Schuette and Whitmer headed to November showdown for governor

Paul Egan , Kathleen Gray | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Who survived Michigan's primary election? All signs pointed to a high turn out for Michigan's 2018 primary election. Here are the candidates voters chose to put on the November ballot.

LANSING — The Nov. 6 election for Michigan's next governor will be a showdown between Republican Bill Schuette and Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, who were both declared winners by 10 p.m. in Tuesday's primary.

After hard-fought races in both parties, candidates from both primaries were extending olive branches to their former opponents and calling for unity. That included second-place finishers Brian Calley, the Republican lieutenant governor, and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former head of the Detroit health department.

Turnout appeared heavier than expected, at least in pockets of Oakland County and elsewhere.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Whitmer had 52 percent of the vote, compared with 30 percent for El-Sayed and 18 percent for Shri Thanedar.

In the Republican race, Schuette had 51 percent of the vote while Calley trailed with 25 percent.

"We did it," Schuette, the state attorney general since 2011, told supporters in his home town of Midland. "I am proud to be your Republican nominee for governor." He added: "Michigan, it's time to win again." He then launched into an immediate attack on Whitmer as a tax-and-spend liberal.

Whitmer, the former Senate minority leader, speaking to supporters in Detroit, said that thanks to their hard work, "we have the opportunity to reject the policies of division" and return a Democrat to the governor's office.

“As a child, I never once worried about literacy or drinking water and infrastructure, but our leaders have failed us," she said, referencing problems with public schools, the Flint water crisis, and Michigan's crumbling roads.

Ed Sarpolus, founder and executive director of the Lansing-based polling and political consulting firm Target-Insyght, said both Whitmer and Schuette have work to do to separate themselves from other recent candidates.

Whitmer has to "run as herself" and show she is not the same as former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm or former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as her opponents will try to portray her, Sarpolus said. Schuette "has to show he's not Donald Trump and also show he's not (Republican Gov.) Rick Snyder," who can't run again because of term limits.

Schuette and Whitmer previewed their pending general election battle during their primary campaigns. Schuette depicted Whitmer as a Granholm clone who would return Michigan to the "lost decade" of the 2000s. Whitmer portrayed Schuette as a politician beholden to special interests who wouldn't fight for the interests of middle-class voters.

More: See all the election results for metro Detroit and statewide races

More: Ballot shortages reported in Oakland County; voters told to wait

Michigan Republican Party Chairman Ronald Weiser said Schuette "will lead our state into another decade of prosperity."

Democratic Governors Association Chairman Gov. Jay Inslee congratulated Whitmer, saying: “Michigan is one of the DGA’s top targets for pickup this cycle, and Gretchen is a terrific candidate."

The Republican race turned nasty early and often.

Calley, running a distant second in the polls, repeatedly attacked Schuette over hiring Republican activists to fill civil service positions, using state workers to sign and notarize private real estate deals, and for allegedly holding political meetings and conducting other political activity in state office buildings and on state time. Otherwise, Calley, a Portland banker and state House representative before he was chosen as lieutenant governor, ran largely on the record of Snyder. He said they worked as a team to slash business taxes and regulations and transform Michigan's economy after a lengthy recession.

In a video released shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, Calley thanked his supporters and his family and said "we took our shot" and "we left everything out there on the field." He congratulated Schuette and called for unity, saying Schuette's victory showed the Republican Party belonged to President Donald Trump, who endorsed his opponent over him.

Schuette, and especially his backers such as political consultant Stu Sandler, didn't pull punches with Calley, either. They ridiculed him over a problem-plagued and ultimately failed ballot drive to create a part-time Legislature, blasted him for working with Granholm to create the much-hated Michigan Business Tax, and never missed an opportunity to remind GOP primary voters that Calley renounced his endorsement of Trump. Schuette, a former congressman, state department director, state senator and appellate court judge, said Michigan still needs more growth and a personal income tax cut, and he has the experience to make that happen.

