Make politics local again
A 2026 playbook that doesn’t depend on Washington
Proverbs 18:21 teaches that life and death are in the power of the tongue. In politics, so is winning and losing.
In 36 states, the governor’s office is on the ballot in 2026. The national media calls 2026 a “midterm” election. But in states like Michigan, it’s more like a must-win.
To call 2026 a “midterm” is to assume that all of life, and politics, revolves around the president, Donald Trump. This phrasing is neither true nor helpful.
Since 1946, the president’s party has lost 18 of 20 “midterm” elections. As Republicans look to gain real ground in Michigan, to call 2026 a “midterm” would be to speak the language of losing.
Worse yet, it’s not even true. In Michigan, there are 165 capital-city jobs up for grabs in 2026:
- Governor
- Secretary of State
- Attorney General
- U.S. Senate
- 110 Michigan House seats
- 38 Michigan Senate seats
- 13 U.S. House seats
Of those 165 positions, only 14 of them are Washington jobs, and only about three of those will be competitive.
“Midterm” or not, the seats in Congress are largely safe seats, regardless of who the president is.
That means 151 seats are Lansing jobs. That means Michigan could be a very different state after 2026.
The governor sets the agenda. Lawmakers pass the budget. Together they decide how much money goes to “fix the damn roads” — a campaign promise made by the term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2018, and defaulted on ever since.
The secretary of state will secure Michigan’s elections — or leave the door open to non-citizen voting, as Jocelyn Benson has done. And the attorney general decides who the state will charge with crimes.
These are local concerns, with no relation to the president. In 2020, when Gov. Whitmer shredded the Michigan and U.S. Constitutions, President Trump…tweeted. Lansing affects our lives a lot more than Washington does.
The 2026 election is about Lansing. So why use a Washington word—”midterm”—to describe it? Especially because it invites surrender, even before the first vote is cast.
Conservatives have two bad habits: treating politics as entertainment, rather than a mechanism to gain and use power and only showing up for presidential elections, when the entertainment factor is high, when politics are done in prime-time.
In 2024, Michigan voters supported Donald Trump in the presidential race by 80,000 votes. But because many didn’t complete their ballots, Democrat Elissa Slotkin won the U.S. Senate race by 19,000 votes. The exclusive focus on presidential races has consequences.
The word “midterm” conditions them to sit out elections like 2026. At which point the president will be blamed for any failure, and likely impeached if the Democrats win.
The “midterm” framework needs to be broken. But how?
The solution: Make Politics Local Again.
If Michigan Republicans will draw on history in 2026, why not the history that works in their favor?
Not since 1969 has a Michigan governor handed the baton to a governor from their own party. And back then Gov. George Romney didn’t lose, he left Lansing to serve as President Nixon’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development. This elevated his Lt. Governor, Bill Milliken, to Lansing’s big chair.
Ever since Milliken declined to run again in 1982, the governor’s office has traded hands between Democrats and Republicans. With Whitmer at the end of her second term, history says a Republican is up in 2026.
Which story is better to tell?
That of a “midterm” where history says the president’s party will fail, 90% of the time?
Or that of an election that is must win, because if Democrats continue to run Michigan, they could wreck the place. Michigan voters understand this instinctively, which is why they switch parties when they switch governors.
Democrats bring Michigan to the brink of ruin. Then Republicans pull it back. They make people think the state is so stable that anyone could run it. Then Democrats win and start the cycle all over again.
I’m in the midst of the Make Politics Local Again speaking tour, criss-crossing Michigan to preach the opportunity ahead, and the winning message. My message to Michigan Republicans is that President Trump is not the main character in Michigan, the Democrats who run the state are.
That message could be repurposed in Minnesota and California, too, and be just as potent.
Make Politics Local Again means shifting your focus to the people who actually control your quality of life. Those people don’t live in the White House. They work in your capital city.
Trump didn’t burn through a $9 billion surplus in 2023. Whitmer and the Democrats did that.
Trump didn’t let foreigners vote in the 2024 election—and those votes were counted. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson did that. And now she will count the votes as she, Benson, runs for governor.
Trump didn’t ignore Detroit schools. Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan did that, rejecting years of pressure to take a greater role in the state’s biggest school system. Now he has rebranded as an Independent, and claims he has the answers for 1 million public school students.
If Michigan Republicans talk about the bad actors who have crashed Michigan, they can win.
If they’re left responding to the latest tweet or today’s slanted headline, they will lose.
Which way, Michigan?
James David Dickson is host of the James Dickson Podcast. Join him in conversation on X at @downi75.
