Election 2026: Coverage that Matters to Michigan: Lauren Gibbons and Simon Schuester

It's All Talk on a Tuesday morning. I'm Kevin D. It's coming to you from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building. The number is 1-800-8-9-0-957-1-800-8-5-0-WJR. We invite you to call in and text during the next half hour. Join us today is Lauren Gibbons from Bridge, Michigan. Bridge, Michigan has spent months digging into what Michigan voters say they're actually worried about, not the campaign commercials, not political talking points, but the issues. that keep people up at night. The reporting looks at the state of democracy, election integrity, government transparency, money and politics, and the growing political divide. They also have fact-check claims made during President Trump's visit to Michigan looking at what the data says about manufacturing, inflation, jobs, border security, and the economy. And they're fact-checking the debate between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed as well. WJR's AllTalk has partnered up with Bridge, Michigan, to amplify their reporting. We are opening up the phone lines for the next half hour. So give us a call or give us a text. Good morning. Lauren, how are you? Doing great. Thank you so much for having me. All right. And we're also going to try and bring in Simon Schuster, who's done some reporting on this as well. Good morning, Simon. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Great. Let's just talk about first this bit about the future of democracy. You guys have a survey in play. The future of democracy, one of the big concerns. What are people specifically worried about? You know, so this was really interesting to hear from voters. A lot of the issues we've covered previously are education, environmental issues, a lot of more tangible aspects, but we heard a lot from readers that they are. very interested and invested in the future of democracy. People were really concerned about polarized politics and just making sure that the democratic process isn't undermined and continues to work for generations to come. And so we looked into that from, you know, as tangible perspective as we could, right? So in terms of what Michigan's voting rules are, you know, how the process works. you know, whether political polarization is impacting that process and also some of the other factors like how transparent government is and the overwhelming amount of money in politics people are seeing these days. So there's quite a bit there to look at we found. Yeah, when it comes to election integrity, how concerned our people about. early voting or absentee voting. Do they feel, I assume everybody presumes there's some fraud in elections, but probably most people don't think it's significant enough to change elections. But what are you hearing from your readers? You know, it sounded as though a lot of people are actually utilizing these options when it comes to voting. Particularly older voters really like the option to either vote early at their own convenience or use that vote by mail option. And in addition to expanding a lot of these options, the state of Michigan has also has also

bolstered some of the security measures, especially when it comes to the ballot drop boxes for some of those ballots if people are concerned about sending it back in time to get counted if they got an absentee ballot, where I think some people do get a little. concerned is when it comes to the voter ID requirements. That is, you know, something where it's generally required to voter cast ballots, but citizens without an ID can sign an affidavit. That's pretty rare. Less than a percent of Michigan voters use that affidavit option, but there are, you know, some efforts going on to try and put voter ID requirements in place, although there's critics of stricter requirements as well. Sabin, I want to talk a little bit about transparency. We get an F grade in Michigan. I'm curious what your experiences have been in your efforts to try and find information through the Freedom of Information Act. Michigan, one of only, I think, two states where the governor and legislature are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. We've been beaten this drum for a long time, and it doesn't seem like voters are mad enough to do anything about it. Certainly the politicians who keep promising us that they're going to do something to buy. it have failed to do anything what what has your experience been yeah certainly i think the freedom of information act in particular is an issue that transparency advocates uh journalists like myself uh we feel a lot of frustration over because obviously Two major portions of our state government are completely exempt from this. It means that we essentially can't lift the veil on a lot of what happens in both the legislature and the governor's office. We did ask the four main gubernatorial candidates about that. There's Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, U.S. rep John James, and businessman Perry Johnson. And three of the four of them agreed that even if the legislature doesn't act, the governor's office, they will voluntarily open it to Freedom of Information Act request. John James, he was the sole person who said he wants to expand the Freedom of Information Act, but he didn't say that he would act unilaterally. Now, it's important to note that the legislature, they've proposed expanding this requirement. This allows, and to be clear, This allows any individual to sort of write a request under this law and get public-facing documents from their governments. Now, we can't do that from the legislation in the governor's office, but the legislature has tried to pass legislation, but it's always gotten stuck for one way or another and has never passed out of the legislature over the past decade each time it's been introduced and made its way to the governor's desk. I have been hearing those promises for over 30 years as a TV reporter and a radio person. And how do you think it's possible that Michigan continues not to move forward on this when almost every other state has?

