- Michigan gubernatorial candidates tussled over affordability and their records in the second of two debates
- ‘All he has is words and empty promises,’ Democrat Jocelyn Benson said of Republican John James
- Benson ‘has done nothing to change the way you’ve been living for the past eight years,” James countered
DETROIT — Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James came out swinging in a Michigan gubernatorial debate on Thursday night, trading personal attacks and arguing over who’s to blame for high prices.
In their final public matchup before the Nov. 3 election, Benson went after James’ wealth, votes to slash health care programs and to support the war in Iran, along with his data center record.
James attacked Benson for her own data center ties, but mostly sought to lay blame at her feet for Michigan’s declining education performance and sluggish economy. He didn’t mention specific actions she took as secretary of state.
After the debate, James grew frustrated by reporter questions related to President Donald Trump, who endorsed the Republican gubernatorial candidate in June.
“We’re losing our kids, and y’all are focusing on some dude in Washington, D.C. that’s going to be done in two years? We are smarter than that,” James said, telling reporters, “we have to pull our heads out of our backside.”
Democrats have sought to make the election a referendum on Trump, who is facing historically low approval ratings.
“He’s done everything Donald Trump asked,” Benson said in her closing statement at the debate. “If you want gas at $5 a gallon and mortgage rates at 7%, then my opponent’s your guy.”
With voting season well underway — close to 600,000 Michiganders have already cast ballots — James is being significantly outspent on the airwaves and is down in the polls but continues to claim momentum.
Read on for fact checks and takeaways from the debate.
State spending
In vowing to rein in government spending to pay for an income tax cut, James claimed state budgets have grown precipitously under Democrats.
“This government under her control and power is spending 50 percent more than Rick Snyder did, and 20 billion dollars more than the height of the pandemic,” he said.
Benson has no power to approve budgets as secretary of state, but spending has increased significantly since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took office in 2019.
The budget Whitmer signed last fall after negotiations with House Republicans totaled $75.2 billion on paper, but some experts have said it will authorize closer to $86 billion in spending.
That would make it about 50% larger than the $57 billion budget Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed in 2018, his last year in office.
It’s unclear what James considers the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but annual budgets signed by Whitmer totaled $63 billion in 2020 and $70 billion in 2021, when the state received extra federal assistance.
School funding
Both candidates agreed Michigan’s schools were in poor shape but tussled over who’s to blame.
Benson argued the decline was due to “three decades of Republican leadership in Lansing that has defunded our schools at a higher rate than any other state in the nation.”
Her claim is partly accurate. Accounting for inflation and Proposal A, Michigan State University researchers in 2019 found Michigan school funding had declined nearly 20% since the 1990s, even as most states increased spending.
Republicans, however, were not exclusively in charge over that 30-year span. Democratic governors led the state for about half of it, albeit often with Republican majorities in at least one legislative chamber.
James countered Benson’s claim, saying: “Spending in the state of Michigan has gone up for our schools, and our performance has gone down.”
Michigan’s annual School Aid budget has grown by more than $6 billion since Whitmer took office in 2019, a roughly 45% increase to $21 billion. This fall, third graders recorded their lowest-ever scores in the 12-year history of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress.
Benson has called for shifting from a flat funding model for schools to a weighted formula “to meet the unique needs of every school.” That has begun under Whitmer, but Benson argued the state could do more.
“We haven’t been big and bold in trying to ensure our public schools are among the best in the nation, and haven’t ensured our agencies are transparent and accountable and actually delivering results.”
Gas taxes, Iran war
As of last week, both gubernatorial candidates have signaled they would be at least open to suspending Michigan’s 52-cents-per-gallon gas tax amid high prices. But neither provided a full picture of how, if the tax were suspended, they would make up for the lost funding for road repairs.
James turned to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, saying the business attraction agency “has $550 million that’s sitting there … That money should go directly back to the people for the suspension of the gas tax.”
James did not specify what MEDC funding he was referring to, but if the Legislature did allow the governor to divert $550 million from the agency, that would cover about four months of gas taxes, according to fiscal estimates.
Benson did not say how she’d fund roads if the state suspended its gas tax but promised “a wholesale review of how we’re bringing revenue into the state,” which she said could potentially reduce spending or free up funding but would not result in tax increases for middle-class Michiganders
She attacked James over gas prices, arguing he has only “words and empty promises” and wants to “distract us from the fact that he’s voted to put us into a war in Iran that has actually driven up the crisis.”
