Michigan voters went to the polls Tuesday in the Democratic governor race, choosing between Jocelyn Benson and Chris Swanson for the ticket that will try to replace term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Polls closed at 8 p.m. across most of Michigan, while voting continued in four counties in the western Upper Peninsula that are in the central time zone.
The vote came after more than 1.3 million ballots had already been cast before Election Day through absentee or early in-person voting, a total that was far above the pace seen in the August 2024 primary. Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state since 2019, entered Tuesday with a major advantage in fundraising and polling, and her campaign had already reserved $10 million in airtime for general election TV ads starting in September.
For many voters, the decision was straightforward. Toni Smith-Holmes, 74, voted for Benson in Isabella County and said she wanted someone who would do “a really great job for Michigan” and help move the state forward rather than back. Across the state, Brandon Keyser voted for Swanson in Kalamazoo and said he had “not been a fan of Benson while she’s secretary of state.”
The race had been shaped in May by the withdrawal of independent candidate and former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who had raised millions of dollars without a partisan affiliation before leaving the contest. In the final days before he withdrew, Duggan sparred verbally with Benson at a United Auto Workers forum, where she called him a “corporate candidate.” That gave the Democratic contest a sharper edge, even though it remained mostly cordial and the two candidates never faced each other in a one-on-one debate. Benson declined to attend one televised debate on FOX 2 Detroit.
Swanson trailed in polls but kept campaigning anyway, saying he did not believe the surveys. That was the one real fault line in a race otherwise defined by a lopsided money edge for Benson and a quieter tone than the heated Republican contest. The Democratic winner will now carry the party’s banner into a general election in Michigan, where Republicans have not won a statewide office in more than a decade.
