Mike Duggan had the record, the money, and the endorsements. He still couldn't break out of the mid-twenties. His exit from the Michigan governor's race isn't a story about his campaign — it's a story about what negative partisanship does to serious independent candidates in a high-stakes election year. With Duggan out, the race consolidates around its natural structure. Here's what that structure actually looks like.

I watched Democrats and Republicans have real conversations — not the performative kind, not the “we agree to disagree” handshake variety, but actual, honest exchanges. Competitors sharing a drink and a real opinion. People who, back home, would never be caught dead agreeing with each other, nodding across a table at the same idea. I saw it more than once. I wasn’t imagining it.

The modern age of communication has shown that you don't have to be a big, multi-billion-dollar sports league to use social media to your advantage. What you do need is smart, well-informed social media teams with a finger on the pulse of who your audience is and what they want to see.

This year's theme is A Quest for Common Ground. The Chamber chose it as an acknowledgment that the solutions Michigan needs require people who disagree to work together. That is the right instinct. But the Chamber has also spent the last several months arguing that Michigan's economic house is on fire, that the state has fallen to 40th in per capita income, its lowest ranking ever, and that the window to act is closing.

When this bill is framed primarily as a defensive measure, as protection against a threat Michigan cannot otherwise meet, it reinforces a scarcity mindset that is already doing damage. The implicit message is that we are keeping them out because we cannot beat them. Treating China as an invincible competitor Michigan must simply survive is factually wrong and strategically damaging.

Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow is the latest person to find out the hard way. CNN's KFile found that she had deleted roughly 6,000 tweets before launching her U.S. Senate campaign. Among them were posts criticizing rural America, praise for California, comparisons of Trump supporters to Nazis, and a declaration that cars are dead. The story landed nationally. Opponents called it a liability. McMorrow went on CNN to respond.

Sheetz announced its Michigan expansion in 2022. Its first location opened in 2024. A proposed site in Farmington Hills was rejected outright. The company has more than 800 stores across seven states and a cult following that generates lines at grand openings. It took years of effort to open a convenience store in Oakland County from a company that has been welcomed in almost every other place they have tried to go.

Authenticity does not mean the same thing for every person. What reads as genuine in one leader looks like performance in another. The goal is not to find the universally relatable version of yourself. It is to be fluent enough in your actual self that the right words come naturally, whatever those words happen to be.

For two decades, Pure Michigan has been one of the most successful place-based marketing campaigns in the country. It reshaped how people see the state at a moment when Michigan needed it most. When the national narrative was dominated by economic decline and population loss, Pure Michigan offered something different. It focused on what was enduring: water, seasons, space, and natural beauty. It created a brand that felt authentic and confident, and it gave people a reason to look at Michigan again.

Around 2000, Michigan ranked roughly 16th in the nation in per capita income. Over the following decade, as manufacturing losses mounted and population growth stalled, that ranking fell into the 40s. Even with some recovery in recent years, Michigan still sits well below where it once did, a sign that the gap created during that period has not been fully closed. 

When Vice President J.D. Vance visited recently and emphasized cultural change, immigration, and a country slipping away from its past, he was speaking to that assumption. His argument only works, though, if Oakland County is still what it used to be. 

There is a tendency to treat war as something that belongs to foreign policy. It is discussed through maps, strategy, and diplomacy, as if its primary audience is in Washington. But war is also an economic event, and in the United States its effects are not evenly distributed. They concentrate in places tied to the physical economy.

In the fall of 2015, I walked into Truscott Rossman as a senior account executive with a new title, a new team — and a client with a clear mission: 

Make biosimilar medications available to Michigan patients. 

At the time, I had a lot to learn about both Michigan politics and biologic drugs. 

At first glance, Michigan’s Secretary of State election might seem like routine statewide politics. But going into 2026, the race has taken on new importance, drawing high-profile entrants, intense attention from party activists, and growing national interest. What was once a typically low-visibility contest has become a key battleground in the fight over election administration and public trust.

Supporters argue it’s about focus, learning, and mental health. And there’s plenty of data to back that up. Study after study shows that constant phone access in classrooms correlates with lower academic performance, higher distraction, and increased anxiety — particularly among younger students. Teachers report spending significant instructional time policing devices rather than teaching. Parents, regardless of political affiliation, routinely say they’re worried about how much time their kids spend on screens.

The Detroit Auto Show kicks off this week with more subdued fanfare and a renewed commitment to interactivity, bridging the experience from the show floor to the computer screen.

For the first time in modern history, Michigan voters will face an open governor’s race and an open U.S. Senate seat at the same time. That combination has not happened here since the direct election of senators began in 1916. No incumbent governor. No incumbent senator. Two of the most powerful offices on the ballot, fully up for grabs.

Looking back, 2025 will not be remembered as a year of singular transformation. It will be remembered as a year when Michigan repeatedly relied on last minute negotiations to prevent failure, even as meaningful history was made with the election of Mary Sheffield and early commitments hinted at more transformative change still ahead.