Republican U.S. House candidate Robert Lulgjuraj has suspended his campaign for a suburban Detroit swing seat, he announced Tuesday.

The decision comes some three weeks after President Donald Trump endorsed one of his opponents, Army veteran Mike Bouchard of Rochester Hills, in the GOP primary to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. John James, who is running for governor of Michigan.

"Today, with a heavy heart, I am announcing that I am suspending my campaign for Congress," Lulgjuraj said in a statement. "President Trump endorsed one of my opponents. While I respectfully disagree with that decision and believe we were the true America First conservative in this race, I have always supported the President and will continue to do so."

"After reviewing the polling and the data, I no longer see a path to victory. I will always put our movement before my own ambitions," he added.

Lulgjuraj's name will still appear on the Aug. 4 ballot, but he is no longer actively campaigning.

Lulgjuraj's announcement, combined with Trump's powerful backing, all but ends the Republican primary contest in Michigan's 10th Congressional District, which covers southern Macomb County, and Rochester and Rochester Hills in Oakland County.

Four candidates qualified for the Aug. 4 ballot. They included Lulgjuraj, a former Macomb County assistant prosecuting attorney from Sterling Heights; Bouchard, an Army paratrooper and son of the longtime Oakland County Sheriff of the same name; Justin Kirk, a Clinton Township attorney; and Steffan Demetropoulos, an Army veteran from Macomb.

Lulgjuraj and Bouchard have been the two front-runners and top fundraisers in a race that at times became heated.

Lulgjuraj, who consistently cast himself as the "MAGA grassroots candidate," also called out Bouchard for his family's political connections on many occasions. "I feel like I'm running against two Bouchards," he told The Detroit News in a previous interview. "I'm running against the son, and I'm running against the father."

Opponents, meanwhile, went after Lulgjuraj by unsuccessfully contesting his ballot signatures and raising questions over his residency.

Republican strategist Jason Cabel Roe, who backed Lulgjuraj in the race, said Tuesday that the Trump endorsement was a "fait accompli" for Bouchard.

"Frankly, the race was about who could get Trump's endorsement, and Bouchard won that contest," he said in a phone interview. "They did polling, and they just didn't see that there was a way to get his story out, with the resources that he had, to compete with the Trump endorsement."

Bouchard — barring a major upset — will face the winner of a three-person Democratic primary between Commerce Department attorney Eric Chung of Sterling Heights, former Pontiac Mayor Tim Greimel and former prosecutor Christina Hines of Warren.

Nationally, the party views the suburban Detroit district as a key pickup opportunity in its quest to reclaim control from Republicans in Washington.

Democrats similarly eyed a 10th District flip in 2024 after nearly winning it in 2022, when Carl Marlinga of Sterling Heights narrowly lost to James in the country's third-closest race. James beat Marlinga for a second time two years later by a more comfortable margin of 6 percentage points, or about 26,000 votes.

National election analysts, including at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Cook Political Report and Inside Elections, currently rate the race as slightly favoring Republicans.

Lulgjuraj reflects on campaign

Lulgjuraj, who was looking to become the first Albanian-American elected to Congress, looked back fondly on his campaign and left the door open for a future run for elective office.

"It's so neat to run for Congress in your hometown, and it's so awesome to run for office in general. I met so many great people, and I think we live in a remarkable country," he said in a phone interview immediately following his suspension announcement.

Lulgjuraj continued: "I really felt we were going to surprise a lot of people on primary day, because we had a lot of grassroots support. We had the most in-district support in this campaign, and endorsements, and we had money to compete with anyone.

"We filled up a lot of rooms. And I thought, if you pair that with a lot of like ethnic outreach in Macomb County, that we were going to deliver a win."

Asked whether he would support Bouchard going forward, Lulgjuraj said he was still processing the decision to suspend his own campaign and looked forward to speaking with his opponent soon — who he went to high school with at Brother Rice in Bloomfield Township.

"My entire life, I've voted on the Republican ticket. I'll never vote for a Democrat because I just don't think they have the best economic agenda for this country, or the right value system that we need," Lulgjuraj said of who he'd back going forward.

"I still have a substantial amount of the money I fundraised in our campaign account, and that's going to be used honorably going forward," he added. "And I think America's worth fighting for, and I'll never stop fighting for those values."

"I'll never stop promoting the American ideals and, you know, if God has — or if there's another opportunity to serve in the future, I'm definitely going to consider it strongly."

________

©2026 www.detroitnews.com. Visit at detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.