Michigan's race for governor has taken shape as another contest over the state's election system, pitting the Democratic chief elections officer against a Republican congressman endorsed by President Donald Trump, who has already begun sowing doubt in the legitimacy of the upcoming vote.
If elected, U.S. Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township, has vowed to target his Democratic opponent for governor, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, accusing her of failing to secure elections in a Fox News interview days before his August win. Benson has called James an "election denier" and emphasized her fight against Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn his loss in 2020. She has repeatedly touted the administration of that election during the COVID-19
pandemic as a feat over which conspiracy theories have cast a cloud.
In priming his supporters once more to distrust the vote in Michigan, Trump wrote in an Aug. 5 post on his social media platform Truth Social, "Get ready for another Rigged Election."
James, at a Macomb County GOP convention Aug. 13, declined to say whether he would accept his defeat as legitimate should he lose. Instead, he expressed confidence in his prospects as he pitches himself as someone who can usher in a Michigan turnaround.
"There are 45 states that are doing better than us, and all of them have the same President," James said, referring to a U.S. News ranking of states. He then repeated some of Trump's favorite election refrains, saying he wants to "swamp the vote" and make the election "too big to rig."
In 2020, James conceded his loss for a U.S. Senate seat. He acknowledged that Trump lost that year too in a PBS News interview four years ago.
But his tune has changed.
As he welcomed the president to Michigan at a July event, James falsely claimed that Trump won the battleground state "three times." (Trump carried Michigan twice – in 2016 and 2024.)
Before landing Trump's endorsement, James wrote in an earlier Facebook post that he and Trump "both got screwed" in 2020 despite court rulings and audits upholding the result, including an investigation led by GOP state lawmakers.
Benson spokesperson Alyssa Bradley, in a statement, called James "a sore, two-time loser and conspiracy theorist who has spent the past six years stuck on an election he and his best friend Donald Trump lost." She celebrated "the highest turnout, most secure, most transparent elections in history" under Benson and touted her as more focused on affordability issues than James.
Andrea Bitely, founder and principal at Bitely Communications, who previously served as chief communications officer for former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's since-ended independent campaign for governor, said she expects to see James move away from talking about 2020.
"It made sense in the primary because he needed Trump's endorsement," she said. "But if I was running Jocelyn Benson's campaign, I would force him to relitigate that," she added. Michigan Democrats have already hit him on the issue.
Asked why he believes no Trump-endorsed candidate has ever won statewide in Michigan, James alleged problems with election procedures as he accused Benson of "malfeasance" in a July interview.
He celebrated federal involvement in the election, saying a Department of Justice presence will "make sure that we have a free and fair election." (The department's previous election plans have included sending monitors to Michigan.)
James has also echoed Republicans crying foul on Benson serving in an elections post while running for governor. Benson's reelection bid in 2022 didn't prompt the same outcry, and her Republican predecessors also all ran for secretary of state while in office.
Benson has a "firewall policy" to avoid potential conflicts of interest or the appearance of them. Chris Thomas, a former director of elections who served under four secretaries of state, described the move as unprecedented, along with the challenge to her role as she runs for office, saying it "just shows you that the sowing of distrust has now become a standard tactic."
Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck, a Republican, described Michigan's decentralized election system as full of checks and balances that protect against any one person manipulating the result.
James has continued to go on the offense against Benson on election administration, pointing to recent charges against five non-U.S. citizens who allegedly voted in the 2024 election as another example of Benson's "long string of problematic behavior and lack of frankly competence in execution of our elections in the past." He speculated that more "failures" could be uncovered.
"When there are a handful of irregularities, we actually find them, we prosecute them, we ensure that justice is done. That is the system working," Benson told WWMT on Aug. 13 when the attorney general's office announced the charges.
On the 2020 election, James has zeroed in on oft-repeated GOP criticisms of steps Benson took to encourage absentee voting.
After that year's election, a court struck down guidance from Benson instructing clerks to presume a voter's signature valid on absentee voting materials, finding that it amounted to a regulation that required formal adoption by state lawmakers.
James' running mate, state Rep. Jay DeBoyer, R-Clay Township – who served as St. Clair County's clerk in 2020 – has falsely claimed that Benson's directive told clerks, "you don't have to validate signatures," according to an Instagram video posted by the James campaign. Election officials still verified voter signatures in 2020.
James and DeBoyer have also blasted Benson for sending out absentee ballot applications in 2020. "My first interaction with Jocelyn Benson was when I asked her, why are you mailing out absentee ballot applications to everyone in the state? That is against the law," DeBoyer said at the Macomb County convention. Courts ruled that Benson had the legal authority to send the ballot requests.
Michigan voters later changed the law to allow voters to receive ballots for all future elections with a single application. James and Trump both won in 2024, the first statewide election year with that permanent absentee voter program in place.
Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 2020 election claims loom over Michigan’s race for governor
