- "One Detroit" is on Mackinac Island again for the Detroit Regional Chamber's 2026 Mackinac Policy Conference.

This year's theme is a quest for common ground, a call for leaders to move beyond conflict to reach practical solutions.

Coming up, we'll bring you some of the conversations on the island about working together to tackle Michigan's issues.

Stay where you are, a special hour-long edition of "One Detroit" starts right now.

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(upbeat music) - The decisions that we make now will determine whether growth in the years ahead is temporary or truly sustainable.

- Can we create the experiential learning and the pathway to jobs that make staying in the state of Michigan or coming to the state of Michigan a easy decision?

- What kind of human beings will we choose to be in the short time that we are here?

(audience clapping) That's the question.

- We're in a challenging time in our history.

I can focus all my effort on being the best senator I can possibly be.

- Business, civic, government and philanthropic leaders have all come together once again for the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference.

This year's agenda focuses on a quest for common ground.

Welcome to this special edition of "One Detroit."

I'm Stephen Henderson, a "One Detroit" contributor and the host of "American Black Journal."

We're coming to you from the historic Grand Hotel here on Mackinac Island.

It is our 16th year bringing you coverage of this event, from the conference sessions, the conversations here at the Detroit PBS desk.

Over the next hour, we're gonna share some of the highlights.

We'll hear from Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield in her first keynote address here as the city's chief executive.

Plus Governor Gretchen Whitmer gives her last speech at the conference as the state's top elected official.

Also ahead, professor, philosopher and activist, Cornell West, speaks on the importance of common ground.

And we'll examine what's being done to help prepare Detroit students for the careers of the future.

And we'll hear from US Senator Gary Peters as he prepares to retire from public service.

That is all coming up.

But first, I'm joined by "One Detroit" contributors, Nolan Finley, who's the editorial page editor at "The Detroit News," and Zoe Clark, who is the political director for Michigan Public.

Zoe Nolan, we do this every year.

- I was gonna say, we're back again.

- Every year.

- (laughing) Back again.

- And loving it.

- What number of Mackinac is this for you?

- Oh God, it's gonna be 27, 28.

- Yeah, this is 20 for me.

- Oh my gosh.

- I feel like I should get a gold watch or something, right?

All right, let's talk first about the theme this year, "Quest for Common Ground."

Now, I've heard some people poke at that a little and say, "I don't know, that's a theme every year."

So what makes this year different than the others?

- Well, you have to put this in context.

"Quest for Common Ground" was sort of the underlying or the overlying message of Mike Duggan's mayoral campaign.

And this conference this year was structured entirely to support that campaign.

And when Mike Duggan pulled out just a few days before the conference began, just deflated the whole thing.

And so they've had to pivot and sort of backfill within that theme.

But also, just yesterday, we had President Guskiewicz at Michigan State University resign, citing disagreements with the board.

And that was another big body blow here.

So I think the house was on fire when we started.

(Stephen laughing) And we're raking the ashes as we leave.

- It's only getting worse.

Zoe, what have you seen this week that kind of gives some relief or highlight, I guess, to this quest for common ground?

- Yeah, I mean, I think what we have to talk about is the house being on fire.

So there's the quest for common ground, but what Sandy Baruah is talking a lot about is there's this sort of U-turn politics that happens, or U-turn policymaking, which, because we're a purple state, we go back and forth between Republican and Democrats, Democrat and Republican, but with that, we go back and forth with policy.

And so what it's meant is that we haven't had consistent policymaking in a really, really long time.

And we're looking towards other states that it may even be policy you disagree with, (laughing) but it's policy that has, you know, longevity for five, 10 years, and actually has been able to make some impact.

- Yeah, consistency is the thing that I think we have the hardest time with in Michigan.

And some of that is about our politics, they jump back and forth.

And I think there's a relatively low right now level of party ID.

That doesn't mean people don't have ideology, but party ID is lower than it used to be.

And speaking of politics, of course it is a political year here in Michigan, almost everything seems like it's up for grabs.

- I mean, really, I mean, you're not being hyperbolic.

(Zoe laughing) - Yeah, no, that's right.

House, Senate, governor, attorney general, secretary of state, open Senate seat.

We had a debate- - We did.

- with the Democratic primary Senate candidates.

Nolan, you and I were the moderators.

Tell me what you felt, and I know it's hard while you're moderating to really pay attention, but what did you hear that sort of advanced the ball in terms of understanding the differences between these candidates?

- Well, I'm not sure there are a whole lot of differences on most issues.

- They're all Democrats, right.

- They're all Democrats.

I think the most different candidate, if you will, is Abdul El-Sayed, who is basically a socialist.

And that's the agenda.

- You call everybody a socialist.

(laughing) - Yeah, well, I mean, when you stand up there and say, you know, "We're gonna have free housing, free medicine, free food, you know, free vacations, you're a socialist.

And I think that the other two appeared more moderate, more measured in their views.

You know, I would grade that on worst to best, you know, Sayed, McMorrow and Haley Stevens was, for this crowd, a little more aligned with business interests.

