Gubernatorial candidate Tom Leonard speaks to CMU and Isabella County community
Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Tom Leonard talks about his campaign to members of the Isabella County and Central Michigan University community at the Isabella County Republican Party Headquarters on Oct. 22, 2025.
Tom Leonard, one of four republican candidates in Michigan's upcoming gubernatorial election, met with members from Central Michigan University and the Isabella County community on Oct. 22 to present his campaign. Leonard discussed his plans, if elected governor, for mental health, education and government transparency.
Leonard is an attorney and politician who represented the 93rd District in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018, and also served as the state's Speaker of the House from 2017 to 2018.
He said his campaign is focused on helping the state's next generation.
“When I’m the state’s next governor, any time a piece of legislation hits my desk, I’m going to ask one simple question: will it help keep our young people here?" Leonard said. "If the answer is yes, I can almost guarantee you the legislation is going to be signed.”
One way Leonard plans to provide for the youth is to expand care for mental health issues across the state. He said he plans on doing this by ending the stigma towards mental health issues and expanding mental health courts to counties.
"I know these are effective, and no county should ever go without a mental health court because they can't afford them," he said.
Leonard also spoke about implementing tele-mental health services, which allow teenagers to use their phone to connect with a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist.
“These are companies that can provide these services at a fraction of the cost to every teenager across the state," Leonard said. "Again, it would be 24/7 care."
Leonard also discussed creating more financial aid opportunities for students going into education, law enforcement or nursing because he said there is a need for young people to go into these fields. He said there needs to be student loan forgiveness for these students and that these opportunities will incentivize them to stay in Michigan.
"I don't believe the State of Michigan should be forgiving any type of student loan if they're just going to leave and go to another state," Leonard said.
Leonard also wants to help create affordable housing so that people move to Michigan and stay. He believes that more jobs and opportunities would be brought to Michigan to help younger generations remain in the state.
“If they don’t have affordable housing, they’re going to have to go somewhere else,” he said.
He also touched on education, noting his plans to improve the education system and ensure kids can read. Leonard said that starting with a foundation in reading will help students get a good education and create jobs in the future.
"Right now, nearly 75% of the fourth graders in this state cannot read at a professional level," he said.
Leonard said a trust fund will be set up to hire 1,000 school resource officers.
“Whereby over the course of four or five years, the state of Michigan corporate partners foundations would put $2.5 billion into a trust that would produce $125 million every single year," he said.
When asked about increasing transparency as part of his campaign, Leonard said he plans to make the executive branch and the legislature open under FOIA, since Michigan is exempt from these laws.
“When you work for the government, you have to be transparent, you have to be accountable, and the people deserve to know what you make," Leonard said.
Leonard compared his campaign by calling it the "Dan Campbell approach," by having a positive vision of working as a team for Michigan.
“When Dan Campbell became coach of the Lions, he didn’t focus on decades of failure," Leonard said. "He just said we have a problem here."
