The bombshell news this week from Michigan U.S. Senator Gary Peters that he will retire in two years left plenty of political watchers surprised (Zoe wasn’t… but that’s another story for another time). The early-in-the-cycle decision also leaves plenty of time for a field of candidates to develop and shift.
Ideally, for both major parties, a leading candidate will emerge who will avert a big messy primary where lots of people burn through lots of campaign cash before merging with lingering hard feelings rolling toward November.
But let’s not count on that.
Possible candidates looking at the open race for Michigan governor in 2026 may (and are) reconsidering those plans. Others whose ambitions were unformed or dormant are (re)considering the odds.
There’s a head-spinning set of variables that could affect the biggest races in 2026:
- Michigan also has an open governor’s race and voters here typically switch parties when there’s no incumbent at the top of the ballot;
- There will also be open attorney general and secretary of state races;
- Both the entire state House and entire state Senate are up for election and Democrats and Republicans both have reasonable prospects at taking the majority in either or both;
- We have a controversy-courting POTUS and the party in the White House typically suffers in the midterms;
- The Con-Con – voters will decide this year whether to convene a state constitutional convention. (More on that, too, another time.)
We were looking into the last time Michigan, its political establishment, and voters have faced a situation of this complexity (and a ballot that’s going to be the length of a menu at The Cheesecake Factory). We only had to go as far as this comprehensive multi-bylined piece by the Gongwer News Service. It’s firewalled, but (by permission) we’re sharing the nut graf of the story here:
Peters' decision means 2026 will be the first time ever Michigan has had open seats for governor and U.S. Senate in the same year since the direct election of U.S. senators began in 1916. Couple those A-list races with open seat races for secretary of state and attorney general, plus both chambers of the Legislature, and never has Michigan gone into an election with such uncertainty and tumult.
In short, this is unprecedented.
And let’s add in the fact that this is in a non-presidential election year which creates another layer of mystery.
“Which trend is stronger?” wonders Oakland University political science professor David Dulio about the race for governor in particular.
“Is it the mid-term effect that we have seen in most midterms in Michigan, where the party of the president is punished even in these state races or is it Michigan voters’ proclivity just to switch parties after eight years? You know, we’ve not had in the term limits era one party win three (gubernatorial races) in a row.”
Another question: will the abundance of open statewide offices and high-stakes congressional races act as an unusual draw for voters to head to the polls? None of this takes into account the unique dynamics of primaries and conventions where crowded fields make choosing the nominees more unpredictable than general elections.
So much to think about as we head into the weekend (and toward 2026).
Digging Deeper: While Michigan voters certainly have voted for Republicans for statewide offices over the decades (there was complete GOP-control in Lansing from 2011-2019), they haven’t always been kind to Republican U.S. Senate candidates. Michigan voters have not sent a GOP Senator to the upper chamber in D.C. since Spencer Abraham beat Democratic Congressman Bob Carr in 1994.
Have questions about Michigan politics? Or, just want to let us know what you want more of (less of?) in the newsletter in 2025? We always want to hear from you! Shoot us an email at politics@michiganpublic.org!
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What we’re talking about at the dinner table
Michigan eyes effect of tariffs: Trump administration tariffs could go into effect this weekend. The immediate goal is to drive consumers away from foreign-produced (including Canada and Mexico) goods and toward U.S.-made products. But the longer-term impact could be driving up the cost of components that go into automobiles assembled in Michigan and other manufactured products. Supply chains are global but the impact is local. We talked about this following the state’s October jobs report (the last one before the election). Tariffs will no doubt be a topic on the table once Pete Hoekstra – former U.S. Representative from Michigan, Michigan Republican Party chair and Trump’s U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands – is confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to Canada. And it’s an issue Governor Whitmer has been hammering home. Meantime, the Michigan jobless rate ticked up to five percent in December. These are still modest movements, but if these upticks become a real trend, who will voters blame? Democrats, of course, will hold it over President Trump. Republicans will say it started on the Democrats’ watch. (Bold prediction, we know.) But a politically divided Legislature may feel the pressure to do something, especially about housing costs.
Republicans build pressure on MEDC: The House GOP majority plans to twist the screws tighter on the Michigan Economic Development Authority and this time it’s bipartisan. Governor Whitmer, like her predecessors, leans heavily on incentives to lure employers to Michigan but conservatives and some progressives in the Legislature are aligned on paring back the use of business incentives or “corporate welfare.” Bills introduced this week in the state House would bar the state from requiring legislators to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to get details about economic development deals.
Speaking of pressure: We’re about three weeks away from a court-ordered boost in the state minimum wage and the enactment of an initiative to guarantee most hourly workers earned sick leave. The petition initiative campaigns want the Legislature to leave the court decision as is – especially since it was a Republican Legislature and governor that acted unconstitutionally back in 2018 to alter the initiative. It’s Just Politics newsletter readers know the GOP-led Michigan House adopted a plan last week to make the initiatives more business-friendly as far as tipped wages and sick leave notice requirements. The Senate Democratic majority is also working on its own plan, but time is growing short. Scroll down for even more details from last week’s newsletter.
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Yours in political nerdiness,
Rick Pluta & Zoe Clark
Co-hosts, It’s Just Politics
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Zoe was a panelist Friday on WKAR’s Off the Record: this week the panel discusses Gary Peters decision to not run again for U.S. Senate. Who will run for his seat? The guest is former federal chief judge Gerald Rosen to discuss his new book reflecting on Detroit’s journey from bankruptcy to its rebirth.
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