- Huh, huh.

You know, I think there's an interesting question for the Democratic Party in this primary, and it relates to how well they'll do in the general.

If you nominate somebody who, as Nolan points out, is a socialist, or that people think is a socialist, (laughing) how well do you compete against Mike Rogers, who- - How does that play in the general?

- Yeah, right.

Who's waiting for them to emerge in the fall?

- Yeah, it's a great question.

And it's also like who turns out for primaries?

(laughing) You know?

- Yeah, right?

Who votes?

- And what does that look like?

And what Haley Stevens has been trying to say this whole time is that she is the candidate to take on Mike Rogers come November, that that, in the general election, is what's gonna be best for Michigan, is her argument.

I will say, what I was surprised about in the debate is hearing how much applause Abdul El-Sayed got from the audience at a business conference- - He did.

He did.

- when he's basically saying, "Tax big business."

- Yes, yes, and we should note, the candidates weren't allowed to pack the theater with their supporters.

They could bring their staff with 'em.

So that was just a conference crowd there applauding Abdul the way they did.

- Well, that's disturbing then because- - (laughing) 'Cause as you said, he's a socialist, (laughing) - right, I think what Mike Rogers is going to do after seeing that and hearing all three of them sort of take those progressive positions, you know, I think he's gonna wave New York City in front of Michigan and say, you know, "Look what Zohran Mamdani is doing there in terms of confiscating housing and taking over grocery stores."

And he's gonna ask, "Is this what you want in Michigan?"

I think he's gonna have an audience for that warning.

- So I wanna talk a little about the atmosphere here at the conference, as we close this conversation.

As Nolan pointed out, this was supposed to be a very different conference than it was.

It was supposed to be a feeding really of Mike Duggan and his ideas in this gubernatorial race.

It wasn't that.

So what was, I guess, the theme and the sort of focus this week that took over for that, Zoe?

- I think it's this idea of figuring out how we wanna be with each other.

(laughing) I mean, it sounds like- - Yeah, yeah, how do we live with each other?

- How do we live with each other right now, when algorithms are pushing us to be angry at each other, when we're just seeing things that are meant to just, you know, make me mad at my neighbor and make me mad at my coworker or whomever?

I get that there is this sense that this group of business leaders, policymakers, like people are tired of that, but not exactly sure, like, how to get, you know- - How do we get to something else?

- Right, exactly.

And so that's gonna be the takeaway for me.

I don't know that anyone necessarily has the exact answer other than it's gonna take individual by individual.

- Yeah, yeah, Nolan?

- I thought there was some good discussions on education reform.

I think Rick Snyder and Doug Ross did a panel that included the MEA President Chandra Madafferi talking about ending this war between public schools and charter schools, and moving together to allow innovation to come into public schools.

I mean, and innovation is what's been missing.

Kids today are getting educated in much the same way we did when we were kids.

And these kids aren't us, and they deserve a different model that fits who they are today.

And I'm very encouraged by that program and the other conversations about let's at least get the schools right.

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so let's start today with Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield, who made her first appearance at the conference as the city's top political leader.

She addressed the priorities driving her administration and how her office is working to position Detroit for long-term success.

- While Detroit and Michigan have made tremendous progress, we are also at a crossroads.

The decisions that we make now will determine whether growth in the years ahead is temporary or truly sustainable, whether we are growing our state's economy, or are we powering the very people who power the economy?

Typically, growth is measured by cranes in the skyline, activity in our central business district, by population gains or ribbon cuttings.

While all of those things are great economic indicators, we must go a bit deeper to make sure that our growth is more sustainable.

We know that buildings matter, but they are only as good as the foundation on which they stand.

And for me, investing in people is that foundation.

(audience cheering and clapping) And it should be the foundation of any growth strategy.

Building the foundation is about whether families can afford to stay in the communities where they live, where children have a pathway to opportunity and where families can build generational wealth.

Growth is only sustainable if it is rooted in the wellbeing of people, because if all of the traditional economic indicators are strong while people continue to struggle, then our growth model is not sustainable.

Now, conventional wisdom will suggest that investing in people is only a social policy.

But I submit to you all today that it is the foundation of Detroit's growth.

(audience clapping) Because when residents become healthier, more educated, more financially secure, they become the engine for long-term growth.

This leads me... (audience clapping) Yep.

This leads me to what I hope you all take away from this session.

Poverty elimination is a pro-growth strategy.

(audience cheering and clapping) So in order for Detroit to rise higher, we must address the proliferation of poverty that stifles our growth.

"Now, why talk about poverty at the Mackinac Policy Conference?"

I'm sure many are asking.

(laughing) I know, it's tough.

Because poverty is not just a social issue, it is an economic, business, workforce and regional competitiveness issue.

(audience cheering and clapping) Yep.

And if we are serious about building a sustainable growth strategy, which I know we all are, then we need to be serious about eliminating poverty and increasing economic mobility.

