DUGGAN

MARQUETTE — Another candidate who has thrown his hat into the race to be Michigan’s next governor is the current Mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan.

Duggan’s professional career spans a wide range of industries, including serving as the Deputy County Executive in Wayne County from 1987 to 2001 and serving as President and CEO of the Detroit Medical Center from 2004 to 2012. In 2013, Duggan was elected as a write-in candidate to be Mayor of the city he calls home. He has been re-elected twice since his original write-in, and currently serves as the second-longest standing Mayor in Detroit’s history. As of this article’s publication, Duggan is the only candidate running as an Independent, and cited the toxicity of partisanship as something that influenced his decision to run for governor.

“The Republican versus Democratic toxic fighting is just destroying the state. We’re now to the point where 60% of our fourth graders in the entire state don’t read at grade level. We lose more people under the age of 30 (who move away) than any other state in the country,” Duggan said. “We’re not dealing with solving our problems. And I thought, as long as we have a state that’s evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and every two years they’re obsessed with who has the majority, they’re never going to solve the long-term problems. I thought maybe what we need is to deliver a message that we’re tired of politics as usual, and that maybe somebody could pull together both sides and fix some things.”

Duggan’s decision to run as an Independent candidate is also influencing his campaign strategy while running for governor. He plans to continue meeting with constituents all across the state, and emphasize on bridging divides between people who may not think they have much in common.

“I’m going into rural communities all over the state and I go to farming communities and they say, ‘What does the Mayor of Detroit know about us? We’ve been ignored and forgotten by the state for years.’ and I say, ‘Let me tell you about a mom with two kids who lived down a block with three abandoned houses, no street lights, (where) police and ambulance(s) didn’t show up and the park was overgrown. We didn’t spend a lot of time complaining about it, but we got to fixing it,” said Duggan. “Let’s talk about what your issues are. And every place I go, as we talk, people realize there’s a lot more in common across the state than they think.”

During our interview, Mike recalled an anecdote where he was in the town of Lexington along Lake Huron, and he asked the crowd how many people would’ve shown up to his event if he had been running as a Democrat. Duggan said that about one-third of a room of 1,000 people raised their hands.

“They started looking at each other, and they started laughing, and they realized they’re small town neighbors who never would have been in the same room if I were a partisan candidate,” Duggan said. “I think the feeling, and I’m feeling this everywhere, is that people who ordinarily wouldn’t be in the room together politically are feeling very comfortable coming to talk to me about what’s going on in their community.”

If elected to be governor, Duggan plans to serve the state of Michigan by learning about the issues that matter to people from across every industry, especially farming and agriculture, transportation infrastructure, and education reform.

“I am learning so much about every area of the state. When I’m on the farms, I’m hearing about issues, about getting their products to market, the difficulties they’re up against, the deer population eating their crops, which I did not appreciate was nearly as big (of) a problem as I understand now. (Also) the condition of the roads, those are issues in some areas. I go to some of the small towns along the lake, and they feel like their hardwares are crumbling and the state’s ignoring them,” Duggan said.

He also mentioned how he’s anxious to spend time in the Upper Peninsula to hear the concerns and ideas of people from the upper half of the state, and how he plans to have schools in the U.P. continue to churn out talent that stays in local communities.

“We (have) to keep the talent coming out of the schools, staying in the community, and I think there are ways that we can come together and say, ‘There is a lot of beauty up here and there is a way that we could build that economy where people can be in an area they love and also earn a good living,” Duggan said.

The key message Duggan wants voters to take away from his campaign is that he’s fighting to be a governor for the people of Michigan, not a Republican or Democratic governor.

“I’m not running to be the Democrat’s Governor or the Republican’s Governor. I’m running to be Michigan’s Governor,” claimed Duggan. “If people are happy with the two parties, they’ve got choices. But if people are fed up with the politics of Michigan and think the state’s going in the wrong direction because of the way the Democrats and Republicans are fighting with each other, I think it’s time to send a message of no more politics as usual, and that message seems to be resonating.”

More information on Mike’s gubernatorial campaign can be found on his website at mikeduggan.com.

Abby LaForest can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 548. Her email address is alaforest@miningjournal.net.