SOUTHFIELD – The Republican gubernatorial debate Thursday night did not offer many policy proposals but instead a look into gripes between the candidates ranging from business contracts, use of AI and data center donations.
The debate marks the first time all the principles in the race – U.S. Rep. John James, former Attorney General Mike Cox and Perry Johnson – have been in the same room in a televised debate format. Both Cox and Johnson have pressed James in the past on skipping other forums. Johnson missed a spring forum James attended.
The candidates called each other out for lying, evading questions, not understanding each other’s background and dollars and cents on their business connections.
James said in his opening statement that while his opponents are focused on him, he’s focused on the people of the state.
Cox countered that the frustration was pent up over James not attending the forums in the past.
The host of the debate, Fox 2 Detroit and “The Pulse” anchor Roop Raj had to intervene at the peak of the finger pointing.
“The one thing we get on ‘The Pulse’ is the pulse of what people are sick of,” Raj said. “You know what they’re sick of? It’s people screaming, all three of you. Here’s the bottom line. The majority of people outside the camera don’t care as much about some of the dollars and cents we’re talking about.”
The race has become increasingly negative in the last two weeks, with both James and Johnson lobbing attack ads on each other and Cox and James trading shots too.
The first 30 minutes of the debate were broadcast on Fox 2 Detroit. The remaining 30 minutes were streamed online.
Many of the references made in the debate were political insider baseball, including Cox calling James the “pre-Fay Beydoun” for receiving $2 million in business subsidies and not creating the jobs he said he would and which candidate was using outsourcing in their personal businesses, either Johnson or James.
Even questions from the audience came from people within the political insider bubble. Republican strategist Jamie Roe, who had James as a client when he ran for Senate in 2020, asked a question. It’s unclear if he has a client in the race this cycle though earlier this year he criticized James for not attending a candidate forum. Abby Mitch, a former James spokesperson, asked a question, as did Andrea Bitely, a public relations professional who was recently head spokesperson for the Mike Duggan gubernatorial campaign.
A source with the James campaign said they did not know in advance that Mitch would be there or ask a question and were equally surprised when Bitely was first on screen.
All the candidates have courted President Donald Trump’s support in the race, however, James recently secured that endorsement, something he said has surged his momentum in the primary. Cox and Johnson have both pushed back on the idea that the endorsement has hurt their chances at winning.
With this, the first question of the night asked candidates how they would fight back if Trump enacted a policy that would hurt Michigan.
James said he has a great relationship with Trump, and if he had an issue, he would pick up the phone and call him. He said he looked forward to ing with Trump on securing the border and opting into the Education Freedom Tax Credit.
Cox said he has fought with others when he believed something was wrong such as former Gov. Jennifer Granholm who was governor while he was attorney general. However, he said James was defensive on his relationship with the president, despite having the president’s endorsement.
Cox said, instead, the president “respects winners.”
Unlike the other candidates, Cox did point out one disagreement he has with Trump: SALT, the State and Local Tax exemption.
James responded by saying Cox would not admit that “the election was rigged in 2020,” a point of contention between Republicans. There has been no credible evidence that the 2020 election results are not valid. Former President Joe Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.
“Mike Cox hasn’t won an election since goodness before the iPhone was invented, and in the last statewide election he ran, he came in a distant third place, so frankly, we need to own up to reality. Mike Cox is a fighter. I’ll grant that, but he’s not a winner.”
Cox won attorney general races in 2002 and 2006 but lost the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2010.
James said he “can agree with the president without worshiping him” and “can disagree without attacking him.”
Johnson said he found it unlikely that he was going to disagree with Trump and would not arbitrarily say something could be bad for Michigan but instead ask people why they think it would be bad.
Cox called James a “trust fund baby” by inheriting his position in The James Group, the company Cox has been lambasting for outsourcing imported auto parts from China and avoiding American auto parts. James fought back by saying his success is not from being “a nepo baby,” but the American dream secured by his family.
James said Cox disrespected his workforce Tuesday, holding a press conference on the criticism outside The James Group office building in Detroit.
James also fought back against the question of whether he followed through on the Michigan Economic Development Corporation grant money stipulations on creating jobs, saying it was a lie and he was still in the military at the time.
“The more you lie doesn’t make it more true,” James said.
He accused his opponents of “flooding the zone with BS” before the debate.
James also swung at Johnson’s claims about what an income tax repeal would mean for Michiganders, saying he came up with “magic numbers” from Chat GPT.
Johnson called it “actually stupid.”
Shortly after the debate ended, the James campaign tweeted an edited clip from the “MichMash” podcast in which Johnson was asked how he determined the median income level to calculate the purported $4,747 annual median savings for a family of four in Michigan. He said on the show that one could Google the information or use ChatGPT.
James also said Johnson was the real culprit in outsourcing, highlighting one of his companies is called “Perry Johnson Outsourcing.” Johnson said he has not outsourced a single job to China.
One policy question posed was about data centers and accepting money from data center companies in their tenure as governor.
Johnson accused James of taking money from data center developers. James denied this.
Some states, like Indiana, have suspended their fuel taxes to reduce the price of gasoline during a time of high inflation.
The candidates were asked about using that same strategy in Michigan. James said he would want to cut other waste, fraud and abuse in the budget, not lower the gasoline tax. Cox also said he wanted to cut waste, fraud and abuse but attacked James on not having specific programs to cut which he said is usual from Washington politicians.
In some specifics to cut, Cox called out MEDC spending and James highlighted pet projects and improper payments in unemployment.
Johnson told reporters after the debate it was hard to say if the night was too insider baseball because some of the issues are extraneous to the average person and the real issues at hands are if people can afford their expenses, and “sometimes we lose the forest through the trees.” However, he said it all comes down to there is a finite amount of money and there is government spending that is inefficient in places like the MEDC.
On negativity possibly hurting whoever wins the nomination in November, Cox said things will get a little ugly in a primary, and that in a general election, if James if the Republican nominee, there will still be ad spending on James outsourcing in his company.
James did not speak to press after the event. Jackson Gross, his campaign manager, said James said everything he had to, and the other two “need all the time they can get to clean up their mess.”
