How Mike Duggan’s independent campaign for governor fell apart

Mike Duggan’s independent campaign for governor began as a bold experiment in post-partisan politics and ended Thursday with a thud.

The former Detroit mayor, who spent decades as a Democrat before launching a bid governor as an independent, abruptly suspended his campaign after new polling showed him slipping badly in a three-way race against Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Republican U.S. Rep. John James.

In a letter to supporters, Duggan blamed national politics, President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, rising gas prices, and the difficulty of raising money outside the two-party system.

“By April, the mood of the country had shifted suddenly and dramatically,” Duggan wrote. “Democrats (and many Independents) were unified in anger as Trump’s war in Iran dragged on and gas prices rose above $5 a gallon.”

Duggan said internal polling showed that anger over gas prices and Iran was “boosting Democrats in every office nationally.” He also pointed to the latest Detroit Regional Chamber poll, which showed him 11 points behind Benson.

“If we were even in the polls and behind in fundraising, we have a path to winning,” Duggan wrote. “If we were behind in the polls and even in fundraising, we have a path. But we’re behind in both.”

He added, “It’s just not right to ask our volunteers, faith leaders, unions, elected officials and donors to continue in a campaign that, in my heart, I no longer feel good about our chances to win.”

But Duggan’s collapse was not just about Trump, Iran, or national fundraising.

For months, the former mayor struggled to explain his platform and what he actually stood for. He tried to court Democrats, Republicans, independents, unions, business leaders, Trump supporters, and Detroit voters all at once. In the process, he alienated key Democratic voters, embraced controversial Republican donors, sidestepped Trump’s most dangerous rhetoric, leaned into culture-war talking points, and carried the baggage of his own record in Detroit and at the Detroit Medical Center.

Duggan said he was rising above the two parties, but the campaign often seemed reluctant to take sides on controversial issues driving the election. 

Back in February, Duggan appeared to be gaining momentum. A Detroit Regional Chamber poll showed Benson at 30.9%, Duggan at 30.3%, and James at 29.5%, making the race a virtual tie. Chamber president and CEO Sandy Baruah called Duggan’s rise “striking.”

By May, the picture had changed dramatically. A new Chamber poll showed Benson leading with 34%, followed by James at 29%, and Duggan at 23%.

The slide was especially damaging because the Chamber had endorsed Duggan. Even one of his most prominent institutional backers was releasing numbers that showed him falling behind.

In his letter, Duggan insisted that 23% support still represented “more than 1.6 million Michigan voters” looking for a governor who wanted to reduce partisan conflict. But in a winner-take-all race, that also meant he was on track to become exactly what he said he did not want to be, and that was a voter splitter.

“I got into this race to try to change our politics, not to be a spoiler,” Duggan wrote.

Justin Mendoza, executive director of Progress Michigan, a progressive advocacy group, says Duggan’s campaign was flawed from the start because it misunderstood the voters he was trying to reach.

“He was trying to appeal to a MAGA base who proves every election that they follow Trump’s support,” Mendoza tells Metro Times. “That approach was doomed to begin with.”

Duggan spent much of the campaign trying to portray himself as the mayor who brought back Detroit after bankruptcy. But that message became harder to sell as critics focused on the parts of his record that complicated the comeback story.

“Over the last couple months, he has been attempting to define himself as a leader who revitalized Detroit,” Mendoza says. “I think the true story we hear from Detroiters, and that we’ve seen around his career, is that he has a history of scandals, cronyism, and alleged corruption. It’s just there under the surface.”

Duggan’s record gave critics plenty to work with. Over four decades in public life, investigations and controversies followed him from Wayne County government to the prosecutor’s office, then to the Detroit Medical Center and City Hall.

As Duggan ran for governor, Detroit’s contaminated demolition dirt scandal kept growing. The city is now testing more than 650 sites and spending millions more to determine the scope of a crisis that was announced during the final days of Duggan’s administration.

The scandal is especially damaging because Duggan repeatedly touted Detroit’s demolition program as one of his signature achievements. But testing at some demolition sites found dangerous contaminants, including arsenic, lead, chromium, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, toxic chemicals linked to cancer risk.

In December, just before leaving office, Duggan suggested the issue was relatively contained. Since then, the number of flagged sites has grown, Detroit increased its environmental testing contract by 350%, and city officials acknowledged delays in testing and remediation.

