Michigan Republicans, blocked by voters from being directly involved in redrawing the state’s voting maps, launched a coordinated effort to influence the independent commission tasked with the job, an action documented in a series of recordings obtained by NBC News.
Senior state party officials hosted training sessions, conducting at least two last month, and distributed talking points coaching Republican supporters on how to argue on behalf of map changes that experts say would favor GOP candidates. Those same talking points were later repeated in testimony taken by the commission as part of the redistricting process in the critical battleground state.
Video recordings of two Zoom training sessions conducted on Oct. 18 and 19 were shared with NBC News by a source critical of the effort. Those sessions were conducted by Republican operatives, including Michigan Republican Party Political Director Andrea Pollock and Senior Director Sarah Anderson, as well as members of FAIR Maps Michigan, a conservative redistricting group that has criticized the independent commission.
“By law, we cannot engage with those commission members directly. We have not and we will not, which is where all of you come in. You get to go talk to them in public hearings and leave messages on the portal,” Anderson told attendees of the Oct. 19 training.