Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won reelection in Michigan, defeating former media personality and Trump-backed Republican Tudor Dixon.
Michigan's gubernatorial candidates
Republicans began the cycle eager to knock off Democrat Gretchen Whitmer. The former state lawmaker's campaign to "Fix the Damn Roads" led her party to retake the governor's mansion in 2018 for the first time in eight years. Whitmer's star power in the crucial swing state grew so quickly that President Joe Biden considered her to join him on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2020.
Dixon has hammered Whitmer over her management of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also raised more culture war issues like trans students' sports participation and a call to ban all "pornographic books" from school libraries, Bridge Michigan, a local nonprofit news organization, reported. The Republican has also tried to muddle her history of questioning the 2020 election results. But as recently as this past summer, Dixon raised the unfounded claim that Trump won Michigan in 2020.
Abortion further upended the contest. Whitmer has highlighted how a 1931 law is now in effect following the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade. She helped lead the push to get a pro-abortion rights initiative on the ballot this November.
In 2020, federal law enforcement arrested 13 men suspected of engineering a terrorist plot to kidnap Whitmer and attempt to overthrow Michigan's government. The subsequent cases against them resulted in a mixture of convictions, acquittals, and plea deals.
Michigan's voting history
Democrats once counted the state as a part of their "blue wall." Trump famously shattered it in 2016 before Biden won by just under 3 percentage points. At the gubernatorial level, Republicans held the state for eight years under Gov. Rick Snyder, who won his reelection by a much smaller margin than his 2010 blowout.
Whitmer beat Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette by almost 10 points in 2018. After her November win, she will reach her term limit.
The money race
Whitmer crushed Dixon in fundraising. This cycle, the incumbent government raised nearly $32 million, spent almost $16 million, and had $14 million available, as of August 22,
Dixon, her opponent, had raised roughly $2.4 million, spent almost $2 million, and had just over $523,000 available, as of August 22.
What experts said
The race between Whitmer and Dixon was rated as "tilt Democratic" by Inside Elections, "likely Democratic" by The Cook Political Report, and "likely Democratic" by Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
