections. We have fabulous candidates, we’ve raised way more money. If you look at the Democrats, (their) party polling is the lowest it’s ever been in its history, so it’s not like, ‘oh, they have some frustration over gas prices, therefore they love the Democrats’. Oh no. The woke policies that they ran on that were they were destroyed by in 2024 is exactly the same policies they are going run again.

McNamara: Can you explain what you mean by woke policies?

Runestad: I love their policy of having boys playing girls sports, it’s a good one for them. They need to continue running on open borders.

Their Attorney General (candidate and current Washtenaw County Prosecutor) Eli Savit was constantly speaking to the Michigan Senate Judiciary committee when the Democrats are in control. (He was in there) with the most woke leftists, ‘free the criminals’, ‘get the criminals out into society’ as anyone I’ve seen coming through the Judiciary Committee.

I think it’s wonderful that they’re doubling down on those woke policies that I just described. I don’t know how they describe them, but that’s how we describe them.

McNamara: In the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat who do you want to face Mike Rogers?

Runestad: Well, Abdul El-Sayed performs the worst in in the polling (head to head vs Rogers), but you know that’s temporary.

I know Haley Stevens was booed by 7,400 people going into the (Democratic) convention. You turn on the TV and all you see is Haley Stevens to try to overcome the negativity within the base of the party, They’re (AIPAC) pumping millions into it.

Listen to the full interview using the media player above.

Women-led organizations marched on Washington to be heard during their historic efforts to achieve social, political and economic equality. Yet, not all women were included in the conversation. Many of the early women’s suffrage groups excluded Black women and women of color.

Discrimination in the movement led to the formation of Black-led organizations like the Detroit Association of Women’s Clubs (DAWC).

Founded in 1921 at Ferry and Brush at the height of the women’s suffrage movement, the DAWC made it their mission to fight for their own version of equality—one that included both gender and racial parity.

So what happened to the DAWC, its founders, and its mission?

Every year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation compiles its list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in America. 

This year, in honor of our nation’s 250th anniversary, the organization is centering its selections around the theme of equality—protecting and preserving spaces that have advanced the idea that all people are created equal.

The DAWC earned a place on this year’s list. Executive Director Candace Calloway joins the show to share what the designation means, and why its essential to preserve this historic space.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro

In this episode:

• Why did Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz leave to go to Clemson?
• What was the general theme of this year’s policy conference?
• Who gave standout speeches during the conference?

Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Mackinac Policy Conference had a couple of surprising moments from lawmakers, leaders, and political candidates. This week on WDET’s MichMash, Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow and Alethia Kasben give a glimpse of some of the news happening on the island. Gongwer reporter Liz Nass joins the conversation from the conference to share her coverage of the annual meeting. 

Unlike other years, the conference was focused more on where Michigan ranked in comparison to the rest of the nation. “It’s very stat heavy. Everybody is really focused on numbers, specifically Michigan’s rankings. There isn’t specific legislation being spoken about, but more so about competition with the rest of the country,” said Nass. 

The conference had its fair share of news-breaking moments. One of the biggest was Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz leaving his position to become the 16th president of Clemson University. Nass said his departure points to a larger story.

“It follows what the MSU Board of Trustees have been dealing with for a while. A while ago, they had a special emergency meeting discussing [possibly] changing the code of ethics because of rogue trustees writing op-eds, which they expressed created a bad environment for our president.”

There is a conversation about changing how these positions are nominated. 

• More from WDET:

  2026 Mackinac Policy Conference

  ‘No!’ Whitmer shoots down presidential run, looks back at career at Mackinac Policy Conference

  Mackinac Policy Conference: Sen. Peters comments on Iran, state Rep. Puri on budgeting and DTE announces battery storage for data centers

Democrats are locked in a three-way primary battle in the race for US Senate. The candidates are Abdul El-Sayed, Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Senator Mallory McMorrow.  

McMorrow spoke to WDET about how she is campaigning across Michigan, talking with voters about their frustration with the current administration. 