- As the future of work evolves, building a talent pipeline in Detroit requires a strong connection between education and training.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District has come up with a new approach to prepare high school students for college and careers.

Plus a new report from Detroit Future City titled "Career Connected Learning: Investing in Detroit's Future Talent" examines the bright spots, the barriers and the opportunities that exist for Detroit students.

- What are the biggest gaps that you identified between education systems and workforce opportunities in Detroit today?

- Right, I think one of the major gaps that we saw was that it was really clear we were building systems with a lot of assumptions about what young people would do after high school.

We assumed that either they were gonna go to a four-year college or they were going to a trade school.

And by trade school, I mean either getting a trade as a plumber, or an electrician, or a hairstylist, those are all trades.

And what we learned from a lot of the focus groups when we spoke to young people was they had really big dreams about what they wanted to do, but they were not exactly sure how to get there.

And the systems that were currently in place ended up being disconnected from what they really wanted to do.

Industries like health and tech and creative tech, right?

They knew that they wanted to be a part of those careers and that they wanted to pursue those, but they had no idea of how to actually make those connections.

And the systems that were built weren't necessarily as obvious and accessible to the young people or their parents to help navigate that career path.

- [Zoe] Sarida, was that a surprise to you?

- You know, it was a bit of a surprise, but one of the things, and part of the reason, you know, the way that the research has done for this report, we really wanted to hear from youth.

And that's the thing, to Anika's point, adults tend to make (laughing) a lot of assumptions.

But if we ask youth what they're interested in, what they need to make those connections between their education to a career, they will tell us, (laughing) they'll tell us and be quite honest about it.

- Yeah, yeah.

Kerrie, DPSCD is launching a major redesign of the high school experience, as we're talking about this pipeline, what is it going to look like compared to a traditional high school?

- You know, it's exactly what, you know, Anika was speaking to.

What we understood and why we decided to do high school redesign is that it's been three years in the making and understanding what our students actually wanted to do, and ensuring that we create those opportunities for them.

And so this transformational project is going to help specifically for 11 neighborhood high schools, and getting them a proper pathway for career, college or trade schools, and providing those opportunities beginning in the ninth grade, because what we saw was that by the time they got to 11th and 12th grade, they no longer thought that high school was a meaningful experience to them.

And so in order for us to make sure that they're interested in it or give them a world of opportunities, that has to start much earlier.

And so we have some programming starting even from sixth to eighth grade, but specifically for ninth grade, we're gonna do an advisory and seminar session every day for the entire time that they're gonna be in high school, where they understand different industries, give them an opportunity to hear from industry professionals, go see some of the sites in person.

And then in 10th grade, what they're gonna experience is four different pathways that they can choose to get a diploma.

And so you'll have an honors diploma pathway, you'll have a dual degree, a career diploma, or an arts diploma.

And everyone will still get that regular Michigan merit, but we wanted to ensure that we digged a little deeper to give them more opportunities.

And then by the time they get to the 11th and 12th grade, we want them out of the high school at that point.

- Wow.

- Going to internships, work-based learning opportunities, or going on campus.

When we looked at the data, most of our students are more inclined to go to college if they actually have that college experience before they leave high school.

- Universities, government and industry can also work together to create stronger pathways for the workforce of tomorrow.

One of the conference sessions explored how these sectors can collaborate to address challenges like affordable housing, health equity and the use of artificial intelligence.

- This is a major topic that we're facing.

Technology is moving so quickly.

And a lot of organizations and talent can't keep up with all these changes.

And there's a lot of fear going on across the organization.

A lot of corporations, you know, need to, you know, cut costs and, you know, their largest line item is labor.

And so what we're seeing today is that, you know, we're seeing a lot of organizations wanting to leverage artificial intelligence for a lot of cost-cutting measures and trying to reskill and upskill the workforce.

And a lot of kids coming outta school are really frightened.

I mean, if you were to, you know, tally kids graduating from school, they're really concerned about the opportunities that are in front of them, whether there's gonna be a position for them to go to.

- Laura, Lee, we all served on the Green and White Council together, maybe you can address some of these fears that kids are saying.

What is MSU doing to take us so that the graduates are ready for the jobs of tomorrow?

- Sure, thanks, Ridgeway.

The Green and White Council was really charged with identifying some of the most complex problems in higher education but across the industry, and thinking about how we can really partner together.

And the charge was simple, what can we learn together through coordinated collaboration?

What can industry inform higher education practices?

How can higher education practices and how we're training and preparing our students also make an impact in terms of those pathways for workforce?

We like to think about it as talent activation.

We're a pipeline that produces graduates that stay in the state of Michigan.

So, broadly speaking, we brought together these 17 industry leaders, thank you for your service, and had some really in-depth conversations about gaps in workforce.

So how we as an institution can prepare our students for jobs that we haven't even fathomed yet.

So when you think about it, these students that are graduating this year are gonna be in the workforce for probably, you know, 45, 50 years, and the jobs of tomorrow haven't even been identified.

