Beyond the polarizing partisanship and rhetoric, most voters really just want results-and maybe some relief-from Washington.
That's the view of University of Michigan political expert Rusty Hills, who adds that Michigan voters aren't seeing a whole lot of either.
The political veteran who is now a lecturer at U-M's Ford School of Public Policy says those frustrations are shaping the debate as the pivotal state and nation overall barrel toward another midterm election.
He shares his insights on where things stand and might be headed.
What do the primary results say, if anything, about the general election both here in Michigan and the United States?
The first thing I would say with regards to Michigan is that we will be ground zero in 2026. It was already the most expensive Democratic U.S. Senate primary in history. That shows you the importance of the seat and what the Democrats are going to put in to try and regain the majority and take that back from the Republicans. And this is a seat they have to hold because it's currently held by a Democrat, Gary Peters.
So if the Democrats lose this seat, there's no way they can recapture the majority, which means that there will be more TV ads per person in Michigan than any other state in the country. So buckle up, because you're going to see a lot of TV ads between now and November.
After the 2024 election, you said the onus is on Republicans to be a governing conservative party and solve problems. And if they don't, they're going to get kicked out again. How would you say things are shaping up?
The Republicans took the majority in the trifecta: They won the White House, control the Senate, control the House of Representatives. So the onus is on them, I think, to deliver real results.
I would argue it's a mixed bag, but on balance, it's not good for the Republicans. There are some pluses: Crime is down. The border is far more secure. Those are successes that the president and Republican party can point to.
But on a host of other issues that affect real people every single day, they've got some "splainin'" to do, as Ricky Ricardo used to say, right? I mean, the price of gas is over $4. The price of groceries is higher. If you look at foreign policy and foreign affairs, we've got a very unpopular war in Iran that continues to grind on with no end in sight.
So for all those reasons, I think that explains why the president's approval is so low. As a result, the Republican Party's approval is so low, and unless they can find a way out of that box to solve those problems in a very short period of time, I think it's going to be very difficult for those candidates to win in November.
You've raised concerns about divided government and the fact that every election is a change election in a sort of doom loop where problems don't get solved and people grow more frustrated. Is there any hope of breaking out of this?
What you're seeing is a lot of very progressive left Democrats winning these days in Democratic primaries. And you're seeing MAGA Republicans endorsed by the president win Republican primaries. I think there is a huge middle ground of moderate centrist voters who may not be represented by either the far left or the far right.
I don't think most people wake up in the morning and think about ideology when they're having their coffee, or looking at the sports sheet, or trying to figure out what happened overnight. I think most people just want results, right?
They'd like wages to keep pace with inflation or be a little bit higher. They'd like somebody to keep a lid on prices. They'd like to see the price of gas come down. They'd like this war in Iran to be over, the Strait of Hormuz to be opened-to kind of get back to just regular living so we could worry about normal things like the kids and, you know, reading and stuff like that and get back to life the way we always knew it and would like it to be.
So I don't know that we're going to necessarily shift. I think right now the tea leaves indicate it's going to be a blue wave election for the Democrats, because the Republicans are the party in power nationally, typically in a midterm election, they do poorly based on what you see with inflation, gas, groceries and the war. That would seem to continue that trend.
It's compounded by the fact that we've got some long-term issues and festering problems like the debt and deficit that also need to be tended to. We've got to bend the arc fiscally and financially to try and start to pay down that. It's not going to happen in four years, it's probably not going to happen in eight years. Somebody's going to have to do that. There's a tremendous balancing act.
