Okay, you two.

So we are now post-primary.

I maybe gotta just ask, are we a little status quo?

Like we've got this open US Senate seat is going to be Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, the Democrat.

Former congressman Mike Rogers, the Republican.

We all sort of knew this was coming, no, Nolan?

- Yeah.

I don't think there was any surprise there.

You know, you had some dropouts in this race on the Republican side that pretty much gave Mike Rogers an easy path to victory.

Justin Amash, the former congressman from west Michigan who went from Republican, to independent, and then back to the Republican party to run in this race.

Never seemed to take off, never seemed to have much of a campaign going on.

And you know, Hill Harper put up a pretty good fight given what he was up against.

He was just overwhelmed by Slotkin's fundraising.

But you know, he did respectably in that race.

And now we've got what I think is gonna be a real donnybrook of a fall race.

- Stephen, I mean, we should note this Open US Senate seat could really, I mean, change and will have a big influence on what the US Senate looks like come November.

- Yeah, I mean it's a place where Republicans of course hope to pick up a seat that they haven't had in a long time.

And let's remember, a Republican has not won a senate race in Michigan since, I think it's 1998 or before that.

- 1994.

- '94, right?

There's a reason for that.

You know, I don't know that that Mike Rogers gets it done, but I will say that he's probably the strongest candidate they've nominated in a long time.

You know, his problem will be he has wrapped his arms pretty enthusiastically around Donald Trump.

And I think this fall in Michigan, that could be something of a liability.

And then of course Elissa Slotkin is just a juggernaut in terms of campaign organization and fundraising, and matching that is gonna be, I mean this is gonna be a terribly expensive race, but just keeping up with her is gonna be quite a bit for him.

- Well, there's gonna be a lot of money poured into this race by both Republican Democrats from the outside.

Republicans see it as one of their top two chances to flip a Democratic seat.

The other one being West Virginia, which is also an open seat.

So you're gonna see a lot of outside spending.

This won't be won or lost for lack of money, I don't think.

And yeah, it's all about Trump.

But if you look, Trump's still running pretty strong in Michigan.

And if he makes this race really close, as close as it was, say in 2016, or even 2020, the Senate candidate has a pretty good chance.

I think Rogers might find some coattails there, or if it goes the other way, I think he doesn't have a very good chance at all against Slotkin.

- So one of the interesting stats out of the election is the total number of votes on both sides, right?

You've got an enthusiasm gap on the Republican side that I think was really evident yesterday.

The number of votes that Slotkin got was staggering.

And Mike Rogers is gonna have to figure out a way to get people on his side more enthusiastic about it.

I would imagine that there were a lot of independents perhaps who bled over into that Democratic primary as well.

- You know, or didn't vote.

It's not all that uncommon for Democrats to outperform Republican participation in primaries.

It's just- - Right, but if they do that in the general in Michigan, they always win.

And so that's that's the challenge he has.

- There's always, in the state of Michigan, the sort of get out the vote effort, right?

Let's look at some of those other congressional races.

Again, no huge surprises, but one race I know the three of us were watching, was Detroit, Shri Thanedar, the incumbent who will remain the incumbent, Nolan.

But Mary Waters gave him a little bit of a run for his money.

- Well she had the endorsement of the mayor and she was sort of the default candidate of the Detroit Democratic establishment.

But Shri Thanedar has proven now in two elections a lot tougher to beat than than folks thought he would be.

And I don't think Mary Waters was the right candidate to oust him, but I do think now Detroit's gonna have to live with Shri Thanedar as their representative for a while to come.

And you win that second race and you almost become unbeatable as a congressperson.

- Stephen, and here we go, and we continue.

No Black representation in Congress for the city of Detroit.

- Yeah, For the first time since 1955, I think it was, when African Americans first were represented by one of their in Congress.

So, here we are again.

It doesn't look like that's gonna change for Black Detroiters anytime soon.

- Well, we've got just about a minute left.

Let's talk about the very, very tippity top of the ballot come November.

And that is the all encompassing presidential race.

Vice President and Presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate just this week.

And they are just barnstorming up a storm, a bunch of different swing states, including the state of Michigan.

We only got a minute or so.

Stephen, I wanna start with you.

Does the Tim Waltz nomination mean anything here in the state of Michigan?

- I think it does.

He's a mid-westerner.

He is a hunter and a teacher, and all of these things that no one's laughing, but you know, these independent voters, especially independent women, are looking for those kind of qualities in a candidate.

I don't think the Democrats could have done any better in terms of who they picked here.

Minnesota is the best performing Midwest state.

It invests in education and other things, but also attracts all kinds of businesses.

It spends more on education than it does on prisons, which we can't figure out how to do here in Michigan.

It's a strong pick.

It'll be interesting to see how they do.

- Nolan, last word with you.

- Yeah, I don't think anybody heard of, most people hadn't heard of Tim Walz before the pick.

He wasn't among, for very long, among the top choices.

He does nothing to balance the ticket.

He's also a far left progressive.

Has governed that way.

I don't think that's gonna have a great deal appeal for independents of either sex.

So here we go again.

We've got a Republican ticket that's wholly from the far right.

A democratic ticket wholly from the far left, and the middle is completely uncovered.

- And just a little more than 80 days to go.

We're gonna keep talking about it here.

Thank you both so much, you two.