Michigan Republicans Divided over How to Beat Governor Whitmer

T he Michigan Republican gubernatorial primary race has been chaotic thus far. In late May, the presumptive nominee, former Detroit police chief James Craig, was disqualified from the ballot because of a large number of fake signatures on his petitions. On June 9, FBI agents arrested candidate Ryan Kelley for his alleged involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot.

Republicans in the state, however, remain intent on unseating Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the fall — and the other primary candidates have their own ideas about the best strategy for achieving that. In interviews with National Review, the GOP candidates largely agreed on most key policies but differed on which of those should be front and center in the campaign should they advance past the August 2 primary.

Tudor Dixon, a businesswoman who has endorsements from the DeVos family, Right to Life of Michigan, and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, will focus on education.

What’s needed is “not only a combination of getting our students caught up right now from where they are from the pandemic and getting tutoring hours into the schools to help those students get back on track,” she said, “but also to start offering choice in education.” She notes that “a lot of parents realized during the pandemic: ‘Maybe this is not the best place for my child and they would thrive in a different type of school, or a different type of atmosphere, or even an online school.’”

Kevin Rinke, a businessman who has the most to spend in campaign funds, also lamented that Michigan’s “public-education system is failing,” but he mainly listed economic policies that he’s proposing to the voters as better than Whitmer’s.

“We’re going to eliminate the personal income tax of 4.25 percent a hundred percent and give back the people of Michigan $11.8 billion,” he said. “They know how to spend it better than Lansing knows how to spend it. We’re going to properly eliminate burdensome regulations that are choking our businesses.” He added, “We’re going to have a government that realizes it serves the citizens, not controls them.”

Garrett Soldano, a chiropractor who started the “Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine” Facebook page in response to Whitmer’s notoriously strict pandemic orders, named a slew of issues he would run on, chief among them ensuring the governor’s Covid-19-related actions in 2020 cannot be repeated.

“We have to make sure that no governor can ever do what she has done to us again, and that is to weaponize the health department,” he said, wondering “who in their right mind would ever want to come back to the state of Michigan and open up a business with the threat of a lockdown or restrictions by the health department in the next cold and flu season.”

While former president Trump has not made an official endorsement, he hosted a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago for Dixon, whom he called “very special.” There is mild disagreement on the topic of his endorsement: All the candidates want it, but not all want it at the same point in their campaigns.

Dixon and Soldano would both welcome an endorsement from Trump in the primary, they said. Trump and Dixon have had several discussions, the latter said, and the former is “still my president,” according to Soldano. Rinke, on the other hand, believes the endorsement would be more beneficial in the general election.

“I have asked the president to follow the same course that he followed during the Youngkin campaign [in Virginia], and, when I am the primary winner, we’ll be looking for that endorsement,” he said.

After Kelley’s arrest, all three candidates denounced the FBI on Twitter, decrying its questionable timing and the “intimidating” nature of the raid. Soldano called it “political theater.”

But Kelley is not out of it. He has led the field in polls both before and after his arrest. Whichever one of them advances to the general, that candidate will need to beat Whitmer, who leads all of them in the polls by double digits.

One issue that Democrats are hoping will drive voters to the polls for them is abortion. Throughout her time as governor, Whitmer has made an attempt to cast herself as pro-choice in the extreme. During her run in 2018, she posted a picture of herself wearing a pink hat that read, “Planned Parenthood Makes America Great.” This past April, she filed a lawsuit asking the Michigan Supreme Court to find a right to abortion in the state’s constitution. A month later, she rejoiced in a public statement when a lower court issued an injunction on Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban, which went dormant after Roe v. Wade, while it adjudicates a similar lawsuit from Planned Parenthood.

Some have predicted that the Republicans’ stance on abortion may be unpopular among voters and hurt them in the midterms. None of the candidates interviewed by NR mentioned abortion as a key issue that they would run on. When asked about it, however, all three claimed to be unapologetically pro-life.

For Dixon, the issue is an opportunity to speak about the humanity of the unborn. She mentioned her experience enduring a miscarriage in the 18th week of pregnancy, and being able to see her daughter’s “fully formed, little tiny hands and lips and the perfect little person in my arms and say goodbye to her.” Soldano brought up his mother, who was adopted as a child, noting that “if her birth mother could have had an abortion, I wouldn’t be here.” Rinke denounced Whitmer’s lawsuit as “selectively choosing what laws she will uphold,” describing his pro-life stance as “the same position” held by “Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan.”

This round of Michigan elections has been turbulent, and as we approach August 2, we will see just how much more so it can get.