- Democrat Jocelyn Benson has more cash, outraised GOP rival John James in latest reported period
- Benson accepted donations from DTE Energy, Blue Cross executives that would be banned under ballot proposal she supports
- James received additional contributions from the DeVos family of west Michigan and a developer who’s worked on data centers.
LANSING — Democrat Jocelyn Benson outraised Republican rival John James and has a decided cash advantage in the Michigan governor’s race, according to new disclosures and statements from the campaigns.
As of Aug. 24, Benson had about $5.9 million in her campaign account, while James had about $1.5 million. She also raised three times as much as he did in the latest disclosure period, which ran from July 20 to Aug. 24.
Benson raised more than $1.8 million, including donations from DTE Energy and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan executives who could be banned from such giving under a ballot proposal she supports.
James received $371,000 in public funding and reported $1.2 million in private donations, including contributions from multiple members of the powerful DeVos family of west Michigan.
He also received a $5,000 donation from a political action committee representing Blue Cross Blue Shield employees.
The new filings paint an incomplete picture of the fundraising race, however. James has benefited significantly from a super political action committee that was not required to file a new disclosure this week. As of late July, Mission Michigan had spent more than $4.7 million to support him.
Benson has been advertising since before the primary — a majority of her campaign’s spending in the last filing period was on ads. James has been slower to get on the air, releasing his first broadcast ad this week with about two months to go before the Nov. 3 general election.
Benson’s donors
Benson’s disclosure shows she received about 17,700 donations averaging about $102 each during the five-week reporting period that followed the Aug. 3 primary.
More than half of her haul — just north of $1 million — came from nearly 9,800 contributions from Michigan donors.
Benson’s campaign manager Nikki Goldschein called the fundraising evidence of “record-breaking enthusiasm” for Benson.
“John James is looking to Donald Trump and corporate donors to fuel his campaign. We’re building ours with the people,” Goldschein said.
Benson has come out in support of Proposal 2, the Michiganders for Money out of Politics ballot proposal, which would prevent the state’s utilities, state government contractors and their executives from making political contributions to candidates.
But Benson’s latest filing shows she accepted donations from at least two executives that would be banned from making donations under that proposal: Tricia Keith, the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, gave her $8,325 and Gerardo Norcia, the executive chairman of DTE Energy’s board of directors, gave Benson $3,000.
As recently as Friday, Benson’s campaign has touted her as “the only candidate not taking utility money in this gov race.”
Benson’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the contributions.
Other donors who gave the legal maximum included:
- Dan Loepp, the former CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield, a longtime supporter of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
- Matthew Grimm, the co-founder and COO of military technology startup Anduril
- Denish Illitch, a University of Michigan regent and member of the dynastic sports-and-pizza empire
- Benson also received $83,250, the legal maximum for political action committees, from the Whitmer-controlled Building Bridges PAC.
Benson also received donations from interest groups representing realtors, accountants, consulting engineers, attorneys and three different unions.
James’ donors
In private donations, James wasn’t too far behind Benson, reporting about $1.2 million in contributions for the period. He received about half as many donations overall, less than 8,000.
Detailed data on James’ contributions wasn’t available at the time of publication, but his report did reveal several top donors, including individuals who made the maximum allowable contributions of $8,325.
Those included:
- Six members of the billionaire DeVos family, including some who were named after other members exceeded the legal limit but reattributed their donations
- Former GOP primary rival Mike Cox and his wife, Laura Cox, a former state party chair
- Frank Crivello and Reese Fawcet of Florida, executives at Phoenix Investors, a real estate firm with extensive experience in developing data centers.
- John Kennedy, president and CEO of Autocam Medical, and his wife.
James also received $250 from the CEO of Vista Maria, Kathy Regan, a state contractor for mental health services that has been the subject of an ongoing class action lawsuit.
Filing delay
It took more than 24 hours for James’ report to become public, due to errors in both the filing and the Michigan Transparency Network, the beleaguered state system that has suffered from bugs since launch last year.
James’ disclosure was briefly posted to the state website Thursday but quickly disappeared. His campaign blamed Benson, who currently serves as secretary of state and oversaw the transition to the new system.
The Republican nominee filed his disclosure “in accordance with the deadline but there seems to be an issue with Jocelyn Benson’s hot pile of garbage MITN system again,” said James’ campaign manager Jackson Gross.
But department spokesperson Angela Benander told Bridge Michigan that the Bureau of Elections was trying to reach the James campaign to verify the numbers are accurate before posting publicly,” noting the public financing system James had opted into for the primary is “really complex.”
Throughout Friday, Benander said bureau staff were still working with the James campaign to resolve any discrepancies before posting the disclosure, which had not yet been made public.
On Friday afternoon, James’ campaign instead released a statement with some of the top numbers. It did not include any details about who had donated to his campaign.
“We filed on time and have the confirmation to prove it. If Jocelyn Benson can’t even run a website correctly why would anyone trust her to run the state?” James spokesperson Alyvia Bailey said in a statement.
The primary losers
James’ self-funded GOP primary rival, businessman Perry Johnson, reported spending about $33 million on his campaign. He lost to James by nearly 15 percentage points, with about 35% of the vote.
The vast majority of Johnson’s spending in the primary went through companies connected to his campaign manager, political consultant John Yob.
Cox, the former attorney general who suspended his campaign before the election but whose name still appeared on the ballot, reported spending about $7.7 million in total, of which about $5.3 million was self-funded.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, a Democrat, reported spending nearly $2.2 million in his gubernatorial campaign.
Swanson only netted about 17% of the vote against Benson. His most recent disclosure showed the candidate never ran an ad on television throughout his campaign.
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