So we had a lot of conversations about what can we learn, how do we address those gaps?

And then how can we connect our students to industries so that there are opportunities for internships and experiential learning, so that when our students graduate, they can be placed and stay in the state of Michigan and serve as that economic driver.

- And, Bob, so you sit as one of the largest employers in Michigan.

How do you think about working and what's the role of industry to work with higher ed in informing what you really need for tomorrow?

- We've got some daunting challenges as a state to overcome.

And they're not small challenges, they're big challenges.

But at the root of it is, can we create the experiential learning and the pathway to jobs that makes staying in the state of Michigan or coming to the state of Michigan a easy decision?

And we're facing that with a backdrop of the fact that there's no roadmap for the jobs of the future from the past.

And that's a little bit uneasy for all of us, because of AI and because of the proliferation of digital-based learning.

And so, you know, we're making, to a certain extent, guesses, educated assumptions about what work will look like.

And I think there's an opportunity there.

I think it goes in a couple of buckets.

One is we really need to look at skills versus a specific track to a specific job or a specific title.

And that's a really important pivot to get your head around, 'cause I have people all the time, you know, young folks that say, you know, "What's my best path to become X?"

And I tell them, you know, "X may not exist by the time you get through that journey, but what will exist is a host of jobs that are gonna require these experiences, these skillsets, these checks on curriculum and programs."

And it sort of changes the thought process when you do that.

But that requires that business and academic institutions work really closely together, because if we operate in silos, we'll never have that shared learning.

- Earlier this year, Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield stressed the importance of collaboration when she signed an executive order creating the Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety.

The department houses the city's Community Violence Intervention programs, which treat crime as a public health issue that can be addressed through prevention, intervention and support programs.

It's a strategy that is being considered statewide.

- So for people unfamiliar with Community Violence Intervention, what does the work actually look like on the ground day to day?

- It looks like reaching out to individuals in the community who are at the highest risk for being involved in cycles of gun violence, and offering them resources, but also offering them mentorship and guidance, as it relates to addressing some of the conflicts that arise in community.

- And it's growing and expanding.

- Yes, it is.

It's growing and expanding in the different neighborhoods, different communities, and also across the state.

And as it grows in experience, it's becoming professionalized, to a degree to where standard operating procedures are being codified when it comes to some of the infrastructure that is being established throughout the community.

- Yeah, and Senator, you have some legislation.

- Yes, I do.

And I have to just build off of what Zoe said, because I think the secret sauce around Community Violence Intervention programs is that it's grassroots and it also coordinates with local law enforcement.

And so it's designed as a partnership, as a compliment to some of the more traditional law enforcement.

And I've seen it both in Lansing, in Detroit.

In Lansing, we have Advance Peace.

These are folks who are no strangers in the neighborhoods, and they already have organic relationships, and they're able to leverage those relationships to prevent violence before it starts.

Law enforcement don't do that.

They show up after a crime is committed.

And so to build that capacity from a neighborhood perspective is something that, as lawmakers, when we see a best practice, we have to build upon that, both financially and also with policy.

So that's what we're trying to do in the Michigan legislature.

In the Senate, we have several bills to codify Community Violence Intervention and make sure that there's funding attached to it, because let's face it, you know, budgets are moral documents, and you can say that you care about Community Violence Intervention, you care about safe communities, but, you know, my mom's from Missouri, it's the show-me state.

So you gotta show me where the money is.

And I think that that's an important piece of what we're trying to do in the legislature.

- Yeah, Mike, Hudson-Webber has supported FORCE Detroit and similar initiatives.

Why is the philanthropic and business community investing in violence intervention programs?

- There's a moral and a business case for all of this work?

I think as an organization that cares deeply about Detroit and Detroiters, making sure that it's a safe community and making sure that Detroiters have participation in the safety of their community is incredibly important.

We also knew that safety and principally violent crimes were a very significant challenge in Detroit for a very long time.

And it wasn't until philanthropic community and public sector and private sector really embraced that community could have a significant import on changing that trajectory that we saw the trajectory change.

And we're seeing the trajectory change.

- So tell me about your work.

How did you get involved?

- One, I come from having lived experience.

I spent a significant amount of my life being challenged with some like social ills as it relates to gun violence.

I lost a lot of friends.

I actually went to prison for a violent offense.

And I was mentored and groomed by individuals in there.

And like both of them said, community members lifted me up.

I got involved, my brother's a poet, he introduced me to our founder, Alia Harvey Quinn.

She mentored me and exposed me to the concept of Community Violence Intervention.

I put forth as much effort as I possibly could to learn and implement the things that I learned.

And we created a comprehensive strategy to implement it, as well as advocate for using the socioecological model.

- Partnerships are essential to the work of social service organizations that support vulnerable populations in areas like housing, food insecurity, foster care and mental health.

The leaders of three social service agencies spoke with us about their efforts and the current situation right here in Michigan.

- We're seeing a lot of families struggle with homelessness, like we haven't seen before, and affordability.

They're also struggling with gainful employment opportunities.

