New polling shows that there is no guarantee that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) will hold onto her seat in the midterm elections.
Whitmer is being challenged in this year’s race for Michigan’s governorship by Republican Tudor Dixon, a former political commentator for America’s Voice Live. Dixon has received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
For a while, it looked as though Whitmer was running away with the race. Early polling had Whitmer significant in the lead.
But, as the midterm elections have gotten nearer, the race has been tightening up. And, now, the polls would suggest that Dixon has a legitimate chance at upsetting Whitmer.
The latest
Real Clear Politics, the poll aggregator, currently has Whitmer with an average lead of 2.6 percentage points over Dixon, 48% to 45.4%.
Two polls that were taken in October – by MNS/Trafalgar and Insider Advantage – have the race between Whitmer and Dixon as a tie. The corresponding margins of error are 2.8% and 4.2% respectively.
The remaining polls taken in October all have Whitmer in the lead by varying degrees. The lead is between two and six percentage points, although there is one outlier poll with Whitmer winning by 11 percentage points.
In many of these polls, the difference between the support for Whitmer and Dixon is within the margin of error, meaning that, although Whitmer is shown to be in the lead, it is possible that she actually isn’t.
It’s anybody’s race
It ought to be emphasized, once again, that Whitmer, at one point, had a commanding lead on Dixon.
Back in the spring, for example, there was at least one poll, from Target-Insyght/MIRS, that actually had Whitmer winning by an overwhelming 37 percentage points. And, there were many other polls – as recently as late September – that had Whitmer winning by as many as 18 percentage points.
So, the polling trend has clearly been in Dixon’s favor as the midterm elections have gotten closer. And, sometimes, the trend could be even more important than the actual poll results.
At the very least, we can say that the race between Whitmer and Dixon has significantly tightened up, and Whitmer, for the first time, appears to have losing chances.