Biden for President
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2020

ICYMI: Biden for President Announces Key Staff Hires in Michigan

Today, Biden for President announced key staff hires in Michigan – including Michigan natives and former staff for Biden for President National Co-Chair Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, the Obama-Biden campaigns, and state and local officials.
 
“Michiganders have seen who Donald Trump is, now they're ready to show the nation who they are,” said Biden for President Battleground States Director Jenn Ridder. “Just as Vice President Biden dominated every county in Michigan on March 10, our campaign has hired a battle-tested team with deep ties across the state that will help deliver victory in November.”
 
Eric Hyers, State Director
Eric has a record of electing Democrats in hard-fought races and tough environments. In 2019, he managed Andy Beshear’s winning campaign for governor of Kentucky, defeating Republican incumbent and Trump ally Matt Bevin. In 2016, he led Montana Governor Steve Bullock to re-election on the same night that Donald Trump won Montana by 20 points. He also managed the winning gubernatorial campaign of Gina Raimondo in Rhode Island in 2014, as well as the successful 2010 and 2012 congressional campaigns of Rep. David Cicilline (RI-01).
 
Mariah Hill, Deputy State Director
Mariah joined the Biden campaign in the primary as the South Carolina Deputy State Director and then served as the Western States Lead. Prior to joining the campaign, Mariah was the manager for Joe Cunningham’s upset victory in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in 2018. In 2016, she worked for Jason Kander’s U.S. Senate campaign in Missouri and for Martin O’Malley’s presidential campaign in New Hampshire. Mariah is a Michigan native and graduate of Albion College.
 
Justin Johnson, Deputy State Director
Justin Johnson has spent the last 15 years as a political and labor organizer having spent his tenure working at the staff level as well as management. From the state level to the local level, Justin has amassed relationships that have come as a result of work in the trenches engaging grassroots and getting grass tops to coalesce around coming goals. Work that has resulted in getting Democratic candidates elected up and down the ticket and fighting for the rights of workers across Michigan.
 
Eddie McDonald, Senior Advisor
Eddie McDonald, president of EFM & Associates, is a lifelong public servant and successful political consultant at the local, county, state, and national level. During his 25 years of public service, he served under former Congressman Bob Carr, former Wayne County Executives Edward McNamara and Robert Ficano and as director of executive affairs for the mayor’s office and as a liaison to the Detroit City Council. He is a proven winner of campaigns large and small, having worked or led more than 3 dozen efforts, including most recently the 2018 Michigan Democratic Coordinated Campaign, where the party returned the governorship, the Secretary of State’s office, the Michigan attorney general’s office as well as much of the state education board seats to Democratic control. His other work includes, but is not limited to: All of Jennifer M. Granholm’s bids, where she was elected three times for statewide offices as governor and attorney general, respectively; leading GOTV efforts for former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and for 3 Detroit Mayors; and earning victories for several county or statewide ballot proposals, including the 2012 and 2020 passage of millage's to support the Detroit Institute of Arts. McDonald, a 4-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention, currently serves as the director of African American Outreach for the Michigan Democratic Party. 
 
Ed Duggan, Political Director
Ed Duggan has extensive experience working with community and business leaders in the state of Michigan. He currently serves as Senior Advisor in the Michigan Department of Labor and previously worked as Special Advisor to Governor Whitmer. Duggan has over a decade of experience working on political campaigns and in 2018, he served as Detroit Chair for the Michigan Coordinated Campaign. Previously, he worked at the Downtown Detroit Partnership as the Chief Recruitment Officer for Summer Youth Employment overseeing Detroit’s summer jobs program which placed 8,000 young people in job experiences. He is a member of the Michigan State Bar and received his JD from University of Detroit Mercy and Bachelor’s Degree from Michigan State University.
 
Rose Dady, Coalitions Director
Rose Dady is one of the most trusted and effective grassroots/political organizers in Detroit and southeast Michigan. She currently serves as District Director for Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence in Michigan’s 14th District. Known for her knowledge of the community, Rose has a background in project management, specializing in community change and creating actionable engagement plans for entities such as the AFL-CIO, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Detroit Pistons, the State of Michigan and Wayne County. Rose has served as an outreach and policy advisor in the city of Detroit, under multiple mayors, labor unions, and as Chief of Staff and Legislative Director in the Michigan State House of Representatives.
 
Detroit Free Press: Biden campaign makes key hires in Michigan, including veteran political consultant
[By Todd Spangler, 6/30/20]
 
Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign announced Tuesday the hiring of a veteran southeastern Michigan consultant, Eddie McDonald, as senior adviser in the state and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's son, Ed Duggan, as its political director.
 