At the same time, we're seeing for the first time in a long time I can remember, a significant need for basic needs to be fulfilled.

And they know there are potential more cuts, you know, that are coming, that are going to impact them.

So by way of example, we can have a family that is struggling with addiction.

We're providing them with the right services, getting them on the road to recovery.

They have a gainful employment opportunity, but they're still living in their car, right?

Because there just is not enough affordable housing as part of that safety net to be able to help families in times of crisis, much less sustain the situation that they're in once they achieve some independence and success.

- Yeah, I think it's a question that needs to be asked, why?

Why are we at this point now?

You said it's increasing.

- Well, the housing crisis is a significant issue right now.

We know that, I hate to even use the word affordable housing because it has its own stigma that comes with it.

And if we're being really honest, everything is inaffordable right now, you know, when it comes to housing.

And we have families that are changing.

I mean, families used to be 4.2 members, right?

Today they're more like 2.3 members.

And so we have smaller families, but we're not necessarily building the right infrastructure to support those families.

And so you're leaving people homeless or with very little options to be able to respond.

- Yeah, Kevin, MCHS Family of Services is going to become the largest foster care agency in Michigan.

Where are the greatest unmet needs right now?

- For one family, it could literally be housing.

Another family, it could be food insecurity.

A third, it could be the cost of childcare, right?

We know that there's many contributing factors that will lead families into these type of situations.

And when we think about, certainly from our vantage point at MCHS, we know that, for one thing, this doesn't discriminate, right?

There's a lot of families, a lot of households who are being impacted or who are feeling kind of the rebound effect from just a few years ago.

And so for us, right, we're meeting these families where they're at and trying to figure out what those community needs truly are, because they do slightly shift based off of certainly what community or what household you're speaking to.

- Brian, Lighthouse is building a major new central campus in Pontiac.

What gap is the project designed to fill?

- Well, our original vision for the campus redevelopment was really on the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And so when we saw a huge increase in basic needs, emergency services in our community, we stepped up to meet that mostly in the space of emergency food and emergency shelter.

We did that through renting large amounts of warehouse space and purchasing large amounts of food for distribution and through using hotels in our community.

And so the campus redevelopment was really focused on what is the best of the best when it comes to models of delivering these services that we learned during that period at scale?

And how do we invest from a capital perspective and what we need to deliver on that, sustainably, in a dignified way, that meets the needs of the people coming to us today?

It happened right after our merger that was really focused on Lighthouse and South Oakland Shelter coming together to focus on longer-term solutions.

So really housing, development of affordable housing, really addressing the environmental barriers for families that are trying to reach some level of financial sustainability.

And so we did kind of have to go back to our roots a bit on investing in emergency services.

But concurrently, we're working on a large number of affordable housing projects throughout Pontiac, Oakland County and Detroit, really focusing on, when people come to us for emergency services, what's our best hope for where these folks are gonna land and what is or is not in the local marketplace to empower them to succeed?

- Each year, Governor Gretchen Whitmer makes an appearance at the Mackinac Policy Conference to provide updates on the state's progress and announce new initiatives.

This year, she made her final address as the state's chief executive.

- Every year, my keynote focuses on one or two big ideas.

And the common thread is always our ability as Michiganders to work together, to solve problems, and move Michigan forward.

To no one's surprise today, I'm going to talk about collaboration.

We know that big achievements require collaboration.

I've signed almost 1,600 bipartisan bills, seven bipartisan budgets, with one more soon.

I'm really proud of that.

And despite that, we know that our politics have gotten more divided.

Too many people are too quick to judge.

Algorithms are designed to keep us scrolling, often pit us against one another.

Some leaders stoke anger and distrust.

These forces make us angry, hopeless and apathetic.

And the data backs it up.

Fewer competitive congressional districts than ever, states racing to draw gerrymandered maps, more partisanship and fewer bipartisan bills in DC.

As governor, I regularly work across the aisle to get things done, because I believe a governor's oath is to the people of Michigan.

People ask me why I love this job despite all the (laughing) challenges we've had to overcome.

Mass shootings, polar vortex, tornadoes, floods, death threats, plots, divisive elections, global pandemic, to name a few.

My answer why I love this job is my fellow Michiganders.

There is truly inspiration everywhere.

On some days, you might have to search for it, but it's there.

Our state is full of good, honest, hardworking people who care about their neighbors and wanna make our two peninsulas better.

I'm proud to be a Michigander.

And we've been able to get a lot of things done in Michigan.

In my executive office, we like to think of our accomplishments as revolving around the five F's.

We've invested in our factories.

We've built strong foundations for our kids and workforce.

We help people's finances with jobs and lower costs.

We fixed the damn roads and protected fundamental freedoms for all.

But our biggest hurdle, our biggest hurdle is the culture of division.

In just a few weeks, we will all celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary.

I'm grateful to be an American every day.

With that identity carries an awesome responsibility to make our union more perfect, however we can.

Our founders understood the value of robust debate.

