Michigan’s 2026 primary election is on August 4. Michigan will elect a new governor this fall. In the primary, voters will choose the nominees who will appear in the November election.
As part of Michigan Public's Election 2026 coverage, Morning Edition is featuring a series of interviews with the major party candidates for governor.
Perry Johnson is a businessman and an author. And he’s a Republican candidate for governor. He also ran for the office in 2022, but failed to make the ballot. He spoke with Morning Edition host Doug Tribou.
Doug Tribou: What will your top three priorities be if you're elected governor?
Perry Johnson: I want to eliminate the state income tax, which is about $13.5 billion. In order for me to do that without any other taxes, obviously, I need to use my skill set. I've spent my entire life bringing quality and efficiency to companies. Now I want to bring it to state government, and we have plenty of room for improvement in our state.
I also realize that we have property taxes that are onerous. We also have to recognize that we must ameliorate the quality of our education programs. They are very, very weak in this state. Now I propose the what I call "MEGA" audit — Michigan efficiency government audit — so we evaluate what goes on. We don't need to be in a position where we're just throwing money at things hopelessly.
DT: There are a couple of things I want to touch on there. You mentioned the MEGA audit, which is one of the key components of your campaign. Could you describe how that would work and what it would be looking for?
PJ: Well, it's basically the same thing that I do in every company. If you're going to cut, you first have to find out where the weaknesses are, where you have the most potential. And then after that, you're in a position to actually make changes. And my MEGA audit is an efficiency audit. Now, Whitmer does not allow us — our governor — does not allow us to audit anything. I propose we audit everything.
DT: Well, there are multiple ways that audits are already conducted for the state of Michigan through the Independent Office of the Auditor General and through the Office of Internal Audit Services. Why would the state need an additional audit, and would it be potentially costly in and of itself?
PJ: Well, the efficiency audits aren't very expensive, and we don't do an efficiency audit that I'm aware of. Now, if you know otherwise let me know.
DT: No, I believe those audits that I referenced are to see that the spending is going where it is supposed to go. I don't believe it's related to efficiency, but that leads me to another question. In business, of course, if you're in charge, you can audit for efficiency and then make cuts if you're the CEO or approach your board. But in this case, the things that you're looking at are spending that would have been allocated by actions of the Legislature. So would the audit then just make recommendations to the House and Senate as to how to adjust their future spending?
PJ: I think it's kind of interesting the approach that we use. We get money allocated. We don't really know whether that is the appropriate amount because we haven't done an efficiency audit. And then we want to make sure at the end of the year that we spend every penny in that budget, so we're broke. The whole idea is so nutty, but that's really what we do.
We have to incentivize people to save money. So I suggested "Two Cents to Save America." I wrote a book, the concept being we have everybody cut two cents out of every dollar in their expenses, and we systematically change the way people are thinking. So we stop spending all this money needlessly. And that was a basic approach that I think we have to have if we're going to have an efficient government.
DT: And just briefly, do you support the idea of the rainy day fund? The state has saved into a rainy day fund over the years.
PJ: Yes, absolutely.
DT: And I want to ask about your plan to eliminate the state income tax. You have said you want to assess efficiency in state government, and that will allow you to trim spending. But do you believe that will truly offset the loss of revenue from the income tax? In some states where there is no income tax, they have a different use tax. For example, there might be no personal income tax, but then there is a higher sales tax. Are you planning some sort of offset to account for the loss of revenue from the income tax?
PJ: No. It's very important to understand that I've built my entire career on efficiency and quality, and I've been doing this for 40 years: Perry Johnson Registrars, Perry Johnson Laboratory Accreditation, Perry Johnson Food Safety. I mean, we operate across the United States. This is my expertise. This is what I do.
DT: You have said that if elected, you would support the work of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As governor, how would your administration respond to the mass deportation efforts being carried out by the Trump administration right now?
PJ: Well, I'm going to support President Trump's efforts. I think everybody knows that. We have a situation that happened right around my area. We had groups from South America that were coming in and systematically stealing and robbing. I live in Bloomfield Hills, and this was going on in Bloomfield Hills and the Birmingham area.
I think the idea of going after criminals and people that are really promoting the trade in narcotics are pretty dangerous. And there are people that we have to attend to because for a while there, they just came in at will.
DT: One of the most hotly contested topics in Michigan and across the U.S. right now is the construction of large-scale data centers. If elected governor, how would you approach data center projects and any potential legislation about them?
PJ: I'm not against progress. Progress is necessary. But what I had suggested was that we have a moratorium on data centers for one year, and we make sure that we're putting ourselves in a position where we don't have irrevocable damage.
What's happened is we've actually incentivized people to build data centers by giving them tax breaks. Now, what people don't recognize is that we probably have the best area in the world for building data centers. Why? A relatively favorable climate for data centers. We have an awful lot of cold days; perfect environment because they generate heat.
And as a result, it's less expensive to operate these data centers than it would be if you were in other states like California. Therefore, we don't need to offer any major breaks to these companies.
DT: You've mentioned that you support President Trump's policies. Why do you think President Trump chose to endorse Congressman John James, one of your Republican opponents, over you and the rest of the Republican field in the primary?
PJ: Well, I happen to know we have some people in the James campaign that are very, very close to some of the people that advise Trump. And we do know that the advisors advise. We know that they made serious mistakes in the last three governor races, that all of his endorsements went south. But in this particular case, I have some sympathy with him, actually, because he has basically a majority of six in the House. And what would you do? [Laughs] You're in a precarious situation. You need John James' vote.
So I understand. You'll see when you look at the polls coming out, we're in pretty good shape and we're probably going to win this despite that. So the bottom line is we're going to win this race anyway.
Editor's note: Some quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can play the full audio of this interview near the top of this page.
