LANSING – Carrying a box of petitions from his native Calhoun County, Governor Rick Snyder formally filed Thursday to run for re-election, and said the volunteer effort to gather more than 26,000 signatures was a “wonderful message to say let’s keep the reinvention of Michigan going.”
Snyder was joined by his wife Sue, who carried a box of petitions from Washtenaw County; Lt. Governor Brian Calley, with a box from Ionia County; and Republican Party Chair Bobby Schostak, carrying a box from Oakland County. He stood with volunteers and petition boxes from all 83 of Michigan’s counties, saying that when he took office, “We said we were going to do a lot of things and we did them.”
He played off Wednesday’s announcement that Michigan’s unemployment rate had fallen to 7.5 percent in March to show that the state was on the right track.
“Let’s keep going,” Snyder said to his supporters and to reporters. “Now is not the time to be complacent, nor content. It’s time to step on the gas and go faster and faster to create more and better jobs.”
As he signed the documentation for the petitions and presented it the Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas, Snyder joked that his campaign was a little more organized than it was in 2010 when he joined the race as an outsider (he later told reporters that when he started the campaign in 2009 he was in the “margin of error”).
Thomas asked Snyder how many signatures he was filing, and when Snyder said 26,000, Thomas said, “You have a cushion then.”
Snyder needs at least 15,000 valid signatures with at least 100 signatures coming from each of at least seven of the state’s 14 U.S. House districts. He can submit a maximum of 30,000 signatures.
Snyder also told reporters that he was “absolutely fired up” to continue in office.
Asked about criticisms his Democratic challenger Mark Schauer has leveled at him, Snyder said it was an “election year and we have career politicians out there being political.”
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