As Bridge previously reported, James didn’t vote for the war, but he has voted against six resolutions to try to end it, most recently on Sept. 15, when he opposed a measure directing Trump to end the conflict.
Campaign cash
The candidates repeatedly sparred over campaign funding, with each arguing the other had accepted contributions from special interests who might expect favorable treatment in return.
Among the claims:
- James: “Secretary Benson’s taken thousands of dollars from the people who are running Blue Cross Blue Shield, who just got popped by Dana Nessel for actually running monopolistic practices in the state”
- Benson: “My opponent, he’s taken close to $10 million from the DeVos family. What’s their claim to fame? Paying politicians to promote private education and defund public schools.”
What public records show:
- Benson’s latest campaign finance disclosure included maximum $8,325 donations from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan CEO Tricia Keith and former CEO Dan Loepp.
- Her campaign had previously claimed she was “the only candidate not taking utility money in this gov race,” though she also received $3,000 from Gerardo Norcia, the executive chairman of DTE Energy’s board of directors.
- Members of the powerful DeVos family of west Michigan have donated more than $250,000 to James’ gubernatorial campaign and $6 million to a super PAC supporting him, as of their latest filings. Family members reportedly contributed to his past congressional campaigns as well.
Energy rates
In arguing for repeal of Michigan’s clean energy mandate, James claimed: “We have some of the highest utility rates in the entire Midwest because of the failed policies of the people in power in Lansing, the Democrats …There’s no reason that Indiana and Ohio should have double-digit lower lower energy rates than us.”
This claim lacks context.
Residential utility rates have gone up in Michigan since 2023, when Democrats passed a law that will require utilities to draw all their power from clean sources by 2040. But rates had been steadily increasing before that too.
- Michigan’s 19% rate increase from July 2023 to July 2026 was less than the 23% increase over the five preceding years, according to per-kilowatt-hour cost data reviewed by Bridge Michigan.
- That 19% increase was less than the 23% increase in Ohio but more than the 15.4% increase in Indiana over the same span.
- Michigan had the highest residential rates in the region under the prior energy law Republicans helped pass in 2016 — and continues to have the highest rates in the region under the newer Democratic law.
Tariff pain
Benson reiterated her proposal to forge subnational agreements with governments in Canada to try to limit the impact of tariffs, which have escalated amid a trade war instigated by Trump.
In her first debate with James, Benson had claimed those agreements would “eliminate the tariffs and the costs in Michigan.
That’s likely not possible under the US Constitution, which only gives Congress the power to levy tariffs and approve formal treaties with foreign governments.
But Benson dug in: “A governor clearly has an authority to negotiate agreements with Canada,” she said. “This has happened in Maine through bipartisan agreements to protect Maine industry.”
There’s no clear evidence Maine struck a subnational agreement with Canada on tariffs. Instead, reports indicate that Gov. Janet Mills and US Sen. Susan Collins successfully lobbied to have Canada remove seafood and fish from its list of counter tariffs.
James argued circumventing federal tariffs is “basically tantamount to smuggling” and of Benson: “Either she knows better, and she’s lying, or she doesn’t and she disqualifies herself.”
After the debate, Benson told reporters she’d work as governor “to negotiate carve-outs of existing federal policy that can hold up in court and protect our jobs and protect our costs” — but she did not say how Michigan could avoid costs from tariffs.
Data centers
Benson and James continued to attack each other over data centers, each suggesting the other cannot be trusted to regulate the facilities given past votes or personal connections.
Benson claimed: “(James) voted four times to stop local citizens from having a voice in whether data centers could come to your town. And he, not his spouse, he also has bought stock in data center companies and got millions from it, and then he got his spouse he passed tax breaks to protect those companies.”
The first and last claims in that sentence relate to James’ votes for President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill. An early version of the legislation included a provision to prohibit local AI and data center regulations. The final version included tax write-offs for corporate infrastructure and equipment investments, which benefited data center companies but wasn’t specific to them.
Bridge was unable to find evidence James made millions off of data center stocks. He has bought related tech stocks, but most of his wealth gains since joining Congress have come from a family business and trust.
James claimed Benson has personally profited from data centers: “She’s put $370,000 into her pocket, and she omitted that in 2025.”
That’s a reference to the salary of Ryan Friedrichs, who worked on and lobbied for the Saline Township data center project as a vice president for The Related Companies. Benson disclosed his salary on her 2026 personal financial disclosure form but not her 2025 filing. State law does not require officials to disclose their spouses’ incomes or specific values of assets but Benson voluntarily did so last year.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under our Republication Guidelines. Questions? Email republishing@bridgemi.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.