Retired Detroit police chief, Republican James Craig joins Michigan's US Senate race

James Craig, a retired Detroit police chief who turned to conservative political commentary in recent years and ran unsuccessfully for Michigan governor in 2022, announced Tuesday he is running for the Republican nomination for the state's open U.S. Senate seat next year.

Craig, whose campaign committee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission over the weekend, released a video on his website and on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

"The American people want a return to law and order. And that’s exactly what they’re going to get," Craig wrote in a message accompanying the video. "I am officially running for United States Senate."

He had been expected to run, telling the Free Press some months ago he was considering getting in following four-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow's decision, made early this year, to retire after her current term ends. Craig's last and only previous run for public office ended badly in 2022, when, after being considered by many the GOP front-runner to challenge Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, he, along with others, were barred from the ballot after a state review found their campaigns had submitted fraudulent nominating petition signatures and not enough valid ones.

A lawsuit filed by Craig's campaign to try to force his way onto the ballot failed. He later sued petition circulators he claimed were responsible, including a subcontractor. In June of this year, state Attorney General Dana Nessel filed charges against three people in connection with the collection of fake nominating petition signatures.

On his website, Craig said his priorities are rebuilding what he called a "broken" education system, "dismantling" and limiting the powers of the federal bureaucracy and instituting term limits for members of Congress, even though that could require a constitutional amendment.

Michigan Democrats criticized Craig on his entry into the race, with state party Chair Lavora Barnes saying, "Michigan Republicans’ nasty, chaotic Senate primary has gone from bad to worse. Their intra-party fight is guaranteed to leave them with a nominee who is badly damaged and out of step with working families."

Craig is a native of Detroit and served in the city's police department for a time before leaving to join the Los Angeles Police Department, where he attained the rank of captain. After retiring from the LAPD, he worked as chief in Portland, Maine, and Cincinnati, Ohio, before becoming Detroit's police chief in 2013. Steadying the Detroit department after seeing steady turnover in previous years, he led the force through the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and retired in 2021.

He was also given the nickname "Hollywood Craig" for his many TV news appearances. His video announcing his entry into the Senate race prominently featured an interview on Fox News by former host Tucker Carlson.

Craig enters a race that already has one big-name Republican with law enforcement experience: former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent from Livingston County who rose to become House Intelligence Committee chairman before leaving Congress in 2015. And while Rogers was a reliably conservative vote throughout his tenure, he also struck a bipartisan note in chairing the Intelligence Committee and in decrying a lost-cause government shutdown in 2013. He also appeared frequently on cable news and went on to host a program on CNN for a time.

Rogers, meanwhile, has already secured the endorsement of the Police Officers Association of Michigan.

One distinction between the two may be their position on the 2020 presidential election. During his 2022 run for governor, Craig declined to say whether he supported or rejected former President Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was rife with fraud, even though they were found to be baseless by several official reviews. Rogers has criticized efforts to overturn fair elections, including those by Trump and his allies in 2020, and has said that he believes Biden was lawfully elected.

Both appear to courting Trump's voters in the Republican primary, however. Craig has already endorsed Trump's reelection campaign. Rogers, on X, posted a video accusing the Justice Department — which he formerly worked for — of "waging war" against Trump, after securing charges against him for illegally holding documents at his Florida resort after leaving office and trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Others may enter the race as well: businessman Sandy Pensler is said to be looking at running and former U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Grand Rapids, has formed an exploratory committee. With the primary still 10 months away. the GOP field also includes state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, of Dexter; mid-Michigan businessman Michael Hoover; Wayne County lawyer Alexandria Taylor, who was among those ordered to pay thousands in legal fees for filing what a judge called a frivolous lawsuit challenging ballots cast in Detroit in last year's midterm elections; Oscoda Area School Board Trustee Sharon Savage; St. Joseph physician Sherry O'Donnell, and J.D. Wilson, a Houghton Lake businessman.

Whoever wins the nomination faces historical headwinds, however. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan since 1994, when Spencer Abraham won in a Republican wave year, only to lose it after a single term to Stabenow. And since Trump's narrow election in the state in 2016, Democrats have enjoyed a clear advantage with voters, especially in significant statewide elections, winning the governorship, attorney general and secretary of state twice each.

In the Democratic race for the nomination to succeed Stabenow, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Lansing, is considered the likely front-runner, given her experience and fundraising prowess, but she is by no means alone on the ballot, with actor Hill Harper, of Detroit; state Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, of Saginaw; former state Rep. Leslie Love, of Detroit; Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun and Ann Arbor lawyer Zack Burns also in the hunt.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ex-police chief, Republican James Craig joins Michigan's US Senate race