LANSING, Mich. — Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer holds a 9 percentage point lead over Republican challenger Tudor Dixon in the final days of the race to see who will lead Michigan for the next four years, according to a new poll sponsored by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV.
In the survey of 600 likely voters in the Nov. 8 general election, 52% said they would vote for Whitmer, 43% said they supported Dixon, 3% backed a third-party candidate and 2% were undecided. The poll, conducted Oct. 26-28 by the Lansing-based Glengariff Group, had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The results showed Whitmer still held a significant advantage in her reelection bid and was over the key 50% mark. However, Dixon, a political commentator from Norton Shores, has cut into a 17-point margin the Democrat incumbent had in a similar poll in late September. A month ago, 12% of participants were undecided. Many of them apparently have sided with the Republican nominee as she has unified base GOP voters.
"The race has tightened, but it’s not tight," said Richard Czuba, founder of the Lansing-based Glengariff Group. "For Dixon to make this tight, she needs to do drastically better with independents, and she needs Democrats to stay home.”
Polling from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV provides a snapshot in time of voters' thoughts ahead of pivotal elections and is not intended to be a prediction of the final results. New developments and unexpected trends in momentum and turnout can shift the numbers.
In 2018, Whitmer, a former state lawmaker from East Lansing, won her first term in office by defeating Republican Bill Schuette by 9 percentage points. In the final survey from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV in late October, Whitmer was up by 12 points.
In the new poll, 28% of participants were contacted over landline telephone, and 72% were reached over a cellphone. Meanwhile, 42% self-identified as Republican voters, 41% said they generally voted for Democrats, and 16% said they were independents.
Maeve Coyle, a spokeswoman for Whitmer's campaign, touted the candidate's support in a Monday statement.
“While Michiganders in every corner of the state support Gov. Whitmer’s work bringing people together to secure tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, make record investments in public education, and help working families keep more of their hard-earned money, special interests like the DeVos family have spent millions of dollars propping up Tudor Dixon because they share her dangerous agenda to ban abortion, slash funding for infrastructure, create handouts for billionaires, and dismantle public schools," Coyle said.
Whitmer has maintained a fundraising advantage over Dixon, a first-time candidate, throughout the fall. The Democratic Governors Association's Put Michigan First has been the biggest spender in the race, disclosing $28.9 million in spending so far.
But Sara Broadwater, spokeswoman for Dixon's campaign, cited other polls and said the election is a "jump ball."
"All the polls have had it trending low single digits for two weeks," Broadwater said. "The Detroit News is an outlier. Tudor is on track to win."
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