Mark Totten, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s legal counsel during the pandemic, wants to be the state’s 55^th Attorney General.

“Michigan needs a fearless Attorney General who’s focused on protecting our state, our rights, and our safety,” Totten said in a Wednesday statement. “We have a lot on the line in this moment, and no one will fight harder for you than I will.”

The announcement makes Totten the first candidate from any party to declare a run to replace a term-limited Michigan Attorney Dana Nessel in 2026. Totten most recently served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan for the Biden-Harris administration from May 2022 to January 2025, following a stint as chief legal counsel for Whitmer between 2019 and 2022 – the prime years of the pandemic.

Totten previously ran for AG in 2014, but lost to then incumbent Republican Bill Schuette by 8% of the vote, according to The Detroit News.

Totten’s focus on holding the Trump administration accountable compelled him to try again in 2026, alleging in a campaign video he’s “watched in horror” as the 47^th POTUS “has stoked division, trampled civil rights, and undermined the very rule of law.”

“I refuse to stand by and watch, and that’s why I’m running for attorney general, to fight for you and to fight for everything we hold dear,” he said.

That perspective largely aligns with Michigan’s current AG, who has filed numerous lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s executive orders on a wide variety of issues. Totten previously worked with Nessel in a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case on marriage equality.

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While Totten’s announcement Wednesday touted his work leading the legal charge in Whitmer’s crusade to protect abortion in the Great Lakes State, he did not delve into the controversial legal decisions during the pandemic many Michiganders believe “stoked division, trampled civil rights, and undermined the very rule of law.”

Totten played a key role in giving the governor the go-ahead to unilaterally shut down most private businesses in the state for months, and to shutter taxpayer-funded public schools to in-person instruction for nearly a year.

Totten also advised as Whitmer ordered infected coronavirus patients to return to senior care facilities across the state following hospital stays, effectively fueling a wave of COVID related deaths some estimate at as high as 14,000.

Other questionable legal maneuvers by the governor during the pandemic centered on efforts to revoke the professional licenses of folks who opposed the pandemic edicts, threats to businesses that remained open during the lockdown, and arbitrary rules defining who is “essential” and therefore exempt from Whitmer’s stay home orders.

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The Michigan Supreme Court eventually ruled the legal authority Whitmer relied on to extend her pandemic edicts was unconstitutional, opining that the governor must secure legislative approval for extended emergencies.

Likewise, Steve Gray, Whitmer’s former head of the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency during the pandemic, received a secretive $86,000 buyout from the state when he resigned.

Regardless, Whitmer continued to rely on Totten’s advice for another two years, working with the attorney to craft a controversial, secret separation agreement for Robert Gordon, who resigned as Whitmer’s health department director in January 2021.

It was later revealed Totten signed off on a “hush money” payment of $155,506 for Gordon in a deal to ban all involved from discussing his departure “in the interest of protecting deliberations among government officials,” Bridge Michigan reported.

“This is a public official being bought off with taxpayer dollars,” former House Oversight Committee Chairman Steve Johnson, R-Wayland, said in 2021. “What I want to know is, what are they hiding?”

Nessel at the time declined to discuss the deal Totten crafted for Gordon, with spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney telling Bridge in 2021 “any advice and counsel we provide is considered attorney-client privilege.”

Four years later, Totten is vowing to “fight for justice, fairness and the rule of law” if elected to replace Nessel in 2026.

“As a prosecutor, I’ve held accountable countless domestic abusers, gun traffickers, child predators, corporate polluters, and those who defraud seniors,” Totten said in a statement cited by WBUP. “I’ve taken on white supremacists, stood up for the victims of hate crimes, defended workers’ rights, and led Governor Whitmer’s legal fight to protect reproductive freedom as her Chief Counsel.”

So far, Totten has garnered support from many prominent Michigan Democrats in politics and law enforcement, from Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane and Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley to Lansing Mayor Andy Schor and former House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit.