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Our verdict

LiberalMind endorses Anthony Forlini

Election Day is November 3. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is term-limited and running for governor, the seat is open, and Michigan chooses this nominee the same way it chooses its attorney general — at party conventions, not in a primary. Garlin Gilchrist II, the lieutenant governor, leads Anthony Forlini by three to six points in the two public polls located, with a fifth of voters undecided. Forlini, the Macomb County Clerk, brings the race's sharpest documented fact: as clerk he ran a forensic audit of the 2020 election in his own county and found no evidence of impropriety. He also declined, in a September interview, to answer who won the 2020 presidential election. Both facts are in his file below, priced as the different things they are. LiberalMind endorses Anthony Forlini. Read the research, and see why.

How Michigan got here

Michigan nominates its Secretary of State at state party conventions under Michigan Election Law, Act 116 of 1954, §168.72 — spring endorsement conventions (Republicans March 28, 2026; Democrats April 19, 2026) followed by formal nominations at the August nominating conventions. Sources that give a single convention date without saying which convention it was are conflating the two steps; the nominees are the same either way.

Gilchrist first ran for governor in this cycle, then ended that bid on January 12, 2026 to run for Secretary of State. He won the April Democratic endorsement; Suzanna Shkreli, a former Lottery commissioner, was eliminated at the convention, and Barbara Byrum (Ingham County Clerk), Aghogho Edevbie (deputy secretary of state), and Adam Hollier (former state senator) withdrew. Forlini won the Republican convention with 55% on March 28; Amanda Love, Monica Yatooma, and Timothy Smith were eliminated. Bolts notes Forlini won over a candidate who was much more outspoken about her election denialism, in what it calls a departure for this state party.

Five candidates, confirmed against a Michigan general-election candidate list compiled from state records (checked October 15, 2026), filing method "Convention," and corroborated by Ballotpedia and the race's reference pages: Garlin Gilchrist II (Democratic), Lieutenant Governor since 2019; Anthony G. Forlini (Republican), Macomb County Clerk since 2020; Christine Sloan (Libertarian); Eric Borregard (Green), described in the reference pages as a visual artist; and Scott E. Aughney (U.S. Taxpayers).

Sabato's Crystal Ball rates the race Tossup (September 9, 2026). The polling: Cygnal (R)/Beacon Research (D), September 18–21, 600 likely voters, ±4.0 — Gilchrist 41, Forlini 38, undecided 20. Glengariff Group, August 31–September 3, 600 likely voters, ±4.0 — Gilchrist 42, Forlini 36, undecided 22. MIRS insider prognosticators picked Gilchrist at 84.16% — an insider-expectations survey, not a voter poll.

The money, printed as named compilations with their dates, never averaged — and this race carries a genuine conflict, printed as a conflict. Per Michigan Secretary of State reports as compiled by Wikipedia: Gilchrist raised $1,763,060, spent $727,600, with cash on hand of $1,035,459 (as of August 13, 2026); Forlini raised $494,975, spent $198,372, with cash on hand of $296,603 (as of August 6, 2026). The Lansing State Journal (August 19, 2026), reporting the first seven months of 2026, put Gilchrist at nearly $1.8 million raised with roughly $1 million on hand — which reconciles — and Forlini at $323,000 raised over that period with roughly $296,000 in reserves. Forlini's raised total does not reconcile: $323,000 on the Journal's window against $494,975 on the compiled reports. Different windows or committee boundaries are the likely explanation, but it is unresolved on these sources, and we print no single raised figure for Forlini. The cash-on-hand figure, roughly $296,000, is consistent across both. On either version, Gilchrist holds a large money lead.

Garlin Gilchrist II (Democratic) — lieutenant governor, twice elected on someone else's ticket

Background and service: Lieutenant Governor since 2019, elected twice statewide as Governor Whitmer's running mate (2018, 2022). A former software engineer; he campaigns on that background for election security and on modernizing licensing, registration, and branch services. One analyst's framing — attributed opinion, not fact — is that he "has never won any election in his own right for any office" (the Ballenger Report). His own attempt is documented below.

His own election-history episode, documented: Gilchrist lost the 2017 Detroit city clerk race. He sought a partial recount, which found ballot processing and storage errors but confirmed his loss, after which he conceded. Forlini used the episode in debate — "I'm the only one up here that is not an election denier" — and the recount-and-concede sequence is the documented fact underneath the exchange: he challenged through the process, the process answered, and he accepted the answer.

Positions and debate record: Gilchrist told Votebeat in October that he would not share the state's unredacted voter rolls with the Trump administration. In debate he charged that Forlini, as Macomb clerk, hired "a January 6 protester to be the poll worker recruiter and clerk trainer." Forlini's on-record response: the employee "is very, very vocal and not something that I necessarily aspire to," and the hire reflected "diversity of opinion" in his office. We print that as a debate exchange; the underlying personnel fact was not independently verified in this research.

