Gallup, Damoose Face Off in 37th Senate Race

Two candidates with divergent views on campaign finance, health care expansion and state education funding are squaring off in the state Senate’s 37th District race ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

Incumbent Republican Sen. John Damoose of Harbor Springs is being challenged by Leelanau County resident and Democrat Kate Gallup to represent the expansive district that stretches across Northern Michigan into the eastern U.P.

Damoose, 54, earned a political science degree from the University of Michigan, and went to work for the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia.  He started a broadcast production company with his father back in 2000 called 45 North Productions that specialized in patriotic documentaries. He was elected to the state House in 2020 in the 107th district, before his election to the state Senate four years ago.

Gallup, 40, is a Cedar resident and Traverse City native who earned a degree in material science and engineering from the University of Michigan, where she also attended graduate school. She’s worked as a patent examiner for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Virginia, where she also worked as an event coordinator. After returning to Michigan during the COVID pandemic, she worked as school teacher in Leelanau County and creates and sells art for her family’s Good Harbor Gallery in Maple City.

Gallup and Damoose have opposite views on the state’s Proposal 2, the “Money Out of Politics” ballot proposal that would prohibit regulated utilities, major state contractors and others from contributing to political campaigns. Gallup worked for and supports the proposal, and criticized Damoose for taking campaign dollars from DTE and CMS Energy.

“I don’t take any utility or corporate money, because I know that despite a politician’s best intentions, when you do take money from certain entities that can have an influence,” Gallup says. “By not taking that, I feel I’m in a better position to push back on utility rate hikes and insurance hikes and other areas.”

Damoose, who holds more than a 3-to-1 fundraising advantage over Gallup, takes a different view.

Unless we only want rich people running for office, there will always be donor money in politics,” Damoose says. “There’s a few self-funders that come along, and God bless them for being able to do that. I’m not in that situation."

Damoose counters that Proposal 2 won’t stop unions or “dark money” from out-of-state sources from contributing to state campaigns.

“If you’re going to get money out of politics, then get money out of politics – this does not do that,” Damoose says. “Nobody spends more money in politics than unions, and Proposal 2 does nothing to stop them from being able to give.”

Gallup is calling for a significant increase in revenue for Michigan’s public schools, which she says are under-funded by $4.5 billion. She also supports the “MiCare” bill that would extend Medicare coverage to all Michigan residents.

“One of things I find really interesting is that Michigan’s education funding, inflation adjusted, is lower today than it was 24 years ago,” Gallup says. The state’s per-pupil foundation allowance should be raised to $14,000 per year, she says, a 36 percent increase from the current level of $10,300.

On health care, Gallup says she’s met many residents during the campaign that have had to drop their health insurance coverage.

“The whole system is strained,” Gallup says. “My long-term goal is to pass MiCare, which is health care for all in Michigan…I think that has to be the big and bold vision for people that we work towards.”

Damoose agrees that public education in Michigan needs to improve, but says the state’s challenge “is not a lack of funding… clearly pouring more money into this system isn’t working.”

Damoose says the state’s watered down education standards in term of student grading and teacher evaluations, elementary reading requirements and more.

“The bottom line is when you’re 43rd or 44th in the country in education, you don’t have the right to get rid of standards,” he says. “We’ve been going in the wrong direction with that, but some of this is starting to be addressed.”

Damoose agrees that health care access and affordability are major issues for the region, but that expanding Medicare benefits to all Michigan residents is not a state role.
“It sounds good, and it gets a bunch of people cheering,” Damoose says. “But I just want our voters to be realistic and understand that they’re voting for a state Senator here… we have no role in developing Medicare for all.”

The two candidates are also at odds over the Enbridge Inc. proposal to build a tunnel to house the Line 5 oil and natural gas pipeline that runs through the Straits of Mackinac in the heart of the district.

“The question before us is to build the tunnel or keep it it how it is- the bottom line is that absolutely the tunnel is better than leaving this pipeline on the bottom of Lake Michigan,” Damoose says, adding that the pipeline is critical to meeting Michigan’s energy needs, especially in the Upper Peninsula.

Gallup says she stands with multiple Michigan Indian tribes in calling for the shutdown of Line 5.

“I believe there are viable alternatives,” Gallup says, including retrofitting existing infrastructure that carries oil and gas through Michigan and Wisconsin.

“We can shut down the (pipeline) without increasing costs to people in Michigan for their energy needs,” Gallup says. “I also think for me it’s not just an environmental issue, but it’s also being in solidarity with the tribes.”

Gallup also supports a temporary moratorium on data centers in Michigan, while state and local officials work on “guard rails” surrounding their location and utilization.

“There’s a lot of concerns with (artificial intelligence) in general, and there’s a lot of concern with what else is stored in data centers of mass surveillance,” Gallup says. “People in these communities don’t want the data centers that are going to capture all of this data that should be private…at the state level, there are definitely some guidelines that should be in place.”

Damoose touts his abilities to work across the aisle and says he’s worked with politicians in both parties on various legislative initiatives including affordable housing and curbing human trafficking.

“I think I’m known as the most bi-partisan senator out there,” Damoose says. “And this is really the call of our day, because there’s no need for us to be at each other’s throats all of the time on every issue.”

The 37th is Michigan’s third-largest Senate district. It includes Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet and Cheboygan counties, and parts of Chippewa and Mackinac counties in the eastern U.P.