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Democrats, GOP work toward building solid coalitions with former foes

At the Amway Grand Plaza hotel in Grand Rapids, Schuette spoke to supporters at a unity rally, ahead of an appearance by Vice President Mike Pence.

A day after Gretchen Whitmer and Bill Schuette won their party’s nomination for governor, the Democratic and Republican candidates tried to piece together a coalition of support from candidates they’d just spent the last year battling.

For Democrats, that meant a unity luncheon in Detroit, where two other gubernatorial candidates — former Detroit Health Department Director Abdul El-Sayed and retired businessman Shri Thanedar — pledged their full support for the woman who beat them both by double digits.

“Today, we all retool and figure out how we make sure that Bill Schuette does not become governor. I’m super committed to that,” El-Sayed said. “Never has it been more important to have a Democrat lead state government.”

Thanedar, who pumped $12.9 million of his own money into the race only to finish a distant third, said he had no regrets about his race for governor.

“We’re all in an upbeat mood. I’m happy for the Democratic Party. I’m looking forward to the big blue wave and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer,” he said. “My goal is to help everyone win in November.”

Whitmer said she knows that even though her win was decisive — she won all 83 counties in Michigan and tallied nearly 100,000 more votes than Schuette — there are still 539,740 people in the state who voted for either Thanedar or El-Sayed.

“What unites us is a heck of a lot stronger than anything that divided us in the primary,” she said. “I know we have some work to do, but I think it’s going to go well and Bill Schuette might be the perfect person to help us to coalesce.”

At the Amway Grand Plaza hotel in Grand Rapids, Schuette spoke to supporters at a unity rally, ahead of an appearance by Vice President Mike Pence.

"The stakes are so high and only by being united can we win, and that's really the measure of our strength," Schuette told the crowd, before thanking his GOP primary opponents, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, Sen. Patrick Colbeck of Canton, and Saginaw-area physician Dr. Jim Hines.

But it wasn't a full kumbaya moment on the Republican side. While Calley attended the unity rally along with other defeated Republican candidates, Gov. Rick Snyder was a no-show. Schuette and Snyder have had a frosty relationship, especially after Schuette charged Nick Lyon, Snyder's health and human services department director, with alleged crimes related to the Flint water crisis.

Snyder’s spokeswoman Anna Heaton said he had another commitment that was keeping him from the unity dinner and that “he hasn’t made any decisions yet" on whether he’ll endorse Schuette.

Schuette later told reporters he's "not worried" about Snyder not endorsing him yet, noting the primary election was less than 24 hours earlier. "I'm a positive guy," he said.

In a video message taped Tuesday night, Calley was gracious in defeat.

“We took our shot, we left everything out there on the field. The reality is that this is President Trump’s Republican party. His chosen candidates win Republican primaries,” he said, referring to Trump’s endorsement of Schuette. “I want to say to Bill Schuette, congratulations. … I look forward to talking with you real soon about how we unify this party and protect this Michigan’s comeback because we cannot afford to return to the failed policies of the past.”

Hines said he was committed to helping Schuette in the months leading up to the Nov. 6 election, saying in a statement, "The greatest threat to Michigan’s recovery is the election of Democrat Gretchen Whitmer."

Colbeck congratulated "my opponent," without naming Schuette, and said in a statement that he prayed the GOP victor would "take notice and act on the Principled Solutions that Michiganders want, need, and deserve."

Democrats said they were excited about their prospects for November. A phenomenally high turnout of more than 2.1 million voters was the biggest for a primary in at least 40 years, according to records from the Secretary of State. The Democratic vote for governor was 140,289 higher than for the four Republican candidates. And the party’s candidates further down the ticket were also among the biggest beneficiaries of that tsunami of voters.

“People understand that they made a mistake in 2016 by sitting it out,” said Brandon Dillon, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. “And now we have a historic opportunity to make sweeping changes.”

The Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, said the stakes couldn’t be higher this election cycle.

“It’s about health care and jobs, pensions and education, roads and neighborhoods,” he said. “Now is not the time to step back, it’s time to step up. Staying home and being angry is not an option. We saw that from 2016 and we must not see that in 2018.”

But Pence said "the red wave is coming right through Michigan" to help Republicans keep control of all statewide offices, which they have held for eight years.

And like other speakers at the event, Pence aimed most of his criticism at U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who is seeking a fourth term and will face a challenge from metro Detroit businessman and U.S. Army veteran John James, who also spoke at the Grand Rapids event.

Pence said Stabenow has opposed every initiative he and President Donald Trump have tried to put forward.

"When it came time to cut your taxes, Debbie voted no," Pence said. "When it came time to fund a border wall ... Debbie voted no," just as she did on ending the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare.

Schuette said that when Trump telephoned him Tuesday night to congratulate him for his primary victory, Trump told him to let him know when he wanted the president to again visit Michigan to campaign.

"I want you to come into Michigan," Schuette said he told Trump.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.

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