Supporters of U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake) gather outside the WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids ahead of the two Senate candidate’s debate on Oct. 8, 2024. | Kyle Davidson
With polls indicating that the 2024 election will be a tossup, not just for the White House, but in many other key races in Michigan, candidates are looking to avoid any disadvantage that could turn off independent voters.
One of those disadvantages may be directly identifying what party they belong to.
That is not an issue in the presidential race, where both Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, and Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, are each strongly identified as the leaders of their respective parties. But for candidates in very tight congressional races, partisan affiliation can be something to avoid or play down.
“Some of these states and districts are very close. They could go either their way. If I’m a Democrat, maybe the Republicans who might be open to at least doing some research about me, if they just see my sign, they start to kind of tune me out. Maybe that’s something they want to avoid,” J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics told the Michigan Advance.
The examples of this party avoidance are many in Michigan, starting with the highly contested race for U.S. Senate featuring U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake).
Both candidates have numerous yard signs and digital ads in which the words “Democrat” or “Republican” are not present.
The same is true for hotly contested mid-Michigan congressional races.
In the 7th District, former state Sen. Curtis Hertel (D-Lansing) is going up against former state Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte) for the seat left open with Slotkin pursuing the Senate. Both candidates have signs sans party references One Hertel digital ad has him criticizing Democrats on immigration without mentioning he’s a Democrat.
“I work with Democrats and Republicans to get it done. And when Democrats got soft on the border, I called them out,” said Hertel in the ad in which he portrays himself as a “regular guy.”
A Barrett TV ad on heavy rotation highlights that he “isn’t a millionaire” and makes plain his status as an Army veteran helicopter pilot, but nowhere does it say that he’s a Republican.
Meanwhile, Democratic state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet and former Trump administration appointee Paul Junge are both vying for the 8th District seat, and both have ads that don’t mention their party affiliation.
McDonald Rivet’s ad, which gained notoriety for appearing to show her husband jump out of a car rather than listen to his wife talk about cutting taxes, doesn’t say she’s a Democrat.
While Junge’s ads also don’t specifically say he’s a Republican, two of them released prior to the August primary, in which he faced several competitors for the GOP nomination, feature Donald Trump and label Junge as a “Trump Conservative.”
Coleman says that’s something he’s seen in other races across the country.
“I’ve noticed on the Republican side, some of the Republicans in the key races, instead of putting ‘Republican’ on their side, they’ll say ‘Trump endorsed.’ A lot of them tend to prefer the term ‘conservative’ over ‘Republican,’ because in a state like Michigan, you may have some Democrats who are more open to a conservative than a Republican,” said Coleman. “I’m thinking a district like the 8th or even the 7th, you may have some working class Democrats who would agree with conservatives on something, but who’d be less open to a named Republican.”
A Junge ad released after he won the nomination attacks McDonald Rivet, but again doesn’t mention the party affiliation of either candidate.
Lansing-based PR consultant Andrea Bitely told the Advance that another factor in this trend is data overload.
“I think one thing it comes down to is people’s attention span. They can maybe get through 30 seconds of issue advertising, but they can’t make it through much more than what they are already listening to,” said Bitely, owner of Bitely Communications who’s been a spokesperson for GOP former Attorney General Bill Schuette. “It’s also not necessarily winning them more votes by identifying their political party. And at the top of the ticket, everybody is so already aligned and matched with what their party affiliation is, it’s almost unnecessary to include it.”
Bitely says it also provides no positive benefit for many candidates running in tossup districts.
“It could be counterproductive if you are running in a truly purple seat. Although the reality right now, if you’re looking at the Barrett-Hertel race, each of those candidates is going to get some swing from the top of their ticket, and they want to be associated with them. So I think a lot of this comes down to the American public’s inability to focus on anything for more than 5 to 10 seconds,” she said.
One factor that may be driving this trend away from party identification is the change in partisan balance. For many years, Democrats enjoyed an advantage in voter share, peaking at about 55% in 2008. Since then it has tightened to an essential balance between the two parties according to Pew Research.
“The partisan identification of registered voters is now evenly split between the two major parties: 49% of registered voters are Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and a nearly identical share – 48% – are Republicans or lean to the Republican Party,” said the organization.
Even more to the point are voters who adamantly will not vote for someone in the opposite party.
Did a Michigan congressional candidate’s husband throw himself out of a moving car in her ad?
“There’s definitely those people out there,” said Bitely. “A pretty good section of both sides of the aisle, it doesn’t matter if the Democrat is my next door neighbor, and I’ve known him for 30 years. He’s still a Democrat. I’m not voting for him and vice versa. The Republican on the other side of you is running, but he’s a Republican. I’m not voting for him or her.”
However, Bitely says the vast majority of voters are well aware of what party particular candidates belong to, so this trend is really aimed at those who aren’t tuned into politics and election until a ballot shows up in their mail or voting begins in person.
“The base knows their candidates. They know who they’re going out to vote for. They’re not the ones you’re trying to push in any direction. The folks you’re pushing in any direction are the low propensity, unlikely to vote in every single election,” she said. “Right now, we’re looking at the folks that vote every four years and only if it’s a candidate they like. We’re just trying to get into those people’s heads that they recognize your name.”
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