Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan suspended his independent bid for Michigan governor on Thursday, saying a rapidly deteriorating national political climate — shaped by the Trump administration’s war with Iran and the resulting hike in pump prices — had closed his path to the open seat.
Duggan, a longtime Democrat who left the party to mount an independent run for the office being vacated by term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, described the electorate as hardening along partisan lines in the roughly two months since military operations against Iran escalated. “Democrat anger against Trump and Republicans is extremely high,” he told the Associated Press. “In 60 days there’s been a huge change in the attitudes of this country.”
The former mayor said the campaign had concluded that the coalition of Democratic and independent voters he was courting was instead consolidating against Washington Republicans. “As long as I knew there was a path for victory, I was going to fight,” Duggan said. “I don’t see a likely path to win.”
No independent candidate has ever won the Michigan governorship, and third-party bids have historically fared poorly in statewide contests there. Duggan acknowledged that the structural headwinds had become insurmountable against the charged backdrop of a wartime election cycle.
The move leaves the governor’s race without one of its most-recognized candidates and hands an advantage to whichever Democrat emerges from a field that already includes Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and former state Sen. Curtis Hertel. The Republican side has drawn a crowded primary as well, including former U.S. Rep. John James, former state Attorney General Bill Schuette, and businessman Perry Johnson.
The war’s influence on domestic politics has intensified in recent weeks. MSI previously reported that Republican operatives were privately warning that the Iran conflict and rising gas costs were eroding the party’s chances of flipping Michigan’s governorship. Duggan’s exit, framed around those same forces, suggests that some candidates are betting the electoral consequences of the war will only sharpen as the midterms approach.