Since the very beginning, we've been raucous and loud and argumentative, but we knew how to work together.

- The list of candidates vying to replace Governor Whitmer got shorter last week when former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan dropped out of the race.

Duggan was running as an independent, and he ended his bid after realizing he couldn't win.

Detroit Regional Chamber President and CEO Sandy Baruah sat down for a conversation with Duggan.

- My whole life has been about facing reality as it is, and not as you wish it to be.

And so I started off in December of '24, and I looked at pretty much all the numbers that you showed here, that this state had been declining for decades, as the Republicans and Democrats switched back and forth.

And I really reached the conclusion the only way to break the cycle was to get outside the parties.

Started out at 15%.

And they said, "What's this independent thing?"

And then people started to get it, and it climbed to 19, and I was up here last year at 21, 26.

And you could feel the crowds grow and the people being excited.

And last February, year poll showed that I had polled dead even at 30%.

And then the national winds change dramatically.

Trump goes into Iran, gas prices start to soar, and my town halls change from, "I'm the farmer who's been forgotten by Lansing.

The young person who can't find affordable housing in Michigan," it turned to, "With all the threat we're under from Washington, how do you know you're not gonna split the vote and turn it over to Republicans?"

And you could feel the tone change.

And in April, we did a poll, and I was down five points.

For 15 months, I had gained every single poll.

And I was down five.

And then your poll came out in May, and I was down 11.

That by itself wasn't terribly troubling, but when 65% of Democrats say they're afraid to vote for me 'cause I'm gonna tip it, now that lane is really narrow.

And then there was the flip piece, which is the people of this state have been enormous in their financial support.

I out-raised all of the candidates last year, but 94% of my donations came from the state of Michigan.

A majority of my chief opponents' came out of state.

There is very deep pockets in national money for Republicans and Democrats, tens of millions of dollars.

The fact is, there is no national fundraising base that says, "I want an independent governor in Michigan."

There's just not.

And I spent a lot of time with everybody.

And so here is the reality I'm facing.

I've gotta go back to my Michigan donors and say, "No national money is coming.

The only way I overcome these odds is Michigan donors doubling what they've already done."

And the question I had to ask is this, when the folks here and the folks across the state looked me in the eye and said, "Okay, Mike, if we double what we've done, do you feel confident on a path to victory?"

and the truth wasn't good conscience, I couldn't say that.

- This is also the last year in office for US Senator Gary Peters.

He's retiring after more than two decades as an elected official at the local, state and federal levels.

Senator Peters spoke with Zoe Clark right here at the Detroit PBS desk.

- This is gonna be your last Mackinac Policy Conference as a sitting senator.

- Yeah, that's right.

- What does that mean for you?

- Yeah, well, I mean, a little bittersweet.

I'm ready to move on to new challenges, but I've been coming here as a state senator for a lot of years, and then as a House member, and then now a senator.

And so there's quite a bit of history.

- What's changed?

I'm thinking in particular as we're talking about a quest for common ground, the conference theme.

- As to what's changed in the world?

I mean- - Well, (laughing) there's a lot that's changed in the world.

- I was gonna say, yeah.

- I think I mean the conference and the discussions and the policy conversations that were happening.

Maybe things haven't changed over the past years.

- Yeah, and actually, I think they're probably more important now than ever that we're doing this, because over the years what I have found, and I take great pride in bringing people together, passing bipartisan bills.

Over the last three congresses, I passed more bills that I signed than any other US Senator.

And I do it because I find a Republican colleague to work with me, and you get 'em passed to do it.

And yet, I will tell you, over that 18 years that I will have been in Congress, every year is harder and harder to get that done.

Part of it is that some of the people, which I think is sad, but it's the nature of where we are in the world, that some of the folks that I did work with on the other side who wanted to get things done, they leave, either get defeated, but usually they just move on, and then the new person that comes tends to be a whole lot more partisan, either further to the right or further to the left.

And so it's harder to find that kind of common ground.

And I think that gets rewarded.

The sad thing is people who just roll up their sleeves and try to get things done, that's not getting rewarded today.

It's about how do you get the attention economy?

How do you get people worked up?

You yell and throw rocks, on both sides, that tends to get more attention.

But that's not healthy for a democracy that needs people to come together.

- Yeah, and yet it's so interesting because polling shows that Americans say they want compromise.

And I guess the question is, but do they reward it?

- They don't.

I mean, that's the problem.

You don't see that reward, especially, well, I mean, a lot of this is done in primaries too.

So it's a smaller subset of the population.

I think it'll get more likely to be rewarded in a general election.

But you gotta get there to begin with.

- I'm curious if knowing that you're leaving in the next seven months, has it changed your governing philosophy, your attitude, maybe how you've been thinking about voting?

- No, I mean, you know, I always try to be true all the time.

And I think you gotta vote the way you want.

My rule has always been I gotta look in the mirror in the morning after a vote and say, "I feel comfortable with what I did," and take the consequences for it.

So that hasn't changed at all.

