Jane Coaston: Pod Save Michigan
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What are the main takeaways from the Michigan Senate race and polling discrepancies?
Do you know, Onni, who would have a perfect house for you? Well, Tampere's Murre. If you move in with Murre, you know where you'll find the house. That's right, from Oikotie. Hintamyräkkä tuuletti Elisän hinnat uusiksi. Nyt löydät paljon hauskaa ja hyödyllistä myräkkä hinnoin. Myös yrityksille. Riennä tuulen nopeudella Elisän myymälään tai elisa.fi.
Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. A few scheduling notes. The pod was out a little late yesterday, and I think it might be out a little bit late today. We're back from vacation. We're working out the kinks. Today's guest had a personal issue. We're scrambling. It's like, who do I call in an emergency, a big Michigan moment? Many people, but who answers the phone at 6.30 a.m. Pacific time? Jane Koston, host of What A Day podcast, friend of the show. Thank you, Jane. Greatly appreciate it. Go Blue.
Absolutely. Great to be back. And yeah, it is the first week of August, which I think we forget about in terms of like, you know, that's summer. That's like, you know, if you are like chomping at the bit for a politics podcast on August 5th.
At 3.30 in the afternoon. Well, we salute you and we're really excited about you. It comes out at 4.30. It's okay. We're going to do our best. We'll get it back going once school's in, you know, because you're going to need it for school pickup because you need to listen to a real human podcast during school pickup instead of the Sam Altman Chat GBT AI podcast, you know, so we got to make sure.
I still love that he's at no point has he been like, you could talk to your kids. Like all of his proposals sound kind of like, you know, on the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, how like the Calvin's dad is always like, we'll just set up the Christmas tree in the garage and you can pretend it has lights. Like all of Sam Altman's suggestions sound like that.
It's concerning.
It's very worrying.
It wouldn't be that concerning if he was just weird. There are a lot of weirdos that are a little weird out there in the world. It's a little concerning when they hold the future of society in their hands. Obviously, the big news of the morning here, of the day, is the results in the Michigan Senate race yesterday. People were expecting, because of the polls, a significant win from Abdul El-Sayed, maybe double digits. I was expecting that. That did not happen. There was an Ann Seltzer-style poll error in Michigan. The way that these polls control the narratives and the discourse is probably something we should reflect on as commentators. It's kind of like... Had the polls been showing Haley up and Abdul wins, it would just be like progressive DSA shock earthquake.
And now it's kind of like, ooh, is there some weakness? But anyway, Abdul is up by 1% at the time of this taping. The race has been called the AP, but it's just going to be a much narrower victory than expected. I've got a bunch of takeaways. What are yours?
I've got some micro and some macro thoughts. Micro thoughts is that Michigan is a weird state. It's a state in which Democrats can hold a trifecta and Trump can win it. That's the state of Michigan. And so I kind of expected this race to be tight, especially with so much attention and so much money going into it. I think that... again, to your point, I think polling does us a disservice in how we talk about this race, and especially how we talk about what this race means for people in the state of Michigan. The most majestic, wonderful state that there is. Like, what does this mean for Michiganders? What does this mean, you know, going forward? I'm interested to see the pivot towards the general election.
You have a Republican, Mike Rogers, who told Semaphore that he, no one asks me about the Iran war and I don't know how I'd vote on anything because I don't care. I mean, I do. And so I'm interested to see what that pivot looks like. But I think Overall, the challenge we have is, and this is the macro, and this is kind of more of a meta point, is that we love storylines.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What are the main takeaways from the Michigan Senate race and polling discrepancies?
0:00–9:13
2
How does Abdul El‑Sayed’s campaign strategy compare to past progressive candidates?
9:13–23:16
3
Why is the Michigan 8th District Republican primary significant for the upcoming elections?
23:16–41:06
4
What are the allegations against Max Miller and how might they affect his political future?
41:06–56:35
5
How are federal agents targeting activists and what does that mean for free speech?
56:35–1:03:18
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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