# Dana Nessel **Dana Nessel** has been the Democratic Attorney General of Michigan since 2019. She is term-limited, and her successor will be chosen on November 3, 2026, between Democrat Eli Savit and Republican Doug Lloyd, both county prosecutors. A Glengariff poll in early September had them at 36–35. Her tenure is a study in ambitious prosecutions that failed in court and civil settlements that did not. ## Before office Nessel was a civil-rights lawyer. She was co-counsel in *DeBoer v. Snyder*, the Michigan same-sex marriage case that was consolidated into [[Obergefell v. Hodges]] (2015). She won the attorney general's race in 2018 and was re-elected in 2022 over [[Matt DePerno]], the election-denier Republican nominee. ## Flint: the prosecutions that collapsed Nessel inherited the [[Flint Water Crisis]] prosecutions from her Republican predecessor. She dropped the original charges in 2019 and re-indicted nine officials, including former Governor [[Rick Snyder]], in January 2021 through a one-judge grand jury. That mechanism sank the cases: in 2022 the Michigan Supreme Court held that a one-judge grand jury cannot issue indictments, and by late 2023 the criminal effort had ended without a conviction. Her office moved to the civil side and announced a **$53 million settlement with [[Veolia]]** in February 2025. See [[Flint Water Crisis Timeline]]. ## The fake electors: the same pattern In 2023 Nessel charged the 16 Republicans who signed Michigan's false 2020 elector certificates. One case was dropped in a cooperation deal. On **September 9, 2025**, District Judge Kristen Simmons dismissed the charges against the remaining 15, saying "I don't believe there's evidence sufficient to prove intent." Nessel criticized the ruling, and her office said it was evaluating an appeal. Michigan joined the list of states whose [[Fake Electors Scheme]] prosecutions ran into the difficulty of proving what the electors believed they were doing. See [[Stop the Steal Timeline]]. ## Why she matters here Nessel is the Michigan node of the Democratic attorneys general who became the main legal opposition to the Trump administration (see [[State AG Coalition v. Trump]]). Her record also shows the limits of the strategy: the two prosecutions that defined her tenure were among the most politically charged of her generation, and both fell apart before trial. Whoever wins in November inherits the coalition seat and the civil docket. ## See also - [[Flint Water Crisis]] · [[Veolia]] · [[Rick Snyder]] · [[Fake Electors Scheme]] · [[Matt DePerno]] - [[Jocelyn Benson]] · [[2026 Key State Races Hub]] · [[State Officials Hub]] · [[State AG Coalition v. Trump]]