Retired Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who was booted from the Republican gubernatorial ballot last year and recently endorsed former President Donald Trump, is launching a bid for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat.
Craig, 67, announced his candidacy on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, and in an interview with Fox News, which has long been his go-to media outlet.
Craig posted a video on X that begins with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson saying the ex-top cop “brought clarity and competence” to Detroit. The video then fades to Craig: “What about those families? What about small businesses? What about the victims of crime? It’s gonna require strong leadership, and that’s what I bring to the table.”
The Senate seat will become vacant after Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced her retirement.
In the primary election, Craig will face former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, who has the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and has tried to distance himself from Trump. Former U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, a Republican who lost his primary election in 2022 after voting to impeach Trump, is also considering running.
Although Trump is no longer popular among most voters in Michigan, where he won in 2016 but lost to Joe Biden in 2020, he remains a favorite of Republicans, including leaders in the Michigan GOP.
On Sept. 1, Craig endorsed Trump in a column in the Daily Caller, an alarmist, right-wing tabloid that promotes misinformation and conspiracy theories.
“President Trump was not and is not perfect, and I very much doubt President Trump would ever claim infallibility, but he never saw a problem he was not ready to confront, and today Americans need to accept that problems are building up while Washington leaders are unready to confront them,” Craig wrote.
Craig, who also served as the chief of police in Cincinnati and Portland, Maine, casts himself as a political outsider who is tired of establishment politics.
“One thing I have that’s unique, let’s face it, is every city I’ve worked in, every city, were all Democrat-run cities,” he said on Fox News on Tuesday morning. “I wasn’t always a Republican. I mean, my transition didn’t happen overnight. But while I was in Detroit, I was a Republican. When you become a police chief, nobody asks you what your party affiliation is. It doesn’t matter because you’re apolitical. We serve all people, you work with all people.”
On the Democratic ticket, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin is the clear frontrunner in the Senate race.
During his gubernatorial run in 2022, Craig was ridiculed for running a sloppy campaign, dodging local reporters, and relying on right-wing media to peddle his fear-mongering message. Then his campaign ended after he submitted fraudulent petition signatures to appear on the primary ballot.
During the campaign, Craig revealed extremist positions, from saying Florida’s homophobic “Don’t Say Gay” law didn’t go far enough to supporting a total abortion ban that would criminalize the procedure as manslaughter.
After Craig announced his candidacy for the Senate, Democrats blasted his record.
“Michigan Republicans’ nasty, chaotic Senate primary has gone from bad to worse,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said in a statement. “Their intra-party fight is guaranteed to leave them with a nominee who is badly damaged and out of step with working families. Craig has a long record of dodging accountability and leaving Michiganders behind, from standing against Michigan’s auto workers to backing an abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest.”
The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC called Craig “a conspiratorial wannabe politician whose candidacy will do nothing but enflame the Michigan GOP primary.”
“His campaign launch is just the latest proof that Mitch McConnell has failed to control GOP primaries,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Sarah Guggenheimer said. “And as Craig and Rogers fight it out in their race to the far-right, Michiganders will clearly see how out of touch these extremists are.”
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