[1]) Duggan ran for mayor in the 1920 Edmonton election when, despite lacking any previous experience, he defeated incumbent Joseph Clarke.

Clarke had become unpopular with the city's Board of Trade and both of its newspapers owing to what they perceived as anti-business policies, and these groups supported Duggan aggressively.

The situation worsened for the Conservatives in the 1935 election, when the Social Credit Party of Alberta swept the province, reducing the Conservatives to two members, Duggan and Calgary MLA John Irwin (the other parties fared no better - the Liberals lost six of the eleven seats they had won in 1930, while the UFA, owners of a majority government before the writ was dropped, were eliminated from the legislature completely).

He brought to the house's attention a government-sponsored leaflet that named him and eight other men (William Antrobus Griesbach among them) as "Banker's Toadies" and urged readers to "exterminate them".

This incident saw two men, including Social Credit MLA Joseph Unwin, prosecuted for criminal libel and counselling murder.

Duggan was active with the Baptist Church, the Rotary Club, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and the Red Cross.