Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan speaks to the Lansing Economic Club during an event in East Lansing, Mich., on Feb. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said Thursday he supports a ballot initiative to bring ranked choice voting to Michigan.
Duggan, a former Democrat who is running for governor as an Independent, said that our current electoral system rewards division.
Under ranked choice voting, voters would rank their preference of candidates from first choice on. The candidate with the fewest first choice votes would be eliminated, and those ballots redistributed to the marked second choice, until a candidate has earned at least 50% of the first choice votes.
Is ranked-choice voting the next election reform for Michigan?
Advocates say the system would incentivize candidates to focus on issues where they agree, since they would want to be placed highly in a voter’s ranking even if they are not that voter’s first choice.
Duggan, who addressed the Lansing Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, said he wrote his senior thesis in 1980 on why presidential primaries should be conducted using ranked choice voting.
“Apparently, I was ahead of my time,” Duggan said.
Rank MI Vote has been laying the groundwork for a potential 2026 ballot proposal to amend the state constitution and introduce ranked choice voting in Michigan.
While the proposal wouldn’t take effect until after the next gubernatorial election, he said he’s focused on delivering a positive message anyway.
“I don’t run against anybody,” Duggan said. “I don’t run negative ads on the other people.”
“Whoever the Democratic and Republican nominees are, I’ll debate them when the time comes, but my campaign isn’t going to be telling you why the Republicans and Democrats are awful,” Duggan said. “My campaign is going to be why Michigan will be better if we pull together.”
Duggan said polling indicates voters are open to an independent candidate for governor, feeling like neither of the major parties has their best interests in mind.
He said that’s largely a result of dysfunction in the state Capitol, pointing to a lawsuit Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) filed to force the state House, which is now controlled by Republicans, to transmit bills that had been passed while the chamber was controlled by Democrats to the governor for executive action.
“I’m going to run a campaign where I’m not going to demonize anybody,” Duggan said. “I’m going to tell people in Michigan what I plan to do, and the people will make a choice whether they want a change or whether they’re happy with the way things are going.”
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