Tudor Dixon attempts a serious upset as Biden snubs Michigan on EV battery grants

Michigan Democrats also have a problem with overreach — for example, the state government shutdowns of businesses and schools and Proposal Three, the anything-goes abortion referendum on the ballot in two weeks. These might help explain why Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon has gone from an untested, underfunded underdog in a written-off race to polling within the margin of error against Whitmer in the closing weeks of this election.

Three weeks ago, Dixon trailed Whitmer by a whopping 17 percentage points in a Detroit News/WDIV poll. As of today, she is only 3.2 points behind Whitmer, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls. In fact, based on the history of polling error in Democrats’ favor, RCP now rates the race a toss-up and projects that Dixon will win narrowly.

Whitmer’s problem began when voters started to see her as too closely tied to Biden. Whitmer reinforced the idea in 2020 when she said that she and Biden are “cut from a similar cloth.” Today, the administration’s failures in Afghanistan, followed by its insouciant dismissal of issues voters care about — inflation, crime, and problems in the education system — are dragging Democrats down everywhere.