Detroit mayor is trying to benefit from the contempt of voters for both parties with an independent operation of the ruler
With more than a year until the mid -term elections, Democrats and the Republicans are already preparing for expensive battles in the Senate races and ruled throughout the country.
Detroit Dogan mayor, who is betting on the presence of the next Michigan governor without adopting any of these party’s signs.
Dogan, a democratic for a long time, has worked for more than a decade for the position of mayor of Detroit, in December that he will manage an independent campaign to succeed the ruler of Democrat Grechen Wittam, who cannot run for a third term next year. It is a bold bet, in one of the most divided countries in the country, that voters who say they are tired of both sides are ready to support another option.
But while some political circumstances seem mature, the independents who work in the tripartite elections were unable to pay this feeling of victory.
“Everywhere I go to, the depth of anger at both sides deepens,” Dogan told NBC News in an interview.
He said that he decided to run as an independent to escape the political expectations that come with the service of one party or another in Lanseng, describing the current environment in the state capital as “toxic”. Michigan currently has a legislative body divided into the states, where Democrats control the Senate (and governments), while Republicans control the State Council after they returned to Democrats in 2024.
“Every conversation was in Lansening,” Will this bill help me to preserve the majority? “Will this bill help me get the majority?” Dogan said: “No one solved any problems.” They wanted to create a moment they could [use to] Send calls to collect donations from a kind of conflict. “
Opportunity – hard climb – for independent candidates
Throughout the country, the appetite grows for third -party candidates. The recent NBC news analysis found that the Americans are increasingly registering to vote as voters that are not suitable, and they chose not to recognize a political party. Voters carry negative views of both parties, and the Democratic Party earlier this year has achieved its lowest rankings in 35 years of polling news in NBC.
Some prominent political figures requested a third option, away from both the two main parties. In the past three years, two former Senate members – Kirsten Cinema from Arizona and Joe Mancin from West Virginia – left the Democratic Party and registered as independents.
Recently, Elon Musk, a technical pole and former President Donald Trump who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help him in 2024, Posted on X Amid conflict with Trump about the appetite of “a new political party in America that already represents 80 % in the center”, although it is unclear how serious the musk. (Dujan He wrote in response to this To the CEO of Tesla and Spacex, “Now I caught my attention …” along with smiling expressive symbols.)
These feelings are aside, turning the wide idea related to misery with the two parties into an actual state victory for an independent candidate is difficult, as the last years of the elections appear.
In Oregon, former Senator Pitts Johnson installed a well -funded independent campaign for the ruler in 2022, sometimes he received almost almost 20 % of voter support in public polls. But on election day, Johnson won less than 9 % of the votes, with Democrat Tina Cotik’s victory in the race.
Last year in Nebraska, the veteran in the navy, Dan Ospurne, ran an independent campaign for the Senate, which gained national attention. Democrats did not achieve a candidate in the race and lost Ospurne to current Senator Deeb Fisher, a Republican, with more than 6 points, although he detained Fisher much less than Trump’s margin in the state.
In Michigan, Dujan insists that he received support from voters on both sides of the corridor, saying that he simply provides them with an option outside the traditional duo.
Dogan said: “This is all divided equally, and the Republican and Democrat are attacking each other every two years in an electoral cycle” that does not work for Michigan, and may have given voters a different choice. “
A major race in a major condition
The presence of Duggan adds another layer of complexity as both sides prepare for a competitive race.
Although Whitmer won its second term with more than 10 points, Michigan is usually a tightly balanced battlefield. In 2024, the state supported Trump to the president with less than two points and Democrats Elisa Slocine for the Senate with a thinnest margin. Four years ago, Biden Trump defeated the Great Lakes State by about 3 points.
However, Democrats and Republicans still have to determine who their candidates will be to the ruler, and voters are not heading to the polls in the state preliminary elections until August next year.
On the democratic side, Foreign Minister Jocelyn Benson, State Governor Garlin Gilsherst, and Genesee County Sherif Chris Swanson launched the Whitmer campaigns. Republican MP John James, the leader of the Senate Eriks, Eric Nestebit, former Speaker of Parliament Tom Leonard and former state prosecutor Mike Cox, has taken the preliminary elections of the Republican Party.
“[Duggan] Jason Row, a Republican strategic expert in Michigan, who is not currently working for any ruler candidate, told NBC News:
With Democrats and Republicans, they focused on their introductory elections, “There is really no reward for any of these candidates to attack him,” adding: “So I think he wanders, as you know, talking about lonely rainbows” without being attacked.
Democrats have targeted Dugan recently, if not in some way, many voters could see it, accused of corruption in one Digital advertisement Funded by the victory fund of the Democratic Conservative Society in May.
“Duggan runs a self-service campaign that has no way to achieve victory,” Sam Newton, DGA, told NBC News in a statement.
The head of the Democratic Party in Michigan also criticized Curtis Hertel Dogjan, and NBC News told that the mayor only worked as an independent because he does not want to run in the democratic introductory elections.
“I think most of this revolves around Mike’s arrogance,” hertel said. “Its democraticism has been in the fact that he could not win the democratic preliminary elections.” “It has very thin skin.”
On the other side of the corridor, Republicans have not yet participated in official campaigns against Dujan. But one of the national Republican strategies indicated that the Michigan race will be able to compete – and costly – in the next fall, whether Dogan gets great support or not.
Row pointed to Doggan’s popularity in and around Detroit, adding that he is loved by business leaders in Michigan.
“People see the business community, the organized business community, to migrate,” he said.
Row, who lives in the Detroit suburbs, said that the Republicans in his area seem to be particularly attracted to the Dogan campaign as well. But he warned against extracting conclusions about the popularity of Dogan among the parties, even after the preliminary elections next year.
“There is great but here they have no binary option. They don’t know who the Republicans are. They do not know who Democrats are,” he said.
Hertel has now compared Dogan’s support with early support for former independent candidates elsewhere.
“What we have often seen, with these independent candidates, as you know, they receive a lot of attention at first, but when we approach the time of elections, people make different decisions,” Hertel said.
“Now,” well, I know Duggan, and I feel that Duggan did some great things in Detroit. There is no idea about these other people, “right?” Row said. “Once there are candidates, you have three people to choose from, it is likely to change.”