Pros: Eight years in statewide office and two statewide campaigns. A technical background he ties directly to election security and service modernization. A documented recount-and-concede in his own loss — process accepted when it ruled against him. A large fundraising lead on every compilation.

Cons: He has never won an election headed by his own name — his statewide wins are as a running mate, and his one head-of-ticket race, for Detroit clerk, he lost. The research located no break with his party in service; his voter-data position is his party's standard position in the current federal dispute, stated as such.

The flaw, plainly: An unproven head-of-ticket record — he asks for an office he would hold in his own right on the strength of service rendered in someone else's. No conduct flaw was sourced against him, and no Manchin-test break was located.

Anthony Forlini (Republican) — the county clerk who ran the audit

Background and service: Macomb County Clerk since 2020, in Michigan's third-largest county. Prior service as a state representative over multiple terms and as a township supervisor. Endorsed by former Secretary of State Candice Miller. He campaigns on election-administration experience — the office he holds now is the county-level version of the job he seeks.

The 2020 audit — his strongest documented fact: As clerk, Forlini conducted a forensic audit of the 2020 election in Macomb County that found no evidence of impropriety. That is the act of an administrator who checked his own county's work and published the answer it gave. In a September interview, however, he declined to answer who won the 2020 presidential election. Both are in the record, and they sit in tension: the audit says the count was clean; the refusal says he will not say plainly what a clean count means. We price the audit as proven in-service conduct and the refusal as rhetoric — an evasion, not an act of administration.

His signature issue — noncitizen voter-roll checks, with numbers sourced by tranche: The Macomb Daily, the local paper of record, reports: in the first quarter of 2026, 198 people self-reported as noncitizens at jury duty; 7 were registered to vote, none with a voting record. His office's earlier 2025 review: 640 self-reported noncitizens, 7 registered, 4 with a voting history. Secretary Benson called his January flagging "reckless"; a claim that her office's review confirmed four were in fact noncitizens reaches this research only through a single-partisan-relay account of a Daily Signal interview, unverified against Secretary of State records, and we do not print it as confirmed. A further third-quarter claim circulates through a partisan forum quoting Forlini — single-partisan-source, unverified, and not printed here. What is documented: the numbers his office produced are small, specific, and sourced — single digits of registrations against hundreds of self-reports — and he has bypassed state officials to work with Trump administration databases on noncitizen registrations, telling Votebeat he would consider sharing unredacted voter rolls with the administration, where Gilchrist said he would not.

The college-student question: In a July MIRS podcast, Forlini questioned why students register in college towns rather than their hometowns — "why should they be voting on something they're not going to pay for?" Gilchrist answered that the choice is the student's. Michigan law allows either address, as the same source states.

Pros: He does the job now, at county scale, in one of the state's largest counties, after prior legislative and township service. His 2020 forensic audit found no impropriety and he let that finding stand — proven conduct against his own party's prevailing suspicion, in service, when it counted. His signature investigation produced small, checkable numbers rather than large, uncheckable claims.

Cons: He trails in both polls located and is heavily out-raised, with his own raised total in unresolved conflict between sources. He declined to answer who won in 2020 — a plain question with a plain answer his own audit supports. The student-registration remark questions a choice Michigan law expressly allows voters to make.

The flaw, plainly: Rhetorical evasion on 2020 — a refusal to state what his own audit established. It is the rhetoric species, priced as rhetoric; it does not erase the audit, which is conduct, and conduct prices higher.

The minor candidates, briefly

Christine Sloan (Libertarian) participated in the September 29 League of Women Voters forum, arguing for faster law-enforcement response to election-safety concerns. Eric Borregard (Green) and Scott E. Aughney (U.S. Taxpayers) are confirmed on the ballot; no further records for any of the three were located in the sources consulted. A standing check found no pedophile-association material meeting the proven standard — knowing association with or defense of a convicted pedophile — for any candidate on this ballot.

OUR CALL

LiberalMind endorses Anthony Forlini.

Price the two files by species. Gilchrist's is an unproven head-of-ticket claim on a statewide office: twice elected as a running mate, beaten in the one race that bore his own name, running on his party's standard positions with no in-service break located — the Manchin test asks for breaks in service, and there are none in this file. Forlini's file contains the single most valuable act in either record: a Republican county clerk who audited the 2020 election in his own large county, found no evidence of impropriety, and let the finding stand. That is proven in-service conduct on this publication's core value — honest counts, honestly reported — and it outweighs his genuine flaw, which is rhetorical: declining to say aloud who won the election his audit cleared, and questioning a registration choice the law allows. A rhetoric flaw does not cancel a conduct record. Endorse the clerk who ran the audit and reported what it found, flaws printed in full above.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Winner: Garlin Gilchrist (Democratic) — called by the Associated Press. This result was appended on November 4, 2026 (results wave 1); the original article above is unchanged, exactly as published before Election Day.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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