Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is heading to meet voters across the state as part of her “Costs Down, Wages Up” tour beginning July 1.
Benson is set to speak with voters about her campaign, which has been echoing an affordability message that resonated with Democratic voters in recent election cycles in Virginia and New York City. Benson’s campaign says she will share her plan to lower costs, raise wages and protect the rights and freedoms of residents.
“At every stop, she will draw a clear contrast: the choice between a governor who fights to lower costs, or Republicans who have put politics over Michigan families,” her campaign said in a release.
The state’s top election official is in a two-way race for the party’s nomination for governor. Chris Swanson, a sheriff from Genesee County, is the other Democrat running after Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist backed out of the race to run for Secretary of State.
The race has become even clearer for Benson’s campaign after former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, running as an independent after leaving the Democratic Party after Trump’s victory in 2024, suspended his campaign. The former mayor, who had yet to turn in his signatures to make the ballot before dropping out, said there wasn’t enough infrastructure to fund a competitive independent campaign.
Benson and Duggan traded criticisms of one another taking corporate cash during Duggan’s final candidate forum in front of United Auto Workers in Dearborn. While Benson’s campaign for governor has pledged against taking corporate PAC money, Duggan suggested she had done so previously.
Swanson and Benson have remained respectful of one another, although Swanson has knocked Benson for her unwillingness to debate him earlier this month, and pointed to Benson’s husband’s work relationship with the developers of a controversial data center.
“I don’t sit here and say to you ‘I’m not taking DTE money, I’m not taking corporate money’ when I’m pocketing a $1.5 million check from the Babe Ruth of data centers, Ken Duda in California,” Duggan said.
Benson is backed by the establishment class of her party as well as progressive and Democratic Socialist state legislators. Even when Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist ran to her left during his own campaign, the most left-wing members of the Michigan Legislature still supported Benson.
She has promised to go further than her current Democratic governor in establishing greater government transparency laws, bringing high speed rail to the state and lowering prices of consumer goods.
Benson has also invoked her political beginnings as a clerk for Judge Damon Keith in her work to ensure expanded voting rights for Black residents.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the nation’s only Black governor, came to Detroit to stump for Benson’s campaign Monday. He said “a dynamic mayor” like Mary Sheffield and a candidate for governor like Benson would be similar to the relationship he has with Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott.
Benson is far out-raising Swanson, according to publicly available campaign finance records.
Her campaign is scheduled to make stops in 19 cities from Metro Detroit to Cheboygan to hear from voters. Read below for an overview of the tour’s stops, with more details to be announced.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2026
Detroit
Oakland
THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2026
Flint
Saginaw
Bay City
FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2026
Eton Rapids
Jackson
Manchester
SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2026
Northville
Royal Oak
SUNDAY, JULY 5, 2026
Muskegon
Holland
St. Joseph
Kalamazoo
MONDAY, JULY 6, 2026
Grand Rapids
Manistee
TUESDAY, JULY 7, 2026
Traverse City
Petosky
WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2026
Cheboygan