individual's personal testimony might seem to the contrary. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back with Laura Gibbons and Simon Schuster from Bridge, Michigan, and we're going to take your calls. It's all talk. I'm Kevin Dietz. Welcome back. It is 10355. That means it is your turn to talk. 1,800-8590 WJR. We are with Lauren Gibbons and Simon Schuster from Bridge, Michigan, one of the state's leading non-profit news organizations. Lauren has been reporting on what Michigan voters say matters most. heading into this election from democracy and election integrity to government transparency, money and politics, and political polarizations. I've been spent the day covering President Trump's visit to Michigan, fact checking many of the claims made about the economy, manufacturing, inflation, jobs, and trade. We want you to be a part of the conversation. If you've got questions about Michigan's elections or where the state is headed, give us a call 800-859-0957. Let's get started with Judy and Novi. Judy, welcome to all talk. Good morning. How are you doing today? Great. Thanks for calling. Oh, good. I just heard a report on the movement of folks from the blue states down to the red states in the south of Texas and Florida and how their economies are growing in business, et cetera, and so forth. And it was really a good thought. But then my devious mind took over. And I was wondering if perhaps it was following the Democratic playbook, if they can get all of the red people to move to the red states. That means, what, about five states in the South? That's 10 seats in the Senate and very few people in the House. And that leaves all the blue, 50, 45 blue states. to be controlled by the Democrats. That was my devious mind this morning. Well, thanks, Judy. I'm sure you're not the only one thinking that way. When you guys talk to your readers, does population loss come up? I know it's a big issue with the candidates, how to retain people in the state of Michigan. Yeah, this was something that we definitely heard a lot about for the gubernatorial candidates. And it was one of the questions that we asked them in our... Bridge Liston's installment in a prior month on the economy. It's a really wicked problem, as you recall, Governor Gretchen Whitmer. She had her own growing Michigan council that reprimanded a whole host of different recommendations, but didn't exactly see a lot of those enacted. I think a lot of the candidates from memory here, Rick sort of spoke to economic development as a key driver of one of the things that's going to allow. prevent brain drain, essentially. Children, you know, coming here, getting a college education after being raised here, and then leaving the state. They talked about economic development, and they talked about sort of quality of life. And the quality of education, too, is also something that was really important for gubernatorial candidates. People want to see that this is a good place to raise their children and to receive an education in those primary schools. And so that's why we've heard so much about education on the campaign trail this year. 1-800-8-9-057, 1-800-9-0-WJR. Let's go out to Gary and Southgate. Gary, welcome to all talk. Hi, I was trying to do my civic duty and I voted early, but unfortunately, I voted for a candidate who's no longer in the race. Is there a way I can go back and redo my ballot or what do I do? Have you guys looked in on how to handle a spoiled ballot?

Yes. So you can take your ballot back and get a new one. You just have to go into your city clerk's office and they will take care of that for you. It's usually easiest if you go in and then you can choose. I think at this point with the primary, you probably just want to vote early at that point, get this full ballot and then vote there. You can technically choose to vote by mail again if you'd like, but at this stage in the primary, probably best to. just do that spoil the ballot then vote early do people say it's a pretty simple process um you know i think it's just an unusual process if you've never done it before but once you go in and you talk to the clerk they usually know what to do and it's it's not too hard did that help gary And thanks a lot. All right. Have a great day. Yeah, I got a Mark in Brighton. He wants to know what issues surprised you guys the most after traveling around Michigan. He says sometimes things that people actually care about are very different from what politicians spend millions of dollars talking about. Were there any surprises for you guys? I think early on this year, now it's not a surprise because everybody's talking about it. But I was really interested and continue to be interested in how much voters around the state care about data centers and their proliferation and whether they're coming to their community. That issue has popped up so many times. It's actually required. candidates to come up with some policy positions in a lot of cases where they may not have otherwise. And so that has been one thing that I've noticed throughout this campaign that has been, you know, if not surprising anymore, at least when it was first cropping up a little surprising. Simon, did Donald Trump talk about data centers at all yesterday? No, he did not mention them directly in his speech. However, there was a press release from the White House touting sort of the broad economic resurgence that they claim Michigan is experiencing. And they did tout the saline data center that's co-built by Oracle and Open AI as sort of as an example of some of this economic resurgence. So it might be an example of where there's some disconnect between what some folks are feeling on the ground. an example of maybe more broader macro economic growth because these things aren't creating necessarily thousands of jobs that are going to permanently been here. Tom from Waterford wants to know if you've been talking with voters across Michigan, your readers, are people generally optimistic about the future or does frustration still seem to outweigh the optimism? They're trying to read through some of these polls that we keep giving them day in and down. What are you, what are you sensing from your readers? I'd say that polling data broadly shows that they feel that Michigan, they're concerned about the state of the country, the state of Michigan. They feel that it's on the wrong track, but yet we still have high approval ratings, above 50% for current state elected leaders like Governor Gretchen Whitmer. So it has created a bit of a unique scenario, at least for the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, in that they have to sort of, you know, talk about the changes that they want to make.

difficulties that Michigan is facing and their dissatisfaction with the direction of the state, but then also can't necessarily attack the individuals who are currently in power as a result of that. We were talking about the amount of money in politics. Paul and Monroe, he wants to know whether you guys think that the money is actually changing election outcomes or if it just makes the campaigns more expensive overall. It's kind of like college football. I think it really just depends on how that money is being used, right? With the advertisements that are currently papering Michigan, that is for a lot of voters, one way that they learn about candidates is through TV ads for better or for worse. And so, especially in the U.S. Senate race, we have seen that outside groups have been using so that they've been really relying on that outside spending. all of those advertisements to talk about the candidates' records. And so I think in that case, sure, it could certainly have some influence. And that's why people are willing to invest the money. But it certainly in some cases, if candidates have a strong message, there are other. There are other options, you know, volunteering, ground game, you know, making public appearances. There's a lot that goes into campaigns. Lisa Novi says she appreciates the fact checking by Bridge, Michigan. Every campaign makes big claims. She wants to know if there's a particular issue that's been extremely hard to actually fact check based on the information available to you guys. Oh, that's a difficult question. I'd say a whole host of issues can cause a lot of difficulties. It's often really a struggle to sort of tie long-term outcomes, especially economically, or in terms of elections, to individual actions by individual candidates. There's more than just one policy at the state level that's going to change the trajectory of Michigan's economy. And so it's important to couch that sort of with the appropriate sort of limitations to show that they can't do everything. All right, Laura Gibbons and Simon Schuster from Bridge, Michigan. You can read their incredible reporting at Bridge, MI. Thank you for the work that you guys are doing. It's right around the corner. I can't believe it, at least the primary, and then we'll continue on into November. But the fact checking and the conversations, getting to the politicians and asking them the questions that we want answers for. We really appreciate the work that you guys are doing. Yeah, thanks so much for having us. All right. We'll talk again real soon. It's all talk. I'm Kevin Dietz.