McMorrow: The campaign is going great. I feel really excited about all of the events that we’re doing. We stopped in Saginaw and Bay City on the way up here, and people are really starting to tune into this race. Once you get past the politicos and the people who’ve been paying attention for the last year, the only thing that’s been consistent in this race is the number of people who are undecided. So, we are reaching out to those people every single day. The response is amazing, and it is our ninth oil change on the campaign, so we’re putting in a lot of miles, meeting a lot of people, and it feels awesome.  

McNamara: You’re a car lady, so are we doing the 3,000 mile oil change or the 5,000 mile? 

McMorrow: Oh gosh, we’re probably somewhere in between, we’re not trying to burn it out. 

McNamara: Earlier today, I talked with Jim Runestad, the Michigan GOP chair. I asked him who he wanted to face in the general election. He brought up Abdul Elsayed. He brought up Haley Stevens. You did not get mentioned. How do you receive that news? 

McMorrow: Well, Jim knows me better than anybody else as his colleague every day, and I take that as a compliment. 

McNamara: So, you’ve seen the latest round of polling. There’s always new polls coming out. I hate polls, honestly, because they’re just a snapshot of that particular day, right? What are you seeing, and what are you hearing from the community when it comes to this polling? Is it matching up with what you’ve been getting back from the people you’ve been talking to? 

McMorrow: Like I said, the only thing that’s been consistent is the number of voters who are undecided. So, we have been out on doors all across the state, we have been doing dozens of events. Our brewery tour is still ongoing, and what we hear from voters is people are nervous, they are scared, they are pissed off at this president, who apparently can just tell us that the war with Iran is over, when it isn’t. That’s not how it works, and they want somebody who’s going to fight for them. So, once I’m able to have a conversation and say, “I get it, I Googled how to run for office in 2018 on my very first try, I defeated a Republican incumbent helped build real power, and look at what we’ve been able to get done in Michigan.” Once they hear that, they’re excited, and they’re in. 

McNamara: What’s your base? Because I was talking with Congresswoman Stevens, she’s drawn quite a bit of support from the Black community. Abdul El-Sayed has the built-in Arab American and Muslim community, but what’s your community? 

McMorrow: Michiganders. As many people as possible who want a good life for their family, and the one thing that is a good note in the polling is I am up with independent voters against Mike Rogers by 12 points. 

McNamara: Mike Rogers, he doesn’t have the benefit of a primary. So, how do you go after somebody like that? Because you have to take aim at him, and you have to take some aim at your opponents. 

McMorrow: You do, and it’s a good point on how we frame all of this, because it is a Democratic primary to decide who will face Mike Rogers in November. All eyes are on this race. The Republicans know that control of the U.S. Senate runs through Michigan. If they can get Mike Rogers into the Senate, they block any path that Democrats have of flipping the Senate, and there is a real path. So, they are dumping tens of millions of dollars into this race.

And this is a moment where any Republican in the Congress or the Senate who has decided to stand up to Donald Trump has now lost their seat. Donald Trump has taken on retribution to primary any Republican who doesn’t bend the knee, and that’s how we’re going to go against Mike Rogers, because he’s making a bet right now. He’s got Donald Trump’s full backing. Is he going to stand up for Trump, or is he going to stand up for Michiganders? 

McNamara: The overall theme of the Mackinac Policy Conference is about unity, it’s about two sides coming together, bipartisanship. When you have a president that asks nothing but fealty from the people that are members of his party, how do you do that? Do you buy into slogans like that? Is bipartisanship always necessary?  

McMorrow: It has to be the goal. I sat down with seven Trump voters in Macomb County a few weeks ago and wanted to just get to know them as people first. Everybody wants to put everybody in boxes. You just asked me who’s your base, and I think it is true. It’s Michiganders. I went around the table and I asked, tell me in one word, how you feel about this moment. One woman said great. The others said scared, angry, anxious, pissed, and they are pointing at the president as a lot of the reason why. That he promised to end wars, he has started a number of wars and keeps us in wars, while telling us we can’t afford daycare, we can’t afford Medicare, we can’t afford Medicaid, and to your point has completely remade the Republican Party in his image, and if you don’t have loyalty to Trump, you’re out of the party. 

