Mike Duggan has ended his independent campaign for Michigan governor, saying in a letter to supporters that he no longer felt good about his chances to win. He made the announcement as he was set to take center stage at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference, where he had been expected to keep pressing his case for 2026.

Duggan launched his bid in December of 2024 and spent the campaign trying to sell a message of unity in a race he knew would be uphill. He said he held 5-10 town halls a week across Michigan, gathering Democrats, Republicans and Independents in what he described as lively and positive discussions. But in his letter, he said the political winds shifted sharply this spring as the war in Iran deepened public anger and gasoline prices climbed above $5 a gallon. He wrote that Democrats and many Independents were unified in anger as the conflict dragged on, and said the atmosphere changed the race.

The numbers had already started to point in the same direction. Duggan cited a May 5 State Senate race in Saginaw, where the Democratic candidate won 60% of the vote in a seat Republicans had considered very competitive. He also pointed to a pre-conference poll from the Glengariff Group released May 13 that showed him at 23%, behind Jocelyn Benson at 34% and John James at 29%. He said the campaign was behind both in the polls and in fundraising, and that the gap was too much to overcome.

Duggan said he had strong support in southeast Michigan and had picked up a host of union endorsements, but he argued that independent politics still faced a structural problem. He said 94% of his donors came from Michigan and that his campaign had raised more in-state money than any other candidate, yet gubernatorial campaigns are still funded overwhelmingly through long-established national party networks. He said independent fundraising remains too new to supply much help in a 2026 race, despite months of effort building contacts across the country.

That tension ran through his final explanation. Duggan said he was down 11 points in May, but that by itself would not have discouraged him. What changed, he said, was the combination of the polls and the money. He told supporters it was not right to ask volunteers, faith leaders, unions, elected officials and donors to keep going when he no longer felt good about the campaign’s odds. For a candidate who spent months arguing that Michigan voters were ready to cross lines, the ending is plain: the cross-partisan pitch drew attention, but not enough support to keep the campaign alive.