Detroit’s mayor tries to capitalize on voter disdain for both parties with independent run for governor

Some prominent political figures have sought out a third option, away from both major parties. In the past three years, two former senators — Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — left the Democratic Party and registered as independents.

More recently, Elon Musk, a tech mogul and former adviser to President Donald Trump who spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to help him in 2024, posted on X amid a feud with Trump about the appetite for “a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle,” though it’s unclear how serious Musk was. (Duggan wrote in response to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, “Now you’ve got my attention…” alongside a smiley emoji.)

That sentiment aside, turning the broad idea of unhappiness with the two parties into actual statewide victory for an independent candidate is difficult, as recent years of elections show.

In Oregon, former state Sen. Betsy Johnson mounted a well-funded independent campaign for governor in 2022, at times receiving almost 20% of voters’ support in public polling. But on Election Day, Johnson received under 9% of the vote, with Democrat Tina Kotek winning the race.

Last year in Nebraska, Navy veteran Dan Osborn ran an independent campaign for Senate that gained national attention. Democrats didn’t field a candidate in the race and Osborn lost to incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican, by over 6 points, though he held Fischer well below Trump’s margin in the state.

In Michigan, Duggan insists that he’s received support from voters on both sides of the aisle, saying he’s simply offering them a choice outside of the traditional two-party bin.

“This whole evenly divided, Republican and Democrat ‘attack each other every two years in an election cycle’ isn’t working for Michigan, and maybe I give the voters a different choice,” Duggan said.

A big race in a key state

Duggan’s presence adds another layer of complexity as both parties gear up for a competitive race.

Though Whitmer won her second term by more than 10 points, Michigan is typically a tightly balanced battleground. In 2024, the state backed Trump for president by less than 2 points and Democrat Elissa Slotkin for Senate by an even slimmer margin. Four years earlier, Biden defeated Trump in the Great Lakes State by nearly 3 points.

But Democrats and Republicans still have to sort out who their nominees for governor will be, and voters don’t head to the polls in the state’s prim until August of next year.

On the Democratic side, Secret of State Jocelyn Benson, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson have launched campaigns to succeed Whitmer. Republican Rep. John James, state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, former state House Speaker Tom Leonard and former state Attorney General Mike Cox have all jumped into the GOP prim.

“[Duggan] announced right at the beginning of the year, which gives him a full two years with no prim to get around the state and tell his story,” Jason Roe, a Republican strategist in Michigan who is not currently working for any gubernatorial candidate, told NBC News.

With Democrats and Republicans focused on their own primaries, “there’s really no reward to any of those candidates to attack him,” Roe said, adding: “And so I think he gets to go around, you know, talking about rainbows and unicorns” without getting attacked.

Democrats have targeted Duggan recently, if not in a way many voters would have seen, accusing him of corruption in one digital ad funded by the Democratic Governors Association’s Victory Fund in May.

“Duggan is running a self-serving campaign that has no path to victory,” DGA communications director Sam Newton told NBC News in a statement, adding: “The DGA has beaten attention-grabbing third-party candidates before — and we’re confident that we’ll do it again in Michigan in 2026.”

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel also slammed Duggan, telling NBC News that the mayor is only running as an independent because he didn’t want to run in the Democratic prim.

“I think most of this is about Mike’s ego. It was bruised by the fact that he couldn’t actually win a Democratic prim,” Hertel said. “He has very thin skin.”

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans haven’t yet engaged in formal campaigning against Duggan. But one national Republican strategist noted that the Michigan race is going to be competitive — and expensive — next fall whether Duggan is drawing significant support or not.

Roe noted Duggan’s popularity in and around Detroit, adding that he’s well-liked by Michigan’s business leaders.

“People see the business community, the organized business community, migrating to him,” he said.

Roe, who lives in the suburban Detroit area, said that Republicans in his area seem particularly attracted to Duggan’s campaign as well. But he cautioned against drawing conclusions about Duggan’s popularity among partisans until after next year’s prim.

“There’s a big but here. They don’t have a bin choice. They don’t know who the Republicans are. They don’t know who Democrats are,” he said.

Hertel compared Duggan’s support now to that of early support for previous independent candidates elsewhere.

“What we’ve seen, a lot of times, with these independent candidates, is, you know, they get a lot of attention at first, but when we get closer to election time, people make different decisions,” Hertel said.

“Right now it’s, ‘Well, I know Duggan, and I feel Duggan has done some great stuff in Detroit. No clue about these other people,’ right?” Roe said. “Once there’s nominees, and you have three people to choose from, that will likely change.”