The midterm election cycle in Michigan got a kick-start last month when five Republican candidates for governor were ruled ineligible for the primary election due to faulty petitions.
It heated up a bit more when Ryan Kelley, one of the five remaining GOP candidates, was arrested by the FBI earlier this month for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s a bit tumultuous here, and I don’t see that slowing down anytime soon,” said Shannon Murphy, the editor who oversees political coverage for MLive. “It's kind of hard to predict what's going to happen next. People joke about, ‘I didn't have THAT on my bingo card.’”
Some things we do know will happen: There will be primary elections on Aug. 2, mostly focused on Republicans jockeying to take on incumbent Democrats in the high-profile races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state.
And the general election will occur Nov. 8, deciding those key races as well as a handful of suddenly competitive races for several U.S. House seats for Michigan. That came about as a result of redistricting in the wake of the 2020 Census.
One of those is in the Grand Rapids area, where Congressional first-termer Peter Meijer is facing a challenge in the 3rd District GOP primary because he supported impeachment proceedings against then-President Donald Trump. His opponent, John Gibbs, has Trump’s endorsement.
And on the east side of the state, redistricting has pushed two Democratic House members, Andy Levin and Haley Stevens, into the new 11th District. They’ll square off in the August primary.
“One of our reporters is going to be following those campaigns around, because those two Democrats typically worked pretty well together,” Murphy said.
Once the primaries are settled, attention will turn to the top of the ticket in Michigan. So far, incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has had the luxury of sitting back, raising money and looking more like a governor than a candidate.
“She has been out a lot,” Murphy said. “We get a lot of press releases about roadwork that she's behind – she's still kind of on that ‘Fix the damn roads’ platform. She’ll start after the primary, and she knows who’s she’s facing. That's when we'll start to see more from her on the campaign front.”
There’s no waiting for MLive’s reporters. They are busy profiling candidates, watching fund-raising reports and covering campaign events.
In addition to that coverage, MLive once again will offer one of the most useful features for our readers: our Voter Guide.
Done in conjunction with the League of Women Voters and Vote411.org, this guide allows Michigan voters to enter their address and see their specific ballot, with its candidate bios and stands on key issues. Murphy said the online guide is available beginning today, and selected excerpts of key races will be used in MLive’s eight local print newspapers as elections draw near.
“We’ll be using a lot of that content for our preview stories on candidates so people can learn more about them, what they stand for, how they've answered questions on certain policy issues,” she said. “It will give our readers a full picture of who's on the ballot.”
Elections bring new faces. Fittingly, that theme carries over to MLive, where we recently added several experienced political reporters to our team.
“I'm really excited about our political team,” Murphy said. “It's for us a brand-new team, but it's people who have been around for a long time covering politics in Michigan or elsewhere.”
Here’s the roster:
Simon Schuster, senior political reporter: Most recently was the executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, he is an expert on tracking political donations, PACs and other election information. He will cover the race for governor.
Ben Orner: Formerly with an NBC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, where he had a focus on data reporting, Orner will cover polling, campaign finance, election process “information and misinformation,” and the races for attorney general and secretary of state.
Jordyn Hermani: It’s a homecoming for Hermani, who interned several years ago for MLive and this year returned to us from Gongwer News Service, a political news outlet in Lansing. She also previously worked for Politico. She will cover the Legislature, focusing on the state House.
Alyssa Burr: Burr, who has been on a reporting fellowship with MLive’s parent company since 2021, will join Hermani in covering the Legislature, with her focus on the Senate.
🎧 In this episode of Behind the Headlines, Shannon Murphy joins John Hiner and Eric Hultgren to talk about the political landscape in Michigan and the midterm elections right around the corner. Listen here.
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John Hiner is the vice president of content for MLive Media Group. If you have questions you’d like him to answer, or topics to explore, share your thoughts at editor@mlive.com.
