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Tina Sawyer: You're listening to Morning Edition here on WCMU, your connection to Michigan and the world. I'm Tina Sawyer. So, voters across Midland Bay and Saginaw counties are heading to the polls today for a special election that could determine the balance of power in the Michigan State Senate.
The race officially kicks off what is going to be a big election year in the state of Michigan. Joining me in the studio to break down the race is News Director Rick Brewer. So, Rick, what makes this a special election?
Rick Brewer: So, what puts the special in special election here is in January 2025, then State Senator Kristen McDonald Rivet, who represented the 35th State Senate District, resigned, and she went to Congress.
Therefore, the governor of our state and our Constitution shall call a special election. But there's a little bit of controversy because Governor Whitmer did not call that election for 238 days the longest she's waited to call one of these races. She faced a lot of political backlash. There was protests at the Capitol. Senators were wearing free the 35th buttons. At one point, there was even a lawsuit. But this race is essentially to fulfill the rest of what would have been Kristen McDonald Rivett's term.
TS: So why does the outcome of this race matter across the state?
RB: Because currently, the state Senate chamber is right nowat1918. Democrats only have a one-seat majority. So obviously, a GOP victory would make it even. And obviously, we're a swing state as it is, Tina, as you know. So just because somebody brings forth a GOP bill or a Democratic bill doesn't mean that the party is always going to align with itself. So it's going to become even harder and slim potentially. And listeners might not realize that the House of Representatives is controlled by the GOP.
And the other face there of why this matters outside of the 35th district in Midland, Saginaw, and Bay City and such is the fact that this is going to give us a... temperature check on where voters kind of are on issues. It's obviously been a big political year. A lot of things are happening both in the national news, both in the state of Michigan.
So, we have these big races coming up for governor, US Senate, Secretary of State, Attorney General this year. And so this will be kind of our first data collection of kind of where people are and are people's frustrations mobilizing them to the polls.
TS: Okay, and what's this district like?
RB: Yeah, this is a toss-up district, really. So obviously, as you mentioned at the top, Midland, Bay City, Saginaw are inside of this district. And the old adage goes, is that, how goes Saginaw County, how goes the state of Michigan. for the presidential race. That county in particular has determined who is the winner of our state for presidential races pretty much every year since 1992.
But then you also have to remember if people's feels maybe like a long time ago, but in 2024, both Vice President JD Vance and then Vice President Kamala Harris were campaigning in that district heavily for the presidential race. Joe, that just goes to show you the swingness of this race and a lot of experts I've spoken with are consider it a toss-up.
TS: And what are the issues that voters are focusing on right now or candidates are running on.
RB: The number one thing right now is cost of living and affordability. Everyone is trying to find a way in their campaigns to tell people that they're a candidate that's going to address this issue, whether it's GOP candidates saying they're going to bring your property taxes down or reduce the state income tax, or whether it's Democrats saying that they're going to fight lowering costs for average everyday goods in people's lives, right?
So that's a huge one. But all the candidates across the spectrum are also talking a lot about education, right? So we're still seeing a lot of learning loss from the COVID era, still trickling in schools. Governor Whitmer's made education a big part of her platform in her final year to improve literacy rates. Soall the candidates are also talking about that.
TS: Okay, so you mentioned candidates. Tell us a little bit about them running here in the primary. Are there any front runners?
RB: So right now there are 10 total candidates on both the Democrat and Republican tickets. So that's a combined 10 total there, right? But there's really been two candidates on each side who have kind of emerged as the front runners. I'm basing this off of fundraising numbers, advertising power, and their presence that they've had in the district leading up to this race.
It's on the GOP side, Jason Tunney, a former Saginaw attorney, as well as Christian Velasquez, a former Dow Corning executive, also a businessman in the Midland area. And then on the Democratic side, we have a retired Marine Captain, current Saginaw Fire Captain, Chedrick Greene, and then Pamela Pugh, who's the current State Board of Education president. So these are kind of the favorites going in. It's going to be a really tight race in this primary between those four candidates.
TS: Great. Rick Brewer is WCMU's news director. Thank you for all the information, Rick.
RB: Thank you.
