There’s one less Michigan contender to fill the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated when Sen. Gary Peters retires after his term expires in 2026.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told her Thursday night audience at Delta Community College that she won’t run to replace Peters because she’s focused on fighting President Donald Trump’s executive orders that she said threaten LGBTQ+ rights in her current position.

She noted another reason she won’t run for national office is her belief that several other presidential EOs have eroded her faith that the 2026 election will be conducted fairly.

“This is an inconvenient truth, I guess, to quote Al Gore, and that’s that I’m not positive that we’re going to have at this point free and fair elections in November 2026,” Nessel said. “We see the fact that when the first things that was done by the federal government, CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), in terms of cybersecurity, was to fire all of the employees that were involved in ensuring that we didn’t have foreign interference in our elections.”

Nessel continued: “And then we just saw this executive order the other day by President Trump, involving proof of citizenship for voters in all the states. Now, to be clear, the president doesn’t have that authority, right? The states are the ones that have the ability to regulate their elections and I just want to make sure that it’s clear on this very issue that people don’t think that we have overwhelming numbers of noncitizens that vote in our elections. The fact is we know that it practically never actually occurs but if you were to have the type of laws that have been proposed or suggested by this EO that went into effect, you could disenfranchise up to 10% of American citizens from voting because they wouldn’t have proper paperwork to do so. And by the way when we do have a noncitizen who votes we prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” she added, referring to the Chinese national who admitted to casting an illegal early ballot in Ann Arbor last November.

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Nessel appeared remotely via livestream in front of DCC students and faculty to discuss perceived “threats” to the LGBTQ+ community that the AG identifies may result from Trump’s EOs.

“There is no room for discrimination in our country, yet Donald Trump and his administration have repeatedly attacked the rights of the LGBTQ community,” Nessel said in a release announcing her Thursday appearance.

“From banning transgender individuals from serving in the military to targeting funding for research into sexuality and gender, the administration’s actions have sought to erode fundamental freedoms. We cannot remain silent while the federal government strips away hard-won progress, and I look forward to discussing my office’s efforts to protect and uphold the rights of LGBTQ individuals,” the statement concluded.

Nessel told the audience she and her wife cried together after Trump was elected in 2016 and 2024. The couple was “crying so hard” in 2016; she said, “We were scaring our children.”

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She also mentioned her support for expanding the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, saying nothing in the U.S. Constitution would forbid adding more judges. She also said she supported “term limits” or “age limits” for justices. Such changes, she said, would defend LGBTQ+ rights.

“I mean, if I’m being honest, you would have to have the presidency and both chambers of Congress, and they likely will have to change the dynamics of the court,” she said. “Remember, it’s not written in stone, you know, in the constitution that we have nine justices and it is also possible that you start sort of committing the justices and saying you can only serve for 10 years, 15 years, or 20 years, so that you don’t have somebody that gets appointed when they’re 49 years old and then they’re on the bench until they’re 90.”

She said among the restraints on LGBTQ+ rights is U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., using his authority to discriminate against transgender Rep. Sarah McBride, D- Del., by banning her from congressional women’s restrooms. She accused Johnson of “pushing a narrative” that transgender women may conduct predatory behavior in spaces where women may be most vulnerable.

“It’s important for us to push back on this narrative by the way that somehow with trans women are sexual predators that people need to be afraid,” she said, noting she was a sexual assault prosecutor in Wayne County and never encountered a case “perpetrated by a trans woman let alone in a locker room or in the bathroom.”

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She added: “I think it’s important to note that, you know, these are these are scare tactics, and they’re wedge issues that are utilized to divide us, but they’re not based on facts, and they’re not based on reality.”

Nessel did not mention that the issue of allowing trans women in traditional female-only spaces only gained prominence in the past several years after she became attorney general. Nor did she acknowledge several instances of female-identifying women assaulting females from birth in restrooms as in the infamous incident involving a female Loudon County High School student who was sexually assaulted by a boy wearing a skirt who followed her into the bathroom.

The AG told the group that her political career for the time being will be focused on her current position rather than seeking higher office.

“I’ve just added the place where I can foresee us having, you know, legitimate elections next year unless we’re spending all the time that we have fighting back, you know, as much as we possibly can in this moment. So, I guess I’ll worry about what comes next later, but in the meantime, I have a job to do, and it’s the job of being the attorney general of the state of Michigan,” she said.