The announcement of the state hires was first reported by the Free Press and came as Biden's campaign brought on several officials in key battleground states across the U.S.
 
In 2016, President Donald Trump won Michigan by two-tenths of 1 percentage point, becoming the first Republican to do so since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Recent polls have shown Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, with a sizable lead in the state at present, however.
 
Among the other Michigan hires made by the Biden campaign:
  • State Director Eric Hyers, who last year managed Gov. Andy Beshear's winning campaign in Kentucky and previously led Montana Gov. Steve Bullock's reelection in 2016.
  • Deputy State Director Mariah Hill, a Michigan native and graduate of Albion College who worked as deputy state director for Biden in this year's South Carolina primary, where his win was widely credited with helping to turn around his campaign.
  • Deputy State Director Justin Johnson, who has worked for the last 15 years as a political and labor organizer.
  • Coalitions Director Rose Dady, who currently serves as district director for U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Southfield, and has worked on community efforts with the AFL-CIO, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state of Michigan and Wayne County. She has also acted as an outreach and policy adviser in Detroit to several mayors. 
"Just as Vice President Biden dominated every county in Michigan on March 10, our campaign has hired a battle-tested team with deep ties across the state that will help deliver victory in November," said Jenn Ridder, Biden's states director. The reference was to the Michigan primary, which Biden won 53% to 36% over independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Biden won in all of Michigan's 83 counties.
 
McDonald, president of EFM & Associates in Detroit, has been associated with dozens of campaigns in southeastern Michigan, including the 2018 Democratic campaign effort that helped elect Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
 
He also worked for former Gov. Jennifer Granholm's campaigns, led get-out-the-vote efforts for Barack Obama's and Bill Clinton's campaigns in the state and helped pass the 2012 and 2020 millages to support the Detroit Institute of Arts. A four-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention, McDonald also currently serves as director of African American outreach for the state Democratic Party and worked for former Wayne County Executives Ed McNamara and Robert Ficano.
 
Duggan, meanwhile, currently serves as a senior adviser in the state Labor Department after previously working as an adviser to Whitmer. In 2018, he served as chair of the Democratic campaign and before that worked at the Downtown Detroit Partnership helping to oversee the city's summer jobs program.
 
Wall Street Journal: Joe Biden Ramps Up in Michigan
[By Joshua Jamerson, 6/30/20]

Joe Biden is building out his team in Michigan, tapping a veteran of red-state Democratic campaigns to oversee operations there.

The former vice president’s campaign said Eric Hyers would serve as Michigan state director. Mr. Hyers was the campaign manager for Democrat Andy Beshear’s successful 2019 bid to unseat Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican. President Trump, who won Kentucky by 30 points in 2016, heavily backed Mr. Bevin, whose tenure at times had been rocky.

Mr. Hyers also ran Montana Gov. Steve Bullock’s re-election campaign in 2016. Mr. Bullock won Montana by roughly 4 percentage points on the same night Mr. Trump beat Hillary Clinton there by 20 points.

The Great Lakes State hadn’t supported a Republican presidential candidate for 28 years until Mr. Trump, who won there in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 votes. Democrats, after winning several prominent races in the state in 2018, are eager to put Michigan back in their column.

Mr. Biden, after a long campaign in the Democratic primary that was competitive for nearly a year, is moving to catch up organizationally to the Trump re-election team, which named a Michigan state director for the 2020 race more than a year ago.

Mr. Trump’s advisers see holding on to Michigan as a challenge in 2020, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported.

According to recent state polling and nonpartisan political analysis, Mr. Biden appears to have a slight early advantage in the state. The former vice president is leading Mr. Trump there by just over 8 percentage points, according to an average of recent polls compiled by Real Clear Politics. Along with some other political handicappers, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated Michigan as “Lean Democrat,” one step away from a true “Toss Up.”

Two other states key to Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory in the Electoral College—Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—were rated by Cook as tossups in mid-June.

The Biden campaign has also announced a slate of hires in Wisconsin, Arizona and North Carolina, all three of which are expected to be highly competitive this fall. The campaign also has laid out a state leadership structure in Nevada, which Mrs. Clinton won in 2016 and many political observers see as favorable for Mr. Biden.

The Biden campaign made several other hires in Michigan: Mariah Hill, Mr. Biden’s deputy state director in South Carolina during the primary, will serve as a deputy state director in Michigan for the general election; Justin Johnson, a Michigan labor organizer, will also serve as a deputy state director; Eddie McDonald, a longtime Michigan political consultant, is coming on board as a senior adviser; Ed Duggan, a senior adviser in the Michigan Department of Labor and the son of Detroit mayor Mike Duggan, will be political director; and Rose Dady, district director for Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D., Mich.), will take the role of coalitions director.

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