James Craig campaign announcement last September. (Photo: Michael Lucido)
For the second time in less than four months, James Craig has lost a campaign manager in his race to be the Republican nominee for governor.
Adam Wright said Monday he "recently" submitted quit, but declined to say more because of a nondisclosure agreement, according to Craig Mauger of The Detroit News.
In a statement, Craig says:
"I will continue to campaign across Michigan, including in my hometown of Detroit and other urban areas of our state. Frankly, we were not in agreement on this strategy, so we mutually agreed on going in a different direction."
Craig, a former Detroit police chief, started as the apparent frontrunner in this year's Republican field, but others have entered the contest and its unclear where he now stands.
Craig met with ex-President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago last September, but to date has not gotten his endorsement. Many political observers believe a litmus test for an endorsement from Trump is whether a candidate believes that Joe Biden stole the election.
Craig has not come out publicly to say that, and is not expected to a Republican insider.
That insider tells Deadline Detroit that Trump may not endorse any gubernatorial candidate because Gov. Grecthen Whitmer may be too difficult to beat, and he doesn't want to be embarrassed by a high-profile loss. Trump has endorsed candidates in Michigan for attorney general, secretary of state and Congress.
Mauger reports:
[Wright] took over the job after Craig's former campaign manager, Anthony Sarros, departed in December, according to Sarros's LinkedIn page. Wright's resignation comes about a month before the April 19 filing deadline for candidates for governor to submit 15,000 petition signatures to get their names on the ballot for governor.
-- Allan Lengel