The one thing that has changed is that instead of being on, I'd be campaigning right now, I would be spending this time with you, then I'd be running somewhere else immediately to go campaign.

And right now, what is really, I think and more importantly, now I can just focus on that governing piece.

We're in a challenging time in our history.

I can focus all my effort on being the best senator I can possibly be without having to worry about a campaign and having somebody track me and try to catch me and saying one word out of place that they can clip and put it (laughing) on a TV commercial.

That's not a great life to live.

- The Mackinac Policy Conference is known for attracting prominent national and international speakers.

This year, actor and humanitarian, Gary Sinise, sat down for a conversation in the Grand Hotel's theater about patriotism, as America approaches its 250th birthday.

Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke on the current political landscape and the importance of leaders finding common ground.

And Pete Buttigieg, the former US Secretary of Transportation, took part in a conversation about navigating political divides.

Another special guest was professor, philosopher, author and activist, Cornell West.

His talk focused on truth, common ground and civilized conversation.

- All the talk about class, gender, sexual orientation, national identity and so forth get in the way of acknowledging the ways in which we as human beings, you know the English word human comes from the Latin humando, which means burial.

When Socrates says, "The unexamined life is not a life for the human," he's talking about humando, and humando means burial.

We're on the way to burial, we're vanishing creatures, we're disappearing organisms.

And the question is always, what kind of human beings will we choose to be in the short time that we are here?

(audience clapping) That's the question.

That's what Heraclitus understood when he said, "Not only everything flows, but character is destiny."

That's what the greatest American man of letters, Ralph Waldo Emerson, meant when he said, "Character is destiny."

And I'm just so very blessed because I come from a family, community and a people that put primacy on character.

We all are who we are because somebody loved us, somebody cared for us, somebody sacrificed for us.

Common humanity.

Then I wanna acknowledge the ways in which it's very hard to find a people in the last 400 years who've been more chronically hated as Black people, and yet muster the courage to teach the world so much about love.

John Coltrane's "Love Supreme" is not just a song.

It comes from the depths, it was being wrestling with the dark corners of his own soul, and then generating a sound that brings us together, common starting point, common ground.

And we haven't even got to the love and need of the love of that genius out of Saginaw, Detroit, claims that he lives in LA, but the greatest love warrior of his generation, Stevie Wonder.

Oh, that's Motown right there.

(audience laughing) Mm-hmm.

(audience clapping) Those are not just songs.

Those are people who looked hatred in the face and decided to become love warriors, who looked terror in the face and decided to call for freedom for everybody.

That's Frederick Douglass, that's Ida B. Wells, that's Fannie Lou Hamer.

And we haven't got to Martin King yet.

That's the people who've been traumatized for 400 years, but at our best decide to be wounded healers rather than wounded hurters.

- Two years ago at the Mackinac Policy Conference, the Fred and Barbara Herb Family Foundation announced a $7.5 million challenge grant to help Detroit PBS and 90.9 WRCJ build a new public media campus in Detroit.

Today, Detroit PBS has another announcement.

That challenge has been met a full year ahead of schedule.

- The reaction we've gotten around what we're calling Challenge Met, Challenge Next.

So we've got work to do.

We've got a future to build and a campaign to finish.

But as we stepped up to the community and said, "Help us, we have built an organization that serves Detroit like never before."

We're sort of the last man standing, if you will.

Locally owned, locally governed, locally committed media outlet, and that's critical.

But the wonderful part, the very gratifying part, is the reaction from the community.

People really want to help.

And we have gotten these wonderful phone calls and these wonderful moments where people are like, "We need you, and we're gonna step up and our family will do this."

And that, I think, played into exactly the idea of a challenge grant, to say to the community, "We have a commitment for 7 1/2 million dollars from a very important organization that's been involved with Detroit PBS for 60-plus years.

Just amazing organization.

Help us, and so that exactly what Melissa (laughing) and the Herb Organization has designed worked, and so it's been very gratifying.

- Yeah, Melissa, challenge grants are designed to test momentum, right, as much as to create it.

From a philanthropic perspective, does meeting a challenge grant ahead of schedule change how other donations and institutions view a project like this?

- I think it's seen as the proof of concept.

And it really gives a lot of confidence to donors and future donors that this is something exciting.

And as you said earlier, Rich, people do wanna help.

Detroit PBS provides such a wonderful service for our community, and a number of folks wanna help.

And so we were glad that we could be part of this and issue that challenge grant.

And I'm so excited to be here today knowing that- - Same thing.

- it has been met.

- Now let's bring back Nolan Finley and Zoe Clark to talk about what happens after the Mackinac Policy Conference.

I think that's always a huge question.

Do we come up here for three days and waste everybody's time and, you know, make a big stink about a theme, but not walk away with actual takeaways, things that we can do differently?

What did you see this week that we can look forward to?

- Again, I don't necessarily agree with that.

- No?

- You know, I think one of the expectations, - I'm not saying we ever do waste anyone's time.

- No, of course not.

(Stephen laughing) But the expectations for this conference are often realistic.