For us, I think it is critical that Michigan starts to show the way forward. I talk all the time about relationships that I have on the other side of the aisle that I really admire, whether it’s John Damoose or Roger Victory, Senator Bumstead in the Appropriations Committee. We’ve shown that we don’t have to agree on every issue, and we will debate each other passionately, but on areas where we can and want to work together, we do, and we do for the benefit of Michiganders.

Now, that is a rebuke in and of itself of what Trump is selling. Trump is selling a burn it all down, build up a party that is power above anything else to do what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is enrich himself and his family, and “who cares what it does to regular people?” So, yeah, I do believe in bipartisanship, and we have to get there with a Republican party that is not loyal to Donald Trump, and that means anybody who is bending the knee to Trump, we got to defeat. So hopefully we start to get Republicans who recognize that their constituents are the ones that matter and not this president. 

McNamara: To make it to the general election, there’s been some mudslinging. It comes with the territory. How comfortable are you with that? Because your opponent, Haley Stevens completely avoided the question, and, she says she wasn’t overly comfortable with it, essentially when pressed. So, I’m just wondering, does it come with the territory, and you get to move on, you guys can all be friends? Because as I was talking with somebody who follows Michigan politics quite a bit, there’s not a huge gap between yourself and your opponents. 

McMorrow: That’s exactly right. We’re going to have a debate tomorrow, and when you have three Democrats on stage, the policy differences are pretty minimal. Every single one of us wants Michiganders to have health care and wants that to be a guarantee, every single one of us wants to get out of the war with Iran. We have differences of opinions in how we do those things, but there is a stark contrast between the three people on stage and Mike Rogers, who is praising everything Donald Trump does, whether Trump attacks the Gordie Howe Bridge and threatens it to open, and Mike Rogers said, “Good, the President needs that for leverage against Canada.” When he threatened to annihilate all of the people of Iran, Mike Rogers said, “Good, peace through strength.” And that is the thing that I make want to make sure none of us lose sight of. I think that the primary does come with the territory. We should expect that the Republicans are going to unleash everything they have on any of us, so we’re all being put through our paces right now. Every detail about our lives, how we present ourselves, is going to be criticized. The voters will decide, and I believe that makes any of us much better positioned to win in November, because we will have been put through our paces, and the most important thing is that no matter what happens on August 4, we all come together on August 5 to defeat Mike Rogers. 

Democrats are locked in a three-way primary battle in the race for US Senate. The candidates are Abdul El-Sayed, Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Senator Mallory McMorrow.   

El-Sayed spoke with WDET about how he sees himself reaching key demographics among Democratic voters. He says his experience leading health departments in Wayne County and Detroit steers his views on policy.

El-Sayed: Well, you have to ask Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons about the MD they gave me. I might have have gotten duped. Maybe it was just a fake one, but I did put in the work. And then there was also the matter of the doctorate from Oxford University. But honestly, I don’t really care as much what people think about my education. I care that people in Michigan get a good education. I don’t care if you think I’m a doctor, I want you to be able to see a doctor. And those are the issues that we really ought to be talking about. 

McNamara: Stevens, yourself, McMorrow, you’re all very polite in person. Everybody’s really, really nice. It seems like there’s a lot of dirty work being done in the media right now. Every once in a while, stories will appear in Politico. Are we gonna actually take some of this mudslinging to each other, or are we just going to work through the media? 

El-Sayed: I will tell you this, I’m not here to sling mud, and when you see those stories, they’re not coming from our team. We’re a lot more focused on getting our message out to the people. I’ve been to 96 different cities now. On the way up here, we were in Cheboygan and Gaylord, and I want folks to understand what I’m about. I want to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for all. I think part of what people hate about the politics is that too many politicians run with no message at all, so instead their message is about how the other candidate is so much worse. You don’t have to do that when you actually have a message about what you want for people in our state. 

I’ve known exactly what I want for people, because I took the time to listen through my 10 years in public service, leading Detroit’s health department, running for governor back in 2018, leading Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human, and Veteran Services. People tell me it shouldn’t be this hard to afford a second bag of groceries, shouldn’t be this hard to send your kid to a dignified school, should not be this hard to see a doctor in the richest, most powerful country in the world, and I agree.

