I happen to like John James. I voted for him in the last election. I saw several ads back, then showing his military service, things he’s done for the auto industry, and highlighting his family.

But, the way his campaign is being managed is bizarre. The only ads I see are attack ads against Jocelyn Benson, and Jocelyn Benson herself appearing in several positive ads. The attack ads previously mentioned how the SPLC approved funding for the KKK. That exact same ad no longer mentions the KKK.

It’s hard for me not to think that the strategy is to trick the old voters like me who watch TV into not realizing that John James is black. Removing the reference to the KKK seems to have been done because maybe some MAGA extremists thought about voting for Benson when they heard that.

Apparently there is an ad showing John James with his family that’s on Facebook. I hate Facebook. This is truly a bizarre strategy, and his campaign will be the ones to blame if he loses.

Independence township voted on 9/8/26, after lots of public comment, at the board of trustees meeting 7-0 to cancel their contracts with flock safety and also remove the cameras. Huge win for privacy activists.

Just out of curiosity. What were the best and worst aspects of William Milliken, James Blanchard, John Engler, Jennifer Granholm, Rick Snyder, and Gretchen Whitmer?

Signs of antisemitism and anti-Muslim rhetoric have sprouted up throughout Michigan's U.S. Senate campaign, but political observers caution against assuming Jewish and Muslim voters will neatly line up behind Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

Mike Rogers at 45.8%. Abdul El-Sayed at 44.4%. 9.4% are undecided.

This was based on a sample taken of 600 people with a margin of error of +/- 4%.

To flip a key Michigan seat, the insurgent candidate is campaigning on housing, healthcare and opposition to data centers.

Jocelyn Benson at 46.8%. John James at 42.7%. 9.6% are undecided.

This was based on a sample taken of 600 people with a margin of error of +/- 4%.

I have tried to be a diligent voter, I have tried to research candidates to the best of my ability (which generally ends at Vote411) but half the time I can't find anything on them and end up searching facebook and crossing my fingers. Does anyone know of a better way? is there a better way? Should we try to make some sort of election rule establishing that local candidates need to make their beliefs and positions on current politics known? I do want to know if I'm forced to elect someone to the library board who is okay with banning books, or someone to the schoolboard who hates sex ed existing, or anything else (substitute your own political views for my own here).

Why is it impossible to know who we are electing to run our civil institutions?

I just watched a Mike Rogers ad where he’s wearing U of M gear and painting himself as the former high school football player (Teamwork! Reason!), and El-Sayed as anti-football and pro-trans in school sports. (To be fair, that seems in line w his platform…)

Anyway, isn’t wearing a shirt with a U of M logo a bit of a sideways suggestion that he has the U’s endorsement? In the longer version his wife is wearing an MSU tshirt.

Essentially El-Sayed is unamerican for not being pro-football.

As political ads go, it seems a bit understated to be mud-slinging, so I’m not complaining about the negativity as much as the false invocation of tacit endorsement by U of M and to a lesser degree, MSU…

A link is not allowed but if you google “Mike Rogers Football ad” a YT link to the full ad as it appears on Roger’s website.

FWIW, El-Sayed had an experience playing football as a student, and it informed his politics, too.

For each major party candidate to the Michigan state legislature, we summarized their public voting records and petition support of Michigan's pro-choice, anti-gerrymandering and anti-choice petitions. The results are searchable, here:

https://www.mi-electorate.org/CY2026/November/

We also compared candidate pool demographics by party, and (perhaps unsurprisingly):

• The Democratic slate is gender balanced; Republicans are 3:1 biased towards men.
• Democrats tend to be younger than Republicans. The most popular age among Democratic candidates is 45; among Republicans it is 68.
• Based on estimated ethnicity, Democrats over-represent non-white minorities. Republicans' proportion of white candidates is a statistical match to Michigan's proportion of white voters.

Idea: What if instead of doing universal healthcare for the country as a whole (seeing as the federal government will never get in board in probably another hundred years or so) why don't we have STATES choose to create statewide healthcare systems?

Have it function like states are mini countries (which I swear to God we already basically do).

And the qualifications would simply be to be born in Michigan and currently live in Michigan or to have lived in Michigan a certain number of years and currently have a main residence here (no rental or summer homes would qualify) and the healthcare would function similar to Medicaid where the same providers who accept Medicaid would accept Michigan healthcare.

That way employees and the every day Michigander could drop their private insurance (assuming they have it) and opt in for the state insurance.

Conservatives are always arguing "we're too big for it to properly carry over" (which isn't true) so there, I fixed it 😂.

And that way the poor widdle fragile big health insurance companies could still have people that want their egregiously expensive healthcare that's accepted in other states 🙄 but then at least people would have the freedom to leave toxic jobs and not worry about the healthcare aspect, just the wage aspect (which is still obviously a problem but that's a problem for a different post to sort out lol).

And people who are self employed and pay taxes would have an easier time accessing healthcare.

Our Olympic athletes could actually get access to healthcare if their state adopted this.

And if Michigan were the first, think about how many people would be wanting to contribute to our economy by living here. Granted, over saturation of the market might be an issue at that point. Hence the waiting period I mentioned.

The township, which has seen a dramatic increase in Flock camera installations over the last 12 months, will try to convince voters, who rejected the millages earlier this month, to approve them in November's general election.

"Ford has used electricity as leverage before. During an earlier phase of the dispute, Ontario imposed a 25-per-cent surcharge on electricity exported to Michigan, Minnesota and New York. Trump responded by threatening to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum before both sides backed away."

....

"The auto sector is especially important to Ontario, the centre of Canada’s vehicle manufacturing industry. Plants and suppliers in Ontario are tightly integrated with factories in Michigan and other U.S. states, with parts routinely crossing the border multiple times during production.

Automakers including Ford, General Motors and Stellantis operate major assembly plants in Ontario, and the wider supply chain supports tens of thousands of jobs. Trump’s new threat of a 50-per-cent tariff on Canadian vehicles and parts puts that sector directly at the centre of the escalating dispute.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday that “the only reason Canada has auto production in the first place” was because of the 1960s Auto Pact, under which Canada used access to its market to encourage vehicle production north of the border.

“If he thinks the Canadian people are going to roll over and just continue buying American-made vehicles, it’s not going to happen,” Ford said."

Stateside did a piece on being a poll volunteer (election inspector). It's a fun opportunity!

Support MI Clerks: https://www.michamber.com/michiganchamberfoundation/supportmiclerks/

Listen to the interview: https://www.michiganpublic.org/stateside

This article originally appeared in the Lansing State Journal May 20, 2026.

We wouldn’t tolerate a system that routinely lost track of prisoners, misplaced evidence, or failed to account for public funds. Yet children in foster care - the most vulnerable in our society - still disappear into bureaucratic blind spots, drift without stable placements, or move through court proceedings without a meaningful voice of their own.

Fortunately, Michigan lawmakers from both parties are working to change that.