Lansing — Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democratic former law school dean who oversaw two presidential elections in battleground Michigan, is launching a campaign Wednesday to become the state’s next governor.
In an interview with The Detroit News, Benson said she wants to be known as “the governor who puts transparency and efficiency at the forefront.” The 47-year-old Detroiter is expected to face a crowded race for the Democratic nomination and a competitive contest in the 2026 general election. Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer can’t run again because of term limits.
Benson is officially starting her bid for Michigan’s top political office on the 52nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which had protected access to abortion nationally, until it was overturned on June 24, 2022. Benson vowed to be a governor who supports abortion rights.
Likewise, her announcement comes two days after Republican Donald Trump was sworn in as the country’s new president.
“Just as what happened in November 2016 didn’t define these last eight years, what happened next did, what happened Nov. 5, 2024, does not define our future,” Benson said. “What we do next defines our future. And that’s why, for me, starting this marathon this week is about that.
“It’s about us saying we are going to define our future as Michiganders, and it’s going to be about our people.”
Benson’s campaign prematurely posted a message about her run for governor on the social media site X, with a link to donate, at about 7:19 p.m. Tuesday and then deleted it.
“Michiganders are ready to fight for a transparent, affordable and safer future for all of Michigan,” the deleted post said.
Voters first chose Benson to be secretary of state in 2018. In the role, she’s supervised more than 100 branch offices and has been Michigan’s top election official.
During the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, the Republican repeatedly targeted Benson, labeling her a “rogue secretary of state” for her decision to send absentee ballot applications to the state’s registered voters amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August 2020, the Michigan Court of Claims ruled the secretary of state had the power to issue the applications. The state Court of Appeals later upheld the decision 2-1 and the Michigan Supreme Court declined 6-1 to hear an appeal in December 2020.
Trump’s campaign attempted to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden in Michigan while advancing unproven claims that the election had been swayed by widespread fraud. In 2021, Benson labeled the 2020 election “the most secure, successful and accessible in state history.”
Four years later, Benson administered the 2024 Michigan election, which Trump won against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, 49.7%-48.3%.
Benson’s high-profile role has given her both a wide fundraising base and a spot on the national political stage. Biden himself awarded Benson with the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2023. Benson’s political action committee, Michigan Legacy PAC, reported raising $1.6 million from Jan. 1, 2024, through Oct. 20, 2024.
Benson’s campaign announced Wednesday that it was hiring an all-female leadership team with Nikki Goldschein, former senior adviser for the Michigan Democratic Party, as campaign manager and Alyssa Bradley, who was the spokeswoman for the Harris campaign in Michigan, as communications director.
Amy Pfaehler, a longtime Democratic fundraising adviser, will be the Benson campaign’s finance director.
Over the next 21 months, Benson plans to run a campaign in all 83 counties and tout her efforts to modernize Michigan’s secretary of state’s office by moving more services online and reducing wait times over the last four years.
“Now, I want to take that same type of approach to all of our agencies in government,” Benson said.
Benson said she hopes to create public-private partnerships to boost job training and establish a program in which every high school graduate could spend a year doing public service and later receive assistance with college tuition or to launch a startup business.
More:Michigan transparency mandate shines little light on potential lame duck conflicts
She becomes the third major candidate to enter the race for governor.
Previously, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a longtime Democrat, announced he would run as an independent, and state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, said last week he would seek the Republican nomination. Nesbitt has said he raised $1 million in the first 72 hours of his campaign.
Benson is a strong candidate in the primary, but Duggan’s independent bid, which is expected to draw Democratic votes, could complicate her chances in the general election, said Adrian Hemond, a Lansing-based Democratic political consultant with the firm Grassroots Midwest.
“If Mike Duggan is on the ballot, you’re almost certainly going to end up with a Republican or Mike Duggan as your governor,” Hemond predicted.
In 2022, Whitmer won a second term as governor by defeating Republican Tudor Dixon by 10 percentage points 54%-44%. Benson won her reelection race by a wider margin that year 56%-42% over Republican Kristina Karamo.
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg of Traverse City, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II of Detroit, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson have been floated as other potential Democratic candidates for governor.
Former Attorney General Mike Cox has formed a committee to run for governor again. He finished third in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary that was won by Rick Snyder, who went on to be governor. Other Republicans whose names have been floated to run for governor next year include Dixon, U.S. Rep. John James of Shelby Township, businessman Perry Johnson of Oakland County and former state House Speaker Tom Leonard of DeWitt.
In the interview with The News, Benson noted that this will be her fourth statewide campaign and that she’s performed better each cycle than the previous one. In 2010, she lost her first race for secretary of state to Republican Ruth Johnson by 6 percentage points, 45%-51%.
Benson is a graduate of Harvard Law School and served as dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. She and her husband, Ryan Friedrichs, have one son.
Friedrichs, who previously worked for Duggan as the mayor’s chief development officer, is now vice president of development at Related Companies, the real estate empire of billionaire and Detroit native Stephen Ross. Benson was previously CEO of Ross’s Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality before running for secretary of state in 2018.
Benson also is a marathon runner, having completed her 34th race earlier this month, she said.
“I am an endurance athlete,” Benson said. “We start early. We finish the race. And we stay strong throughout.”
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Staff Writer Beth LeBlanc contributed.
