The difference between your SOS, AG nominees? Not a lot

The Michigan Republican Party made news recently for selecting as their presumptive nominees for Secretary of State and Attorney General a pair of county officeholders with histories of winning competitive elections.

The MRP had the chance to go another way. 

The delegates could have picked a pair of political neophytes cut from the same mold as the 2022 picks — fanatical election-denying Kristina Karamo and Matt DePerno, who’s fighting to keep his law license.

They picked Macomb County Clerk Tony Forlini and Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd. 

The significance is that, historically, voters treat a party’s SOS and AG nominees as a pair.

If you vote for the Republican SOS nominee, you’re likely voting for the Republican AG nominees. If you vote for the Democratic SOS nominee, you’re likely voting for the Democratic AG nominee.

Michigan voters started choosing their Secretary of State and Attorney General at the ballot box in 1852. That’s 72 separate elections. 

Only five times did a Republican win the Secretary of State’s office and a Democrat the Attorney General’s seat.

The number of times a Democrat won the Secretary of State’s office a Republican the Attorney General’s seat? Zero. Out of 72 elections.

Last week, I spent an afternoon looking through a couple of Harry Potter-like ledgers at the Michigan archives to verify these older elections (which took place every two years back then).

Voters are more likely to split their ticket for governor and U.S. Senate than Secretary of State and Attorney General (or in the state Treasurer, Auditor General and Superintendent when we voted on those positions, too).

In those five cases in which a Republican won SOS and a Dem won Attorney General, there were special circumstances or super close elections.

Here they are:

 – In 1892, Democratic Attorney General candidate Adolphus Ellis won re-election while the Democratic Secretary of State nominee lost, likely in part because their winning candidate from the 1890 election, Daniel Soper, ended up being a scoundrel who was kicked out of office for embezzlement. Republican John Jochim defeated Democrat Charles Marksey 47.74% to 43.04% with third party candidates claiming the rest of the votes. Meanwhile, Ellis won re-election with 47.78% of the vote.

 – In 1932, Patrick O’Brien became the first Democrat to be elected Attorney General in 40 years when he secured 50.38% of the vote in the Franklin D. Roosevelt landslide election. One of the Republicans’ only bright spots that year was incumbent Secretary of State Frank D. Fitzgerald (great-grandfather of House Minority Floor Leader John Fitzgerald (D-Wyoming)), who won re-election with 49.02% of the vote.

 – In 1948, Democrat Stephen Ross won the Attorney General’s seat the same year G. Mennen Williams started his run of victories as Governor by unseating Republican Gov. Kim Sigler. The Republicans were able to hold on to the Secretary of State’s seat when incumbent Fred Alger Jr. won a second term on the same ballot as Republican Thomas Dewey, who beat President Harry S. Truman. . . in Michigan anyway (The Chicago Tribune was right on that point).

 – In 1994, in Attorney General Frank Kelley’s final election, the Eternal General crushed John Smietanka with 57.14% of the vote while Secretary of State Richard Austin lost to Republican Candice Miller 53.66% to 46.43% as questions arose about Austin’s declining mental capacities. This was the election where Gov. John Engler won re-election with 61.48% of the vote.

 – In 1998, Republicans insisted on, once again, putting up the conservative Smietanka for Attorney General instead of Engler’s choice, G. Scott Romney, son of former Gov. George Romney. They paid the price. While Engler and Miller cruised to re-election in huge landslides, Smietanka lost 52.09% to 47.91% to a Democratic upstart named Jennifer Granholm, who a term later became governor.

Don’t mistake my history lesson as an argument that the Secretary of State or Attorney General nominees don’t matter. They do. 

It’s just that — barring a rarely significant event or circumstance — voters don’t see a difference between the two.

(Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. You can email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)