DETROIT — On Wednesday, Mike Duggan announced that he had officially pulled himself out of the race for Detroit Mayor.  His decision comes one week after the Third Circuit Court declared that he was not eligible to run, based on a technicality in the City’s charter.

The issue, as presented to the circuit court by one of Duggan’s opponents, Tom Barrow, was that Duggan had filed to run for mayor two weeks shy of being registered to vote for one full year in the City. 

Duggan had registered to vote on April 16, 2012, shortly after moving from Livonia to Detroit, but he filed his papers to run for mayor on April 2, 2013. According to the Detroit City Charter, which was ratified and renewed in 2011, a candidate must be a “resident and a qualified and registered voter of the City of Detroit for one year at the time of filing for office.”

After Wayne County Circuit Judge Lita M. Popke ruled last week that Duggan would be disqualified, based on this technicality, his campaign announced that they would be seeking an appeal to argue that he should still be able to run for Mayor, because the filing deadline wasn’t until May 14, regardless.  

Duggan.

However, Michigan’s Court of Appeals did not rule in Duggan’s favor either. On Monday, they upheld the original ruling of the Third Circuit Court, which presented Duggan’s campaign with the option to take the matter a step further to the Supreme Court. 

During a press conference on Wednesday morning, Duggan announced the end to his campaign run for mayor.

“I don’t see putting this town through another four, or five months of a fight, if either the Supreme Court were to reinstate me, or if we were to try and run a write-in campaign,” he said. “I just don’t think there’s a viable path forward to winning.”

The decision drew various reactions from Detroit residents.  Some commended the courts for standing by election guidelines, while others thought that it was a petty argument, drawn by his opponents, who saw a way to disqualify him based on a technicality.

“I think we’ll always wish that the voters of Detroit could have made the decision for themselves, and not have it be made by judges,” Duggan said. “But this is where we stand, and there’s no point in complaining about it.”

Up until the filing issue, Duggan had been viewed as one of the top contenders for the position. Polls had indicated that he, along with Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, had a clear advantage to winning the race.

However, even prior to this technicality, Duggan’s campaign had already drawn some attention and criticism. It was noted that he was the first white male to take a serious stab at the Detroit Mayoral position since the 1970’s, when Coleman Young was in office.  Some of his opponents, along with residents, felt that he was not familiar enough with the City to be running for Mayor.

Duggan, last year, had quit his job as CEO of the Detroit Medical Center, in order to run for the mayoral seat. While his future plans remain uncertain at this point, he did promise residents and supporters that they would be hearing more from him in the future.

“I’m going to try to find another way to help. I’m not leaving Detroit,” Duggan stated on Wednesday morning.