And so our politics is not about slinging mud at other people, our politics is about trying to bring ease to the 10 million people in this state who have had a bad go of things as a function—frankly, of deals that are being cut right behind us on that porch between corporations and corporate ball politicians. I don’t play that game. I don’t think anybody should. I’d like to make it illegal, and that’s a big reason why I’m running for U.S. Senate. 

McNamara: Your message has been resonating with younger voters, according to polling. What are you doing to reach out to Gen Xers, boomers who are hesitant? 

El-Sayed: Look, we’ve been talking to everyone, going everywhere, and I think what we’re seeing is overwhelming support among young people and very strong support among millennials, Gen X and baby boomers, and I think what’s always interesting to me is when I was in Cheboygan, I had this older woman come up to me. She said “You’re the first candidate about whom my granddaughter has been excited, and she turned me on to you.”

I think the most important thing any of us do every single day is care for our future that gets manifested in the in the bodies of our kids and our grandkids. We spend so much time taking care of them, and I think when young people are inspired by something, by a movement to actually bring politics back to the problems that we want to solve with them, I think what happens is you start to see older folks take note and take heed, and we’ve been seeing that up and down the state. 

McNamara: Black women make up the base of the Democratic Party, the most consistent voting bloc. What are you doing to reach out to them specifically? 

El-Sayed: I think the most important thing you can do is have listened, and as I said, we spend a lot of time in local communities, whether it’s Bible study, whether it is church on Sunday, whether it’s block clubs, whether it’s local democratic groups listening and learning. I think the most important thing is a message that is resonant. You think about the challenges facing Black women in our state, there are many of the same challenges everybody faces—the affordability of housing, the affordability of groceries, whether or not you could see a doctor, but those problems are exacerbated by structural racism in our state. The fact that too often Black women are left to Medicaid, which reimburses at half the rate, which is part and parcel why we continue to have the kind of maternal and child health epidemics that we see in our state, issues that I worked on.

My background is as health director for the city of Detroit, health director for Wayne County. Our work has been about trying to care for Black moms and babies. We led the single biggest expansion of Rx Kids in state history, built a program called Sister Friends back when I was in the City of Detroit that did things like provide free lift rides for prenatal care, so these are communities that I’ve been thinking about, listening to and delivering for for most of my career in public service, and you see that reflected in what we’re running on.

When I talk about Medicare for all, everybody focuses on the “all” part, because I want everyone in, nobody out. But ask yourself, for whom that Medicare for all is going to be the most important. Yes, it’s going to be in rural communities, very close to here, but it’s also going to be in urban communities, where too often, even if you are covered on Medicaid, your Medicaid reimbursement is so low that you can’t actually find a primary care doc, and you know that you’re going to be discriminated against at the point of care. These are all issues that come up when I’m in communities, and issues that we’re talking about and bringing to the fore in this campaign. 

McNamara: Do you have TV ads? Because the only ones I’m getting are for Haley Stevens and for Shri Thanedar. Those make up most of my TV watching experience right now. 

El-Sayed: I’m sorry to hear that, and I’ve seen those ads. They are very boring, but I will also tell you this: I don’t have AIPAC behind me, and AIPAC moves its money through a whole system of shell PACs, and those are the ads you’re seeing. So, we’ve seen what $7 (million), $8 million are spending already on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens by AIPAC–not telling you about her record on sending your tax dollars to a foreign government, but instead talking about, I don’t know what they’re talking about now, but, but that’s exactly how they work.

They flood the airwaves with ads, disinforming you about a particular record, because what they really care about is making sure that our foreign policy is driven by the interests of a foreign government, rather than for you. And I am going to be the biggest opponent that they have in the 2026 cycle, and they’ve already said I’m the single biggest danger to the U.S.-Israel relationship, and it has nothing to do with my position on any one group of people, because frankly, I don’t think we should be sending foreign military aid to Egypt either, where my family came from.

It has everything to do with the fact that I was the health director in a city, Detroit, watching kids try to go to school in classrooms with icicles hanging off of them, trying to provide kids glasses, trying to make sure that people didn’t fall into medical debt, and I happen to think that we should be using our tax dollars here to invest in health care here and education here, rather than sending it over there to buy bombs and tanks that get used to drive apartheid and genocide there. That should not be a difficult opinion to hold, but that kind of money is what gets spent on you when you say things like I just said.