A coalition of Michigan groups, including the Detroit Economic Club, Oakland University and others, have formed a task force working to address a recent decline in the number of political debates by arranging more such events beginning with this year’s campaign for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.
On Monday, the Michigan Debate Task Force sent letters to the seven major party candidates — three Democrats and four Republicans — running for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, informing them that whomever wins the Aug. 6 Democratic and Republican primaries will be invited to three debates to be held across the state in September and October ahead of the general election.
Third party candidates or independents appearing on the Nov. 5 ballot would also be invited to participate as long as they meet certain conditions, including polling at 5% or higher in at least two public and independent statewide polls in the month before the first debate, to be held in the Grand Rapids area on Sept. 12.
Other debates would be held in the Traverse City area on Oct. 10 and in metro Detroit on Oct. 22. That schedule, the group said, means the first would occur before absentee ballots are sent, the second before the beginning of Michigan’s early voting period and the third two weeks before Election Day, permitting voters “to hear from the candidates directly no matter how they wish to cast their ballot.”
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Several state media organizations, including the Detroit Free Press, have endorsed the task force and its proposal to hold debates focused on issues of regional and statewide importance, as well as its mission to be an independent and neutral group convening political debates.
“Voters in Michigan are being deprived of important opportunities to hear directly and in an unfiltered settingfrom those who want to serve as the state’s leaders. This is a problem that is escalating across the nation,” the group said in a news release. “By hosting regular debates for statewide offices in Michigan, the task force will increase the opportunities voters have to hear directly from candidates rather than through controlled messages thus improving the quality of information available to voters during the campaign season.”
The group came together over the last couple of years as officials at Oakland University and the Detroit Economic Club began to independently look into ways of generating more debates, especially after the state’s 2022 elections. That year, there were no debates between the state attorney general and secretary of state candidates; two between the gubernatorial candidates were held after absentee ballots went out and less than four weeks before the election.
Eventually, the two groups joined forces and began looking for other partners, with the list growing to include the Economic Club of Traverse City, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, Grand Valley State University, the Hispanic Center, the Northern Michigan Chamber Alliance, Northwestern Michigan College, the Urban League of Detroit and Southeast Michigan and the Urban League of West Michigan.
Dave Dulio, director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Oakland University, was one of those instrumental in bringing the task force together. He said the idea is to “change the dynamic that sees candidates control everything” that voters get to see before an election. And while, he said, it’s understandable that candidates wish to exercise such control, “that doesn’t mean it serves the public interest.”
“This is a long-term effort,” he said. “We’re not going to necessarily see the kind of debates that maybe we would all want right away but we can improve things incrementally. For the task force the idea is to do it with more frequency and with a neutral party — that being the task force — involved.”
If successful, he said, over time, candidates will learn to understand that they need to participate in the debates, which, for now, will be limited to statewide races, though Dulio said he could see the task force becoming a resource for regional or more local groups to arrange debates of their own.
As for beginning with the U.S. Senate race, Dulio said it’s a natural place to start: “It might be that in September one of the candidates has a pretty sizable polling lead and has a command on the race but my hunch is it’s going to be a close election,” he said. “It’s a hotly contested open seat race that could be the one that determines majority control of the U.S Senate for the next two years.”
The three Democrats who are expected to appear on the August primary ballot include U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, of Holly; Detroit actor Hill Harper and Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun. The Republican field includes former U.S. Reps. Mike Rogers, of Brighton, and Justin Amash, of Cascade Township, Grosse Pointe businessman Sandy Pensler and west Michigan physician Sherry O’Donnell.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler
