Michigan Congressman Thad McCotter is expected to announce his plans following news that his campaign may not have gathered enough petition signatures to qualify for the primary ballot.McCotter is an iconoclastic politician who ran a brief campaign for president earlier this year. Once that effort appeared doomed, he suspended his presidential ambitions to seek another term in Congress.
The news shocked Michigan political circles over the Memorial Day weekend that the five-term member of Congress appears – but it is not a certainty -- to have failed to get the petition signatures he needed to get on the ballot. That opens a lot of possibilities. McCotter could run a write-in campaign, but other Republicans are also eying a race as potential write-in candidates. It would take a lot of money and effort to get on the ballot as a write-in candidate under Michigan’s election rules.