GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and GOP candidate Tudor Dixon will participate Tuesday in a live televised debate on FOX 17 and our sister stations in Lansing and Detroit.
Whitmer and Dixon accepted the invitation from Michigan Scripps stations FOX 17, WXYZ and WSYM to participate in a debate at Oakland University in Rochester. The debate is air statewide on TV and radio station.
Both campaigns have agreed to a debate on Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. The debate will be televised live for one hour and will air commercial-free.
“The gubernatorial debate is a very important service we’re able to provide to our viewers,” says FOX 17 general manager Kim Krause. “The gubernatorial candidates will have a chance to explain and debate their position on issues and outline their vision for the future of our state. We look forward to broadcasting and streaming the debate in this very important election year."
The debate will be moderated by FOX 17’s Doug Reardon, WXYZ’s Chuck Stokes and WSYM’s Elle Meyers.
To be eligible for the debate, gubernatorial candidates had to be polling at 5% or higher when invitations were extended. Whitmer and Dixon met those terms.
Dixon participated in a debate for the August primary gubernatorial debate hosted by FOX 17 and our E.W. Scripps Company partners WXYZ and WSYM on July 20.
WATCH: FOX 17, Scripps stations host GOP gubernatorial debate
This year's general election falls on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
Gov. Whitmer was elected governor in 2018, previously serving as a state senator and a state representative. Running on a promise in 2018 to “Fix the Damn Roads,” Whitmer’s ambitions on just about every front were thrown into irrelevance when the coronavirus pandemic came to Michigan in March of 2020. Thanks to a federal infrastructure bill in 2021, of which Michigan received some $5 billion to improve roads and bridges, some of her infrastructure plans came to fruition, but the administration’s handling of nursing home patients during COVID-19 came under immediate and sustained fire. A plan to establish COVID-19 treatment units within long-term elder care facilities led to outcry and an auditor general’s report in early 2021 suggested the state had been undercounting deaths in nursing homes throughout the pandemic. But Whitmer’s most recent bi-partisan budget boasted the state’s largest ever investment in K-12 education and offered tuition-free community college and job training to people over 25 years old. She supports abortion rights and generated the lawsuit, which is still working its way through the courts, to overturn Michigan’s 1931 law restricting abortion. On the economy, Gov. Whitmer has homed in on reviving the state’s storied auto industry by creating 25,000 new auto jobs and bringing the first new auto plant to Detroit in nearly three decades. Learn more about Whitmer