Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is not happy Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan may torpedo her anticipated bid for governor in 2026.

For years, Benson has plotted to supervise her own election to the state’s highest post, but Duggan’s recent announcement that he will run for governor as an Independent is jeopardizing those plans.

Benson blasted Duggan’s decision in an interview with WJBK on Monday, when she acknowledged her own political ambitions to replace term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

“I’m certainly considering it, that’s no secret,” Benson said of her 2026 bid.

Duggan’s independent run means the former Democrat will avoid a contested primary against Benson and others who plan to vie for the Democratic nomination, and will give Democratic voters frustrated with the party’s drift to the left a better option on the ballot.

The dynamic will undoubtedly draw votes from the Democratic nominee, offering an advantage for Republicans, and that’s a problem for Benson.

“In moments like this, we don’t flee from the party, but we stay and fix it,” Benson told WJBK’s Tim Skubick. “We need to be firefighters, putting out fires, not running away from things we see that may be on fire.”

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

Just months after Duggan announced he’s “100% behind Vice President Kamala Harris,” the 66-year-old pitched himself as a problem solver who can unite the state’s fractured politics when he officially launched his gubernatorial bid last week.

“I’m not running to be the Democrats’ governor or the Republicans’ governor. I’m running to be your governor,” Duggan told the Detroit Free Press. “The political fighting and the nonsense that once held back Detroit is too often what we’re seeing across Michigan today. The current system forces people to choose sides – not find solutions.”

“It’s time to change that,” he said. “I intend to bring together Democrats, Republicans and Independents – and our young people, far too many of whom have given up on our political system – together to move Michigan forward.”

Benson, a former hate crimes investigator for the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center, told Skubick she was working to push through legislation during Democrats’ lame duck session when she heard about Duggan’s independent bid, which she claims did not phase her, though her comments on social media and elsewhere suggest otherwise.

“Of course it didn’t, nothing phases me,” Benson said of Duggan’s announcement. “I’m from a military family. I just keep marching forward.”

Shortly before the election, former Secretary of State Sen. Ruth Johnson, who beat out Benson for the post in 2010, exposed how Benson’s political career aligns with a long-term Democratic plan to turn purple states blue, pointing to Benson’s aversion to purging the state’s bloated voter rolls until after 2026, a laser focus on dismantling election integrity measures, and her long-stated goal of reaching the governor’s mansion.

“In regard to Jocelyn Benson, when we were running 14 years ago, she told one of my friends, ‘I’m running for secretary of state so I’ll have a podium to run for governor,” Johnson told former Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, host of the Tudor Dixon Podcast. “So you’re right, this has been long term.”

Last month, that plan began to unravel when Michigan voters cast their lot with Republican President-elect Donald Trump, and put an end to Democrats’ first government trifecta in 40 years by handing control of the state House to Republicans.

Benson’s analogy of the state Democratic Party as a house on fire prompted Skubick to note that “one of the things that happen when you run away from a fire, is you live.”

“But when you go into a fire with a hose and put out the fire, and build back better you don’t just live and survive,” Benson shot back, “but help other people live and survive as well.”

While Benson trashed Duggan’s independent bid without naming the three-term Detroit mayor, she’s already mimicking aspects of his campaign.

Duggan told the media he plans to head “to communities across the state that have been forgotten and sit in neighborhood restaurants and farmhouses and city centers and listen to people.”

Days later, Benson announced her statewide tour of “Purpose Driven Community Conversations,” though she only plans to stop in urban areas of the state to speak with “local leaders … to listen, learn, and hear more about what we all can do better.”

Ironically, Benson’s vow to “meet people where they are, and listen” came from a post to X that blocked all comments from her constituents.