Duggan talks 2-party ‘death grip’ on Michigan, predicts ‘nastiest’ campaign cycle in 2026

Mayor Mike Duggan was in typical Mike-mode Monday morning as the featured speaker at the Detroit Free Press Breakfast Club, touting Detroit’s dramatic recovery over the last decade during his tenure as the city’s chief executive, while also trumpeting his choice to move on — and hopefully up — as an independent candidate for Michigan governor, citing the two-party “death grip” that has paralyzed politics across the nation.

The annual speaker series saw Duggan pour praise over business leaders, politicians and community members who factored into Detroit’s recovery to repopulate the city, invest in businesses, eliminate blight and abandoned buildings and more since he took over in 2014 as the city was emerging from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Duggan, in his final year as Detroit’s mayor, says he is shifting away from the two-party system due to the “Us vs. Them” politics he sees in Lansing and other places, an issue he says he attempted to eliminate in Detroit.

The three-term mayor sent shockwaves across the state when he announced his run as an independent, despite expectations he would stick with the party that helped him build a name for himself, under the tutelage of long-time Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara.

More: Top takeaways from Mayor Mike Duggan’s final State of the City address

“I actually think you’ve had a two-party death grip on this country for so long that the parties think they own you, that you have no other choice,” Duggan said. “The working people of this country don’t feel the Democrats relate to them. The only thing that unites Democrats is they hate Republicans in general, and they hate Donald Trump specifically. That’s basically been their problem.”

But Duggan pointed to the fact that 60% of children in the fourth grade don’t read at a grade level across Michigan as a top concern, which “nobody is talking about,” also how the state is bleeding residents, particularly younger people it needs to grow emerging economic sectors.

“I finally felt like the politics in Lansing reminds me a lot of the politics in Detroit in 2013. These elected officials are so obsessed with who’s in control and how to attack the other person,” Duggan said.

Suspicions loomed over Duggan pursuing a gubernatorial run in previous elections, even drawing a collective “No” from the audience at a public event ahead of the 2018 gubernatorial election. He previously said he had no plans for a run, until now. Award-winning Free Press Columnist Carol Cain asked Duggan about his chosen party.

“I feel like the Democratic Party left me. I joined the Democratic Party in the 1980s; who was on the side of the working people; who leveled the playing field to get everybody an opportunity; and I just watched as what has happened. And the working people of this country feel like the Democrats don’t relate,” Duggan said. “They voted for (President) Donald Trump, knowing he wasn’t in their economic interest. But they were so angry at the real disrespect.”

Speaking to the Democratic party’s abandonment, Duggan said attack ads already are in the works against him. The Democratic Governor’s Association, which supports Democratic governors and candidates, is planning an apparent $3-million smear campaign against him, Duggan said, hiring a firm to send Freedom of Information Act requests to his office “to get dirt on me.” Those requests include records for renovations to his city hall office, which has not been renovated, he said. Another is for his travel expenses, which he says he “never charged taxpayers” for during his tenure, and another he says was for all emails he sent with swear words.

“I’m not making this up. And I thought ‘The Democratic governors are researching whether I swear?’ I thought, ‘Have you met (Governor) Gretchen Whitmer?'” Duggan said, drawing laughter from the audience. “She’s raised her vocabulary to an art form. They’re not asking, ‘What’s his record on neighborhoods or housing?'”

City lawyers are going through at least 11 years of his emails, coming in at least a couple times a week for the past month, Duggan Spokesman John Roach told the Free Press.

“You are going to see the nastiest (campaign) cycle in 2026,” Duggan said. “I’m going to run an ad that says, ‘If you’re tired of this politics, I’m going to give you a different choice: Let’s educate the kids in the schools. Let’s keep our young people in town. And let’s build together on the reasonable people in both parties. And if you want something different, I’m going to be there as your choice.'”

Looking back at the city

Besides updating attendees on his gubernatorial journey, Duggan looked back at the city’s growth through his tenure, even addressing an accomplishment of his past that Free Press Executive Editor Jim Schaefer raised in an opening speech after digging through old newspaper articles.

While Duggan has taken over headlines from his days as a deputy Wayne County executive, a Wayne County prosecutor, CEO of the Detroit Medical Center, then mayor of Detroit, he also previously won a state championship as a debater for Detroit Catholic Central High School, according to an article from Feb. 16, 1976, Schaefer said.

“The Free Press was a sponsor of this event, which was in 1976 in its 59th year, and the winners each got an engraved watch from the newspaper. So, I’ll bet you didn’t know that story about Mike Duggan. But I wonder if he still has that watch?” Schaefer said.

In response to Duggan’s description of the media, Duggan humorously said “Jim Schaefer’s research was deficient. I don’t know about that Free Press watch. But I have my Detroit News engraved Merriam Webster dictionary for winning the eighth grade spelling bee.”

The state championship may not have been the immediate qualifier to securing his future roles, but his administration championed efforts to bring Ford Field and the Detroit Lions to downtown, turned on the city’s streetlights, invested in parks and neighborhoods, dropped homicide rates and built out public spaces in downtown and beyond.

“It seems like for decades, everything was taken away from us,” Duggan said. “I was at the first game at the Pontiac Silverdome. I was so angry they could call them the Detroit Lions when they played in Pontiac … when I was running the DMC in 2011 and 2012, I was watching what was happening across America, you came out of the Great Recession, something I had seen — young people were pouring back into central cities, wanting to live around other people, and the and cities were booming across the country.”

Duggan said he felt Detroit’s recovery was not far off, though, despite the division among politicians, unions and the suburbs. He added that even though he was “dismissed” as a candidate in a majority Black city, Detroiters still elected him. He credits federal judge’s Gerald Rosen and Steve Rhodes for paving the path out of bankruptcy, along with more collaboration in the city.

“You got really strong candidates for mayor (and) council, and nobody is running an ‘us versus them campaign.’ It’s all about unity,” Duggan said.

Despite downtown grabbing most of the attention of the city’s revitalization, Duggan credited Matt Cullen, founding chairman of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, for championing efforts to create a destination attracting people of different backgrounds from all over the metro area, and even from out of state.

“The city of Detroit never had a unifying place where people of all races would go. You look at the restaurants, the music, the churches; we have always been a segregated community. (But) You go down to the Detroit riverfront on a weekend, and you see what we’ve got,” Duggan said. “The young people that we have to attract; every city has to attract. They want destinations where they want to spend their time, they want to live. And we’ve created that.”

Duggan and Cain also touched on the history of Detroit hosting major events, including the 2006 Super Bowl, the 2024 NFL draft, the Grand Prix, and in 2027 the city will host the NCAA Final Four at Ford Field, highlighting the importance of how much they have helped change the city’s image, despite national rhetoric previously throwing Detroit under the bus for its financially mismanaged past.

“We’ll get a Super Bowl Back,” Duggan said, pointing to Visit Detroit’s President and CEO Claude Molinari, who helped organize the NFL draft. “We’re going to keep pushing opportunities.”

Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact: dafana@freepress.com. Follow her: @DanaAfana.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mike Duggan talks political path at Detroit Free Press Breakfast Club