Two other GOP candidates, right-wing favorite Sen. Patrick Colbeck of Canton and Saginaw-area physician Dr. Jim Hines, were largely reduced to onlookers as the Schuette-Calley battle raged.

They trailed with 13 percent and 11 percent of the vote, respectively.

Both parties will have opportunities for public displays of unity on Wednesday.

On the Republican side, Vice President Mike Pence is to appear at a Michigan Republican "unity rally" in Grand Rapids.

The Democrats are planning a unity meeting of their own in Detroit.

In the Democratic race, three candidates battled over who could claim to be the true progressive.

Whitmer, an East Lansing attorney, picked up most of the union and elected official endorsements, plus one from the Detroit Regional Chamber, and was seen as the establishment choice. She alone among the three Democratic gubernatorial candidates did not embrace a move to a single-payer health care system. But she pushed back at suggestions she was not a progressive Democrat and said she was alone in having a track record of accomplishments, such as her role in Michigan's 2013 expansion of Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act.

El-Sayed was widely embraced as the true progressive in the race, winning endorsements and campaign visits from Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who won Michigan's 2016 presidential primary on the Democratic side, and New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated the chair of the House Democratic caucus, U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley, in a June primary. El-Sayed gained considerable national media attention as potentially Michigan's first Muslim governor and claimed momentum as he drew large crowds to rallies held in the last 10 days.

On Tuesday night, El-Sayed endorsed Whitmer and called for unity in his concession speech, saying the job for Michigan Democrats is now to defeat Schuette.

“I don’t think this is the speech that any of us wanted to give,” El-Sayed told supporters at Cobo Center in Detroit. “But I want to thank you all for the spirit of survival, the time that you spent, the effort that you put it in, and the belief that you had in the ideal of the movement that took our government back to our founding ideas of a government for the people and by the people.”

Thanedar, an Ann-Arbor area scientist and entrepreneur, used TV ads to bolt from obscurity to having the highest name recognition in the Democratic contest, putting nearly $13 million of his own money into his campaign, as of Tuesday. Thanedar espoused positions similar to El-Sayed, including single-payer health care and universal pre-school. But he was viewed with suspicion by many Democrats, partly because of his past financial support for Republican candidates and reports that he considered running as a member of the GOP, and because he told the Free Press if elected governor he would next set his sights on president.

Thanedar also pledged party unity earlier in the evening.

“Absolutely, a Democrat must win the governor’s office in 2018,” he said. “I expect to be the nominee of the party and I expect to prevail in November. But if I’m not so blessed, I would certainly support whoever the Democratic nominee is.”

And Whitmer extended cooperation to both of them in her remarks at Greektown Casino.

"I extend a hand out to them, there is a place for you as we move forward," she said of El-Sayed and Thanedar. "I appreciate your energy and ideas — let’s work together to get this done."

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who campaigned with Whitmer in the city on Election Day, said he decided to support her because of “the leadership she showed in 2013," when Republican Snyder needed her help to cross the aisle and help pass Healthy Michigan, which extended health care to 680,000 people.

In the Libertarian race for governor, Bill Gelineau won with 58 percent of the vote, compared with 42 percent for John Tatar.

There were indications that voter turnout Tuesday could top the recent peak of 23.3 percent for a midterm primary election, reached in 2002 when 1.7 million Michiganders voted.

Several precincts in Oakland County reportedly ran out of ballots, and the Michigan Secretary of State's Office advised voters faced with such a development to remain at the polling place, even after the official closing time of 8 p.m., to get a chance to vote once ballots were replenished.

The Free Press heard reports of ballot shortages in Ferndale, Birmingham, West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, Berkley, Hazel Park, Troy, Pontiac and Royal Oak.

As of Monday, the 694,129 absentee ballots sent out marked a 53 percent increase over 2014, and the 527,050 absentee ballots returned marked a 50 percent increase, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

Turnout was 17.4 percent in 2014, 21.9 percent in 2010 and 16.9 percent in 2006, records show.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.