Pro-Life Republican Tudor Dixon will face pro-abortion Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November and a new poll shows she’s making the contest a close one.
Dixon, a conservative businesswoman, defeated four other gubernatorial candidates in the August GOP primary after receiving endorsements from pro-life organizations and Republican leaders including former President Donald Trump. Now she’s catching Whitmer, who is one of the most pro-abortion governors in the country.
A new Fabrizio (R)/Impact (D) poll shows a tight contest with Whitmer leading by just 6 percent 51-46%. Whitmer held an 11% lead in a July poll, so Dixon has cut the lead in half and is moving in the right direction as she solidifies support from Republicans, independents and conservative Democrats.
Dixon has the support of pro-life groups.
“Michigan voters sent a strong message by backing Tudor Dixon, a fearless pro-life, pro-woman leader, to take on pro-abortion extremist Governor Whitmer,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said after the primary victory.
Dannenfelser criticized Whitmer for vetoing funding to help pregnant mothers who choose life, and said Dixon will fight to protect both unborn babies and women.
In her campaign, Dixon sympathized with voters who were hurt and angered by Whitmer’s extreme lockdown regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying her grandmother died alone in a nursing home during the pandemic, according to the AP.
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Whitmer and several other Democrat governors were accused of covering up nursing home deaths due to COVID after she ordered the facilities to admit patients who tested positive for the virus, placing them together with those most likely to die from it.
“Frankly Michigan, we deserve better,” Dixon said in her victory speech Tuesday. “Now we have the opportunity to truly hold Gretchen Whitmer accountable for the pain she has inflicted on each and every one of us during the past four years.”
Dixon also promised to support strong legal protections for unborn babies – a sharp contrast to Whitmer’s radical pro-abortion agenda. Dannenfelser said SBA Pro-Life America endorsed Dixon because of her “deep reverence” for life.
“A mother of five who has grieved the loss of an unborn child, Tudor has a deep reverence for the preciousness of every life and exposes the lie that babies are any less human before they are born,” she said. “Her strong pro-life, pro-woman leadership starkly contrasts with radical Democrats’ agenda of forcing Michiganders to pay for abortion on demand up to the moment of birth.”
In contrast, Whitmer is fighting in court to keep abortion on demand legal in Michigan after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24. Michigan has a pre-Roe abortion ban, but Whitmer and pro-abortion groups are challenging the law in court and a judge with ties to Planned Parenthood recently blocked it.
A sign that she is more pro-abortion than pro-choice, Whitmer also vetoed $21.4 million in funding to help pregnant and parenting mothers who choose life for their babies in July.
In response to the Supreme Court ruling, Whitmer also issued an executive order that refuses to cooperate with other states by extraditing abortionists and abortion workers who abort unborn babies in violation of their pro-life laws. The governor said she will protect women who have abortions from prosecution, too. However, pro-life laws do not punish women, and pro-life leaders have made it very clear that they oppose such punishments.
Michigan has a Republican legislature, but pro-abortion Democrats hold the offices of governor and attorney general.
