Michigan Party Conventions Pick Secretary of State, Attorney General

Michigan is one of only three states in the country where political party conventions, not primary elections, determine the nominees for secretary of state and attorney general. While residents cast votes in August primaries for governor, U.S. Senate, and legislative seats, those two powerful statewide offices get decided weeks earlier, behind closed doors, by a few hundred party delegates. If you’re not in the room, you have no say.

That’s not a bug some activists recently discovered. It’s been the system for decades, and repeated attempts to change it have stalled, failed, or simply never gained traction.

Who Gets to Vote and How

Delegates to Michigan’s party conventions are selected through a layered process that starts at the precinct level. Local party caucuses and county conventions choose delegates who then advance to the state convention. The Republican and Democratic parties each run their own version of this process, and the rules governing delegate selection can shift from cycle to cycle.

In practice, the people casting votes at these conventions skew heavily toward party activists, local elected officials, county party chairs, and longtime organizational loyalists. These are not random citizens. They are people who have invested significant time and energy in party structures, and they carry strong ideological and relational commitments into the room.

The total delegate pool at a Michigan state party convention typically runs into the hundreds, sometimes approaching a thousand depending on the party and the year. But “hundreds” looks very different when you compare it to the millions of Michigan voters who cast ballots in a competitive primary. The ratio matters. A candidate can lock up a major statewide nomination by persuading a fraction of a percent of the state’s electorate.

That concentration of power does something specific: it amplifies the influence of party infrastructure over the influence of voters. Endorsements from county chairs, labor unions tied to Democratic machinery, and conservative organizational networks inside the GOP carry enormous weight in these rooms. A candidate who polls well with the general public but lacks those institutional relationships can simply lose.

Why These Offices Matter

Secretary of state and attorney general are not ceremonial posts. They sit at the center of how Michigan administers elections, enforces the law, and interprets the boundaries of state power.

The secretary of state oversees voter registration, election administration, and the certification of results. After the 2020 election cycle, the office drew national attention when then-Secretary Jocelyn Benson resisted pressure to decertify results. The office is also responsible for vehicle registration, driver’s licenses, and a range of regulatory functions that touch millions of Michigan residents annually.

The attorney general functions as the state’s chief law enforcement officer. Dana Nessel, who has held the office since 2019, has used it aggressively on environmental enforcement, consumer protection, and criminal investigations touching state government. Her successor will inherit that posture or dismantle it, depending on the party and the person.

Both offices are term-limited. Benson cannot run again. Nessel cannot run again. That means 2026 brings open-seat races for both, with no incumbent advantage shaping either party’s decision. Open seats raise the stakes. They also raise the intensity of the backroom competition.

Who’s Angling for the Nominations

On the Democratic side, multiple figures have been quietly building delegate relationships for months. The open nature of both races means that several candidates are essentially running two campaigns simultaneously: one for public visibility and one for convention votes. Those are not the same campaign, and candidates know it.

For secretary of state, several Democratic names have circulated, including state legislators and figures with direct ties to election administration advocacy. For attorney general, the field is expected to include prosecutors, current state officials, and candidates with strong labor backing. The labor-convention connection is real. Organized labor maintains significant structural presence in Democratic delegate pools, and candidates who secure early union endorsements enter state conventions with built-in delegate support.

Republican competition for both offices is equally pointed. The party has been working through internal tensions between its more institutionalist wing and the populist-aligned factions that gained influence following 2020. Those tensions play out in convention rooms. A candidate acceptable to county party chairs in Kent and Oakland counties might not be the favorite of activists who drove the party’s rightward shift over the past several years. Brokered results are possible.

For the Republican attorney general nomination specifically, prosecutors and former law enforcement officials have been testing the waters. The party’s convention delegates have shown in recent cycles that they will reward candidates who signal an aggressive posture toward Democratic state officials and federal policy. That shapes what candidates say and who they court.

Reform Efforts and Why They’ve Failed

Reformers have periodically argued that Michigan should move secretary of state and attorney general onto the primary ballot, where all registered voters can participate. The arguments are straightforward: more participation means more democratic legitimacy, and candidates selected by broader electorates may be more accountable to the public than to party apparatus.

Those arguments have not prevailed. The reasons are structural and political at the same time.

Structurally, changing the nomination process requires the parties to essentially vote against their own power. Party insiders who benefit from the convention system have little incentive to dilute their influence. The delegates who pick these nominees are, by definition, the people who would lose the most from reform. That creates a self-reinforcing resistance.

Politically, reform efforts have rarely found strong champions in the legislature. Lawmakers belong to the same party structures that benefit from the convention system. A state representative who wants to move up in party circles does not advance that goal by pushing legislation that weakens party infrastructure.

There is also a genuine philosophical argument made by convention defenders. They contend that delegates are more informed about candidate qualifications, more invested in the governing mission of the party, and better positioned to evaluate nominees for complex legal and administrative offices than a general primary electorate that may know little about the specific roles. Whether you find that argument persuasive likely depends on how much weight you give to broad democratic participation versus concentrated expertise.

What This Means for 2026

Michigan voters will head to the polls in November 2026 and choose between the Republican and Democratic nominees for secretary of state and attorney general. By that point, both nominees will already have been selected months earlier, at spring conventions, by a few hundred party delegates.

The candidates on your ballot in November will not have survived a competitive primary. They will have survived a process most Michigan residents know nothing about, competing for support from delegates most residents couldn’t name.

That is not an abstract concern. Who runs elections in Michigan matters enormously. Who enforces the law in Michigan matters enormously. The 2026 versions of both offices will be shaped by intraparty dynamics playing out right now, in county party meetings and organizational endorsement conversations, far from public view.

If you care about election security, voter access, or law enforcement accountability, the people making those decisions for your party were chosen at caucuses you probably didn’t attend, and they’ll be casting votes at conventions you probably can’t easily access.

Reform advocates argue that the first step toward changing this system is making sure Michigan voters understand it exists. On that count, the gap remains significant. Most people in this state genuinely believe the August primary ballot is where these races get decided. It isn’t, and it hasn’t been for a very long time.

The 2026 Michigan secretary of state and attorney general races will tell us something about where both major parties stand on election administration, legal enforcement, and institutional accountability. They’ll tell us less about what Michigan voters actually want from those offices, because Michigan voters won’t be the ones doing the choosing.