FILE - James Craig, a former Detroit police chief, announces he is a Republican candidate for governor of Michigan, on Sept. 14, 2021, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

Republican Midwest candidates are having trouble appearing on their states’ ballots as Democrats challenge the legitimacy of the error-ridden signatures on their nominating petitions, leaving many swing states with uncertain gubernatorial races.

Michigan’s election bureau announced last month that five Republican candidates for governor — including two leading candidates, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig and businessman Perry Johnson — failed to qualify for the primary due to thousands of allegedly fraudulent signatures on their nominating petitions. 

State election staff said Johnson had over 7,000 fraudulent signatures, including names of dead voters, misspelled names and signatures with only first names and last initials. The Michigan Supreme Court rejected his appeal last week to remain on the ballot, along with two of the other candidates, Craig and businessman Michael Markey Jr.

These candidates failed to meet the 15,000-signature requirement required to appear on the ballot, leaving Michigan Republicans with no clear frontrunner in a highly competitive race to beat incumbent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November. Whitmer led all potential GOP opponents by double-digit margins in a survey conducted in May by Target Insyght of Lansing. 

Republicans candidates are in disarray in Wisconsin, too. The Wisconsin Elections Commission is considering taking Republican businessman Tim Michels, a leading gubernatorial candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump, off the ballot in August’s primary and November’s election.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin filed a challenge on Sunday to Michels’s nominating papers, alleging that over 3,000 of his signatures are deficient because they incorrectly list his own mailing address. While the house address is correct, the municipality is listed in Chenequa instead of Hartland. Because of this error, Democrats say Michels only has 345 valid signatures, well under the minimum 2,000 required to appear on the ballot.

Wisconsin Republicans have pushed back, submitting an affidavit to the Wisconsin Elections Commision saying the address error was not an attempt to mislead voters about where he lives.

“At no point have I or the Campaign sought to mislead any voters or signatories to my nomination papers about the location of my primary residence,” Michels wrote in the affidavit.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is set to make a decision about Michels’s eligibility Friday morning.