Michigan governor candidate Mike Duggan says his friends dropped $100 million to flip state House for GOP

Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is pitching himself as a bipartisan unifier in his independent bid for governor — but his ties to the mega-donors who financed the Republican takeover of the Michigan House suggest a different story.

During a September zoom meeting with the lobbying firm Kelley Cawthorne, the company’s President Melissa McKinley asked Duggan how he creates realistic expectations for his campaign promises, which include bridging the divide between Republicans and Democrats to “deliver results”.

Duggan responded by saying many of his friends dropped millions of dollars to flip the Michigan House of Representatives for the Republicans in 2024.

“If my solution isn’t the solution, you tell me what’s going to be any different,” Duggan said. “A lot of my friends dropped $100 million to flip the Democratic House Republican. And look at what you’ve got, nothing’s getting done.”

In a statement to Heartland Signal, Duggan’s spokesperson Andrea Bitely claimed that Duggan was making a joke, and that former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) led a $100 million fundraising effort for the state GOP.

“They [Kelley Cawthorne] were also aware that it was Governor Rick Snyder who had led the $100 million 2024 Republican House campaign,” Bitely said. “Governor Snyder is not a friend or supporter of Mayor Duggan – he’s behind the Governor campaign of Aric Nesbitt, one of Duggan’s opponents. The Mayor was joking in referring to Snyder’s group as his friends.”

The 2024 Michigan House battle was the most expensive legislative election in state history, but an analysis from Bridge Michigan found that $67 million was spent between both parties. Although this doesn’t include undisclosed dark money spending on mailing and online advertising, which Bridge says can’t effectively be tracked.

Former Michigan Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia) told Heartland Signal she believes his comments are evidence that Duggan would be an ally to House Republicans if he wins the governor’s race.

“Mike Duggan is saying the quiet part out loud: he worked with Matt Hall and Republicans to torpedo the Democratic trifecta, and now, Duggan is even bragging about how much money his MAGA friends spent to help Republicans take over the House,” Pohutsky said. “These comments make clear that if elected governor, Duggan would count Matt Hall as one of his top allies and help push through a Republican agenda of cutting taxes for billionaires, stripping away rights, and harming families.”

Pohutsky also pointed to GOP donors bankrolling his campaign, and him lamenting that the former Democratic trifecta undid many of Snyder’s policies.

“This is the same candidate who is being funded by MAGA donors and who has complained that the Democratic trifecta repealed Rick Snyder’s harmful policies,” Pohutsky continued.

“Under our Democratic trifecta, Michigan Democrats delivered the largest investment in affordable housing in state history, protected reproductive access, restored workers’ rights to organize, and so much more. These are important wins for Michiganders—and it’s revealing that Duggan is bragging about how he and his friends helped drag this progress to a halt.”

The policy cost of the GOP House takeover

Duggan has also called the state government broken and asserted that his bipartisan independent stance is the only way to fix it. He has campaigned with House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township), a staunch Trump ally and election denier who came to power because of Duggan’s friends.

“I’ve dealt with Lansing for a lot of years, and for many years, you would rarely see a Republican leader in the city of Detroit,” Duggan said during a public safety event in April 2025. “Speaker Hall – he’s been down here regularly, and this is what we need.” 

Hall has contributed to the current deadlock in Michigan’s state government and used the Speakership to advocate for significant funding cuts in the state’s budget negotiations. The budget Hall proposed would slash $421 million in education funding for the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, as well as a $20 million cut to the Rx Kids program. Rx Kids provides financial assistance to pregnant mothers in the state, which Hall said was a scam earlier this year. Budget negotiations are ongoing, but Hall and House Republicans continue to take a strong stance on funding cuts and saving money by cutting out “waste, fraud and abuse” from the state government.

Last December, Hall also temporarily suspended $645 million in state funding for a variety of projects and departments — including one program that provides wigs to children with cancer — through a questionable legislative maneuver. In January, Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel issued an opinion calling Hall’s move unconstitutional for violating the state’s separation of powers.

In her statement, Bitely also said Duggan does not support cutting Rx Kids or Hall’s proposed budget cuts.

Hall has also downplayed the violence displayed by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021 and been named an “election denier” in a 2024 report that tracked state lawmakers’ records on the issue.