Some concerning news out of Michigan:
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a longtime Democrat who is running for governor as an independent, is raking in Republican cash and outside dark money in his election bid, raising questions about his political shift.
Campaign finance records show Duggan raised $3.2 million in direct campaign donations for the year through July 20, outpacing Democratic frontrunner Jocelyn Benson and Republican candidates John James and Aric Nesbitt.
A Metro Times analysis of Duggan’s fundraising shows a sizable share comes from donors of President Donald Trump, GOP party leaders, and conservative power brokers with vested interests in state policy.
Among them are a billionaire megadonor to Trump, a charter school profiteer, former leaders of the Michigan Republican Party, and an aide to former Gov. Rick Snyder who was charged for his role in the Flint water crisis.
Many of the influential Republicans gave Duggan’s campaign the maximum donation allowed – $8,325. But some of their family members and employees also donated the maximum.
Chris Long, a grassroots vice chair of the Michigan Republican Party, warned earlier this month that Duggan’s ties to GOP powerbrokers could harm the party. He suggested conservative donors are more worried about access to Duggan.
One of Duggan’s top backers is Roger Penske, who donated $1.1 million to Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC that supports Trump, in the past two years. He also personally contributed $5,600 to Trump’s 2020 campaign. Penske donated the maximum contribution to Duggan’s campaign, and other executives from Penske Corp. gave an additional $19,825.
Duggan also received the maximum donation from J.C. Huizenga, chair of the Huizenga Group and founder of National Heritage Academies, a for-profit charter school chain that has drawn scrutiny for exploiting public education dollars. A Detroit Free Press investigation in 2014 found that Huizenga’s company owned most of the buildings its schools occupied, profiting from public funds while avoiding oversight. Over the past 30 years, Huizenga has donated nearly $4 million to Republican candidates and causes, and he stands to benefit directly from state education policies supported by the next governor.
The charter school donors are an absolute dealbreaker.
Michigan. like Ohio, has a huge issue with for-profit and corrupt charter schools. Charter schools have “authorizers” who were intended to act as regulators, but there’s an inherent conflict - the authorizers receive a cut of the charter school dollar. It’s particularly gross in Michigan because the authorizers are colleges and universities. Charter schools have become a revenue source for higher ed. Everyone is in on the grift. In addition, the national charter companies can take education funding from Michigan and use that funding to open schools in other states, so the funding for schools doesn’t even stay within the state that paid for it.
I think Democrats have mostly weaned themselves off of cheerleading charter schools - it was a huge problem with Obama - the Obama Administration poured tens of millions into charter school chains and bashed (and defunded) public schools for eight straight years. In addition, Joe Biden’s brother is a charter school profiteer. Frank Biden’s charter chains were especially gross because they focused on “at risk” youth. Frank Biden’s schools have collapsed under the weight of lawsuits and scandal and sleazy characters that became impossible to ignore. God knows Florida wasn’t regulating them.
We really, really don’t want to go back to the days where Democrats were promoting public school privatization. It was a disaster for public schools and public school students.
Duggan’s opponents in this race are Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James.
Benson is a very strong candidate who has consistently outperformed the rest of the Dem ticket in her statewide races. John James is not s strong candidate who has run statewide in Michigan several times and lost by a lot, so we’d be in good shape in Michigan but for the GOP -backed spoiler, Duggan.
Here’s the current polling. Benson is strong but Duggan pulls from the D candidate, not the R candidate.
full disclosure - my spouse is related to the Michigan Duggans, who are big in the Michigan legal community but obviously this is not a conflict for us - we both plan on donating to Benson when I’m back in the US. Alls fair in love and war and we’re opposed to sleazy contractors of any stripe.
