Premium

Michigan GOP Candidate for Governor Loses His Top Consultant

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

We are on the countdown clock to both the Michigan primary on August 2nd, 2022, to pick a Republican candidate to run against Governor Whitmer and the general election on November 8th, 2022, to try and unseat her. Breaking that down even a bit further, that only leaves 247 days until Republicans vote for who they want to represent them — and those days are going to start flying by.

This is why any bump in the road right now will gain some attention. Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who announced his run for Governor back in July, just hit that bump.

When he made his announcement, I wrote this story here at Red State called Former Detroit Top Cop Announces He Is Running Against Gretchen Whitmer. Now What?. Here is an excerpt from that article…

Recently retired Detroit Police Chief James Craig joined “Tucker Carlson Tonight”’ Wednesday to expand on what he sees as incumbent Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s failed leadership and announce a gubernatorial exploratory committee.

Craig, a Detroit native who spent the past 8 years leading the Motor City’s law enforcement force – after tenures in Cincinnati and Portland – said that he “protected and served for 44 years” and now wants to do the same for the entire state of Michigan.

“We launched today the Chief James Craig For Governor Exploratory Committee,” the Republican said, adding he protected his city from destructive left-wing riots that sprang up in other places like Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles last year:

“We know what happened last year when other cities were burning – Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago – Detroit did not burn.”

He added that another major concern for the people of Michigan is the leadership, or lack thereof, of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The Democrat’s name was often mentioned along with liberal governors of New York, California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey when criticisms were made about statewide socioeconomic lockdowns.

His campaign has been incredibly quiet since then, other than to announce their 3rd quarter fundraising amount of $1.4 million. Now comes news that a well-known Michigan political consultant that was with the Craig campaign is leaving.

From The Detroit News

Well-known political consultant John Yob has left Republican James Craig’s campaign for Michigan governor, a potential sign of internal struggle for the former Detroit police chief.

In a statement, Yob, who had once been described as Craig’s chief adviser, said he didn’t agree with the direction that the candidate “wanted to go in the future, and therefore, it made sense to step aside and allow him the space to build a team that is willing to strategize and implement his vision for the campaign.”

“I am taking the time to relax with family and reflect on the election cycle over the holidays and will consider whether to get involved in the statewide races early next year,” Yob said in an email. “The January campaign finance report will say a lot about the relative strength of each campaign heading into the TV war.”

Yob leads the consulting firm Strategic National and has been involved in Michigan political races for decades. He was once the top Michigan consultant for Republican Rick Snyder’s 2010 race for governor.

There are a number of ways to look at this.

If you are going to make a change in a critical area of your team, “generally” it is better to do it as early as possible before the year turns and the countdown clock starts to run down faster.

Yet the statement that Yob makes about the January camping finance report might be a clue that Craig is not raising the money he was expected to. His $1.4 million is dwarfed by the total war chest of Whitmer, who is sitting on a cool $17 million.

This could go either way and, to reinforce what I mentioned above, the Craig campaign has been very quiet the past couple of months. With 11 other candidates vying for the nomination the silent running will need to end soon.

Will Michigan be part of a GOP wave next year by replacing the current governor — or will it crash and burn?

The next couple of months should give us a much better idea.

Recommended

Trending on RedState Videos