Runestad Doesn't Intend To Penalize Pro-Duggan Party Members

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 08/28/2025) A week ago, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel Jr. said he would no longer provide the Democrats' voting list to Democrats running for municipal seats this fall if they supported independent gubernatorial candidate Mike Duggan.

The Michigan Republican Party chair, Sen. Jim Runestad (R-White Lake), signaled Thursday that he has no intentions of penalizing pro-Duggan party members.

Runestad said the ones supporting Duggan on his side are "not your regular, hard-core Republicans."

"Among the donors, there are a few that have given the bare minimum. They haven't endorsed. Maybe they had some friendship with him, but we're not seeing the defection that they're seeing on their side. I see why Hertel is terrified," Runestad said. "He sees the writing on the wall."

Runestad said in the final analysis, "the bark will be off of Mayor Duggan as a hard-core leftist Democrat who supported (President Joe Biden) and (President Barack Obama)."

Kurt Heise, a former Republican lawmaker from Plymouth Township, said he would hope the Michigan Republican Party doesn't follow the state's Democratic Party in penalizing folks who openly back Duggan's independent gubernatorial bid.

Earlier this month, The Detroit News reported Hertel's action to cut off access to its major voter data program, its Voter Action Network (VAN) database, to party members publicly listed as Duggan supporters.

In a statement to MIRS, MDP Chair Curtis Hertel Jr., a previous East Lansing legislator, said that, for Democrats who attended Duggan's formal rally last week inside of Michigan Central Station, "I look forward to their independent campaigns."

Heise was a state representative from 2010 through 2016, and was a Republican chair of the House Criminal Justice Committee. Prior to his time in Lansing, he was Wayne County's environmental department director and the mayor's deputy in Dearborn Heights.

He described Hertel's comment as "pretty-heavy handed," showing that Democrats are afraid of Duggan.

"I think (Duggan's) going to pull a lot of support from the (Democratic) side, and also from the Republican side . . . databases and voter lists and everything, there's other sources out there for these candidates. But I think it's very intimidating and it's unnecessary," Heise said. "If you're trying to build a political party, you've got to hopefully have a big tent, and you should not be driving people away. You need to find ways to bring people in."

Among candidates impacted by the MDP's internal move was Mo Baydoun, the Dearborn Heights City Council president, who will likely become the city's mayor in November. He dominated his four-person primary with more than 58 percent of the vote, 2,250 votes above his runner-up, Denise Malinowski Maxwell.

The 2024 elections demonstrate the difficulties Democrats have recently been facing with Michigan's Arab American community.

A national exit poll of more than 1,300 voters by the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) showed Arab Americans' support for the Democratic presidential nominee shrinking from between 65 and 70 percent in 2020 to under 50 percent last year. Heise said the MDP's decision to discontinue data access to Baydoun – the rising leader of a large Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) descent population – "certainly doesn't help" their relationship to the community.

"There's a lot of fence-mending the Democrats need to do in the Arab American community. I was born and raised in Dearborn. I worked in Dearborn Heights for eight years," Heise said. "I know the community very well, and I know current (Dearborn Heights) Mayor (Bill Bazzi) certainly took a lot of heat for endorsing (President Donald Trump)."

He said at this point, instead of Democrats isolating another mayor, they should be trying to build bridges.

"He could turn out to be a great ally. But instead, they're going to create another adversary when that's unnecessary," Heise said.

As for pro-Duggan Republicans, there has been criticism that such folks left the party behind during the first Trump administration. For example, one financial Duggan backer is the previous U.S. Rep. Dave Trott of Birmingham, who co-founded a group of anti-MAGA Republicans who vocally backed then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the last election cycle.

Trott also revealed to The Detroit News in May that if he were to run for Congress again in the Metro Detroit suburbs, he would do so as an independent or a Democrat.

When asked about Duggan's Republican allies being limited to anti-Trump folks who broke their party ties, Heise said that was certainly not the case for him.

He explained he voted for Trump in both 2020 and 2024, serves on the advisory board of the National Republican Lawyers Association, is a life Republican National Committee (RNC) member and is backing Republican Mike Rogers' second-time U.S. Senate candidacy.

"I will certainly do what I can to ensure that we get Republican majorities in the state House and Senate. But no matter what happens at the legislative level in Michigan, the current situation is dysfunctional. It's toxic, and I think Mike Duggan is the only guy who can not only bring the parties together, but get beyond the heavy partisanship that's just really strangling Michigan today."