Mendoza says the toxic dirt scandal made it more difficult for Duggan to sell himself as the mayor who fixed Detroit.

“This whole situation of the failed oversight of this toxic dirt has a profound impact on Detroit families and on public safety,” Mendoza says.

Duggan’s record at the Detroit Medical Center also complicated his ability to win over labor voters. As Metro Times reported, Duggan oversaw layoffs of union hospital workers while becoming a millionaire at DMC. While he was president and CEO of the eight-hospital system between 2004 and 2012, unions repeatedly accused the hospital system of aggressive tactics to stop organizing and weaken bargaining units.

In 2012, DMC laid off an entire class of unionized hospital aides at Hutzel Hospital and replaced them with non-union employees, prompting a federal labor complaint. 

Duggan later brokered the sale of the nonprofit hospital system to Vanguard Health Systems, a for-profit hospital chain backed by private-equity investors. The system was later sold to Tenet Healthcare and faced years of federal scrutiny, safety violations, and labor disputes.

For a candidate trying to cast himself as pro-union, the record was a problem.

“His leadership at DMC, where he was part of an administration that held back unionized employees and tried to break up that union, was part of the story voters were learning,” Mendoza explains.

Duggan did secure endorsements from some unions, including one from the Sterling Heights Police Officers Association made public just an hour before he announced he was ending his campaign, and in his exit letter he said he “continued to pile up huge numbers of union endorsements.” 

But his labor support was uneven. Benson had already won endorsements from major statewide unions, including the Michigan Nurses Association and the Michigan Laborers’ District Council.

Duggan also turned off voters by embracing data centers, which critics say consume enormous amounts of water and electricity, drive up utility costs, and threaten farmland. He repeatedly said Michigan needed data centers to attract the jobs of the future, at one point saying the state needed them “whether you’re ready to accept it or not.” 

But as residents across Michigan grew concerned about the enormous energy demands, water use, farmland loss, and secrecy surrounding data center deals, Duggan’s position became politically risky.

“This is not a slam dunk for anyone right now,” Mendoza says of data centers. “What we know is that when people know a lot about data centers, they don’t want them.”

A Progress Michigan poll released in December found that public opposition to data centers increases as voters learn more about their potential costs. The poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling, found that less than a third of Michigan voters supported bringing more data centers to the state. When voters were told opponents say data centers create mostly temporary construction jobs, consume large amounts of energy and water, drive up utility bills, and risk water shortages, opposition grew even more. 

Duggan later tried to soften his position, saying Michigan needed “a clear standard for data centers” and that he would back local communities. But his campaign still released a policy plan saying large data centers are “key to building a competitive economy that brings future tech jobs to Michigan and keeps young people here.”

That left him open to criticism that he was trying to soften a position that had become politically costly. It also reinforced concerns that his campaign was too closely aligned with corporate interests, utilities, and wealthy donors.

Adding to those concerns, voters weren’t likely to be enthused that Gerry Anderson, the former chairman and CEO of DTE Energy — Michigan’s largest electric utility and a supporter of data centers — was helping shape Duggan’s campaign policy proposals. 

Money also became one of Duggan’s biggest vulnerabilities.

A Metro Times review of Duggan’s campaign finance records found that a sizable share of his fundraising came from Trump donors, Republican power brokers, and corporate executives with interests in state policy. Among them were billionaire Roger Penske, former Michigan GOP Chair Ron Weiser, charter school mogul J.C. Huizenga, former state GOP co-chair Jeff Sakwa, Compuware founder Peter Karmanos, the Nicholson family of PVS Chemicals, and other wealthy donors who have supported Trump, the GOP and conservative causes.

Duggan also received support from a dark money nonprofit, Put Progress First, which placed billboards praising him as “America’s most effective mayor” while shielding its donors from public scrutiny.

For a candidate who said he wanted to break the two-party system, the donor list and more conservative rhetoric told a different story. Duggan’s campaign increasingly looked like a vehicle for Republicans and corporate interests who saw him as a more acceptable alternative to a Democrat. 

That perception deepened in October, when Duggan attended a high-dollar fundraiser co-hosted by Anthony Soave, a wealthy businessman who donated $100,000 to a Trump political action committee and has been linked to multiple Detroit corruption scandals involving city contracts.

