Disqualified candidates James Craig and Perry Johnson are taking very different approaches to remaining in Michigan’s Republican gubernatorial primary.
Late Thursday night, Craig announced he will still be seeking the Republican nomination for governor as a write-in candidate.
“I’m not giving up. They have robbed me. And guess what — write-in,” Craig said June 9 on the FOX 2 Detroit program Let It Rip.
Next to him on air was Craig’s perhaps former primary opponent, Perry Johnson. Johnson is staging a last-ditch effort in federal court to force state election officials to place him on the ballot, after Michigan courts denied a similar attempt by Johnson and other ousted campaigns.
His window is rapidly closing. Absentee ballots have to be available to voters in about two weeks, and on Thursday his attorney asked the court to halt ballot printing, which they claim is scheduled to begin Friday.
“The only issue we have is that they want to start printing the ballots tomorrow,” Johnson said on the show Thursday night. “And we asked for a stay. So I’m hoping the judge grants that stay because at the hearing before they said there’s not enough paper to print another set of ballots.”
Johnson’s attorney Eric Esshaki requested the ballots be halted just hours after a federal judge scheduled their hearing for next Tuesday, which is only a few days before the first ballots have to be mailed to service members overseas.
Related: Michigan sends out absentee ballots soon. Here’s how to get one.
Craig, Johnson and three other Republican gubernatorial candidates — half the candidates in the race — were disqualified in late May after state election officials determined a total of at least 68,000 fraudulent signatures had been submitted with the candidates’ nominating petitions, leaving them under the minimum valid signatures required to appear on the ballot. Just 36 circulators, paid by signature, were responsible for the vast majority of the fraudulent petitions, the state determined.
On the program Thursday, Johnson said he estimated a successful write-in campaign would cost $22 million, but Craig was undeterred. Both said they have no interest in being lieutenant governor.
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2022-06-10 12:02:00Z
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