This is not a policymaking conference.

It's a policy discussion conference.

It's a place where people get put together to work on all sorts of problems, involving business, government, civic community.

So it's connections and it's productive conversations that don't necessarily lead to, "Okay, we're gonna go back and do these three things."

But I think there's some promising initiatives in place.

I think there's a deal being worked out to fund the destruction of, or the Renaissance Center, and get those Brownfield credit money to make that project work.

There's a discussion, as I mentioned earlier, on innovative school districts.

So if those advance from here in any meaningful way, you can't write this off as not a successful gathering.

- It's not a moondog, right.

(laughing) - Yeah.

- Zoe?

- Yeah, I mean, I will say, one of the things that I hear when I'm talking to folks here at the desk, right, and I'm not talking about necessarily elected officials, but those not-for-profits or business leaders, they will often say that they can get more done vis-a-vis meetings up here on this island in two or three days than they could otherwise in months.

- 'Cause you can't get away from anybody.

- You can't get away from (laughing) anybody.

That's true.

- Whether you want to or not.

- No.

(Stephen laughing) - I always talk about the list of things that we have seen get accomplished, like done up here.

The biggest, of course, is the bridge, the Gordie Howe Bridge was about to open, that deal was not done when we came up, I guess, in what, 2011 or '12?

And it happened up here.

Endless numbers of budget fights in Lansing get resolved up here when the governor can make the legislators sit in a room and not leave.

- Yeah, and I was up here one year when we got word that, under the Dave Bing administration, that GM was pulling out of Lorenzen.

- [Stephen] Was gonna leave Lorenzen.

- And you know, I saw Congress members, the mayor, business leaders sort of mobilize in an instant and save that lease.

- Yeah, all right, let's talk a little about the governor's race.

Mike Duggan is out.

So we still have Jocelyn Benson on the Democratic side.

On the Republican side, we've got John James, Perry Johnson, and a number of other candidates.

Where does the race go substantively from here without Mike Duggan's message about how we do things differently, now we've got the establishment firmly in charge?

- Oh yeah, and you noticed what happened as soon as he dropped out.

We were trying to arrange a gubernatorial debate.

Jocelyn Benson said, "No, I'm not gonna debate.

I wanna be interviewed one on one."

Well, we weren't gonna do that.

So she's immediately moved into protecting what she thinks is a pretty substantial lead, and she may be right, given the anti-Republican move of the country.

- Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest change right now, that with Duggan in, it was very much, or what Duggan was trying to do is have it sort of be a plague on both their houses, but the houses being here in Lansing, Democrats and Republicans.

It wasn't necessarily a nationalized race yet.

And one of the things Duggan said, I mean, one of the main reasons he said why he dropped out was these headwinds, right?

And that suddenly $5-a-gallon gas, the war in Iran, that all of these things suddenly have trickled up and made this gubernatorial race a national referendum yet again on Trump, as we have seen in midterms before.

- Yeah, do we think that that message that he was trying to get across, which is that we have been doing it wrong and can do it differently, can persevere in a Lansing that doesn't have that independent voice?

- I think the failure of his campaign and of that message to generate enough of a groundswell of his support to carry him across all of the other obstacles is very discouraging.

And you know, I talked to him up here this week for a sit-down.

And he said, "Well, I hope in the future, somebody will look back and say, "This was the start of something."

I don't share that same hope.

- [Stephen] Yeah, Zoe?

- Yeah, I mean, I think what's really interesting is he did this sit down here on Mackinac still, right?

He still showed up.

- He was here, yeah.

- He was, and he did a sit-down.

And when you were looking at people in those rooms, I mean, they were bereft, they were disappointed.

Now, given this is his home team, right?

- Right.

(laughing) - Like we gotta understand that.

But I think there still continues to be a lot of remorse among this crowd here that he is not still in this race, you know, particularly after even hearing him at this conversation and him talking about so openly, you know, the decisions that he made and what he still wants to see happen in this state.

- Yeah, I mean, I think- - It's like the corpse got out of the casket, walked around the room, and everybody was cheering.

(Stephen laughing) Then he got back in, it's like, "Oh."

- Oh no, right?

We don't have him anymore.

Yeah, I mean, I think that whatever happens, you know, it's also up to us in the media to keep raising those questions for the rest of the candidates and try to frame the race in terms of change and progress rather than status quo.

But I guess we'll have to see whether that works.

- We'll have to leave it there.

- Zoe, Nolan, always great to see you up here.

That's gonna do it for us here at the 2026 Mackinac Policy Conference.

Thanks for watching.

You can see the conference sessions and our desk interviews on demand at onedetroitpbs.org.

We wanna thank our partners at the Detroit Regional Chamber for hosting yet another important gathering of decision makers.

And as always, Detroit PBS is proud to bring this conference to viewers all around our state.

Stay with "One Detroit" for in-depth coverage of the issues that matter to you.

For all of us here at Detroit PBS, I'm Stephen Henderson, take care, and we'll see you next time.

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