The Michigan Democratic Party responded with billboards that read, “MAGA Money ❤️ Mike Duggan.”

Duggan’s campaign dismissed the criticism, saying he was drawing support from both Democrats and Republicans. But his political attacks were uneven.

Duggan, who had campaigned for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris, suddenly began attacking Democrats far more often than Republicans. He accused Democrats of caring only about hating Republicans and Trump. He said “people are fed up with this Democratic Party in Michigan.” He parroted conservative language on undocumented immigrants. And he declined to directly condemn some of Trump’s most extreme rhetoric.

In November, Duggan was asked on WXYZ’s Spotlight on the News whether Trump went too far when he accused Democratic lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, of “seditious behavior” and suggested their actions could be “punishable by DEATH.”

Duggan dodged.

“I’ve stayed out of these national debates,” he said. “I’m not going to get involved in the national debate.”

For many voters, that answer raised a simple question: If Duggan refused to say whether a president threatening political opponents with death had gone too far, what exactly did his independent campaign stand for?

His campaign argued that he was running for state office, not federal office. But Trump’s policies and rhetoric have become state issues, affecting immigration enforcement, health care, public safety, federal funding, and political violence.

Duggan’s refusal to take a clear position looked more politically calculated than principled.

“The way he went after Democrats was inauthentic,” Mendoza says. “You can’t on one hand attack the efficacy of a major party and then also state that that party is only going negative and is not focused on real change. It’s hypocrisy.”

The political makeover was strange because Duggan had spent much of his career attacking Trump.

At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Duggan mocked Trump’s bankruptcies and called him “the most phony party nominee” he had seen in his lifetime. After Trump falsely claimed voter fraud in Detroit in 2020, Duggan called the allegations “utter nonsense” and “a real threat to everything we believe in.”

As recently as 2024, Duggan praised Biden and Harris as “real partners” who helped Detroit recover and said, “The best thing that happened in Detroit was when Donald Trump left office.”

But as an independent candidate for governor, Duggan insisted he had not changed his views, only his party label.

Voters appeared unconvinced.

Duggan’s campaign depended on the premise that there was a large, untapped bloc of voters who were tired of both parties and eager for a nonpartisan problem-solver. There may be. But Duggan’s version of independence often meant refusing to answer hard questions, courting Trump donors while criticizing Democrats, and asking voters to overlook controversies from his long record in Detroit.

He also appeared to misread the moment.

By Duggan’s own admission, the political climate moved against him. But his campaign also made choices that narrowed his path.

He tried to win Democrats without sounding like one. He tried to win Republicans without Trump’s blessing. He tried to win unions while carrying the baggage of DMC and his ties to corporate donors. He tried to win environmental skeptics while embracing data centers. He tried to sell Detroit’s comeback while scandals over contaminated dirt, water shutoffs, overassessments, and downtown-focused development weighed down his campaign.

And he tried to run as an outsider after more than three decades as a government insider. 

In the end, Duggan did not build a new political lane. He got squeezed between the two parties he said he wanted to transcend.

The Michigan Democratic Party, which spent months attacking Duggan, offered a gracious statement after he dropped out.

“We’re grateful to Mayor Mike Duggan for his service to the city of Detroit and our entire state,” Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said. “While we’ve had disagreements, the Mayor brought crucial ideas to this race and we appreciate his commitment to bringing people together.”

Hertel added that Democrats welcome Duggan’s supporters “into our growing coalition.”

That may be the biggest consequence of Duggan’s exit. Without him in the race, Benson has a clearer path to consolidating Democrats and independents who feared Duggan would help elect a Republican. James, meanwhile, loses the chance to benefit from a fractured anti-Republican vote.

Duggan said he hopes his campaign will still have “a real long-term impact.”

Maybe it will. His candidacy exposed frustration with the two-party system and showed that a significant share of voters are open to something different.

But it also showed that political frustration is not the same as a political base.

Duggan wanted to be the candidate who flew above politics. Instead, he became trapped by the politics he tried to avoid.

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Steve Neavling is an award-winning investigative journalist who operated Motor City Muckraker, an online news site devoted to exposing abuses of power and holding public officials accountable. Neavling... More by Steve Neavling

Steve Neavling

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