Can This Independent for Governor Win Michigan? w/ Mayor Mike Duggan.
Former three-term Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan left the Democratic Party and is now running for governor of Michigan as an independent — and the latest polls have him tied for the lead. Paul Rieckhoff sits down with Duggan for a candid conversation on why he broke ranks, how he's building a coalition without party infrastructure, and where he stands on tariffs, ICE, and the State of the Union. This is what the independent movement looks like when it's actually winning.
Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
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Show Notes
Trump’s Approval Hits New Low with Independents Ahead of State of the Union. Whistleblower Blasts ICE Training. 4 Years of the Ukraine War. Women’s Hockey Declines Trump Invite.
For decades, Mike Duggan was a Democrat. He ran Detroit, guided the city through bankruptcy, cut crime to 60-year lows, and built 6,000 housing units in one of America's most storied cities. Then he looked at what was happening in Lansing — Republicans and Democrats unable to speak to each other, state budgets arriving three months late, schools opening without funding — and made a decision that's shaking up Michigan politics: he declared his independence.
Duggan joins Paul Rieckhoff on Independent Americans for an extended conversation about why he walked away from the party that shaped his career, what it actually takes to run as an independent, and why the latest polling has him in a dead-even three-way race for governor of Michigan — tied with both the leading Democrat and Republican. He talks about the unions that crossed over to endorse him, his decision to build a campaign on house calls rather than party machinery, and why he believes the Democrat and the Republican are the real spoilers in this race — not him.
Paul and Mike also go head-to-head on the hardest issues: tariffs devastating Michigan's auto industry, ICE operations in Detroit and across the country, the State of the Union, and how an independent governor deals with a president who has picked fights with governors of both parties. Duggan's answers aren't always what you'd expect — and Paul doesn't let him off the hook.
This is what independent politics looks like in real time. Hard choices and hard questions. But if the independent wave hits this fall on Election Day, this race in Michigan will be the forward edge. And you probably heard it here first.
-WATCH full video of this episode here.
-Learn more about Paul’s work to elect a new generation of independent leaders with Independent Veterans of America.
-Learn more about American Veterans for Ukraine here.
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