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Update: Wednesday: 5:30 p.m. -- John Roach, Duggan's campaign spokesman, said Duggan met this afternoon at campaign headquarters with about 40 volunteers and supporters who asked to meet with him and talk about a write-in campaign. Roach said the group encouraged Duggan to reconsider doing a write-in campaign.
Roach said there was a good open, honest discussion, and at the end, Duggan "at least seemed open" to considering a write-in campaign. He said Duggan will make a decision in the next couple days.
Update: Wednesday, 3:45 p.m. -- Matt Helms of the Free Press reports Mike Duggan is weighing whether to wage a major write-in campaign that his advisers say would be a “huge undertaking.” Duggan was to meet with top campaign advisers and supporters this afternoon to consider what such a campaign would take.
Update: Wednesday, 2:30 p.m. -- A group of community activists plan to gather Thursday at 11 a.m. in Detroit to protest the state Court of Appeals ruling that booted Duggan off the ballot. Peggy Noble, a spokeswoman, says protesters also will encourage people to write in Duggan's name.
The protest will take place at the Cadillac Place state building on W. Grand Blvd at Cass, which houses the Michigan Court of Appeals. A news release says:
"Since the court of appeals ruling last week, Mike Duggan supporters have heard from angry and frustrated friends and neighbors across the city who either plan to vote for Mr. Duggan as a write in candidate, or not vote at all. Detroiters should not have to make that kind of choice and should be able to vote for the person they believe is most qualified to be mayor."
By Allan Lengel
Is there a movement afoot to launch a Mike Duggan write-in campaign for mayor?
Just last week, after the state Court of Appeals knocked him off the ballot, Duggan made clear that he wouldn't campaign as a write-in candidate or even write in his own name.
That said, something curious is going on, something the Duggan camp says it has nothing to do with.
Mike O’Hara, a sports writer who lives in Northwest Detroit, told Deadline Detroit that he received an automated call Tuesday night asking about the mayoral race, including whether he had a positive feeling about Duggan and whether he’d bother to write-in Duggan’s name in the primary and general election.
O’Hara says a woman on the recording explained that Duggan had been ruled ineligible to be on the ballot. The poll also asked whether he had a favorable opinion of certain candidates and whether he'd vote for Benny Napoleon, Tom Barrow, Krystal Crittendon or “someone else.”
The poll doesn’t make clear who's behind the effort.
John Roach, a spokesman for the Duggan campaign, said Wednesday morning in a text message: “I have been able to confirm that the campaign has not requested or commissioned any poll." In a phone conversation earlier in the morning, he said: “I think the campaign is pretty much mothballed.”
Peggy Noble, a community activists, who is helping push for write-in votes for Duggan, said she did not know who was behind the polling.
One political observer with knowledge of Detroit politics speculates that another candidate may have commissioned the poll to make sure he or she understood the political landscape now. Benny Napoleon, the apparent leader in the race, says he had nothing to do with the poll.
"It's definitely not me," he told Deadline Detroit.
The observer said another possibility is that a nonprofit political fund, known as a 527 committee (for the IRS tax code number) commissioned the poll. Or, he speculated, a polling company could be doing it to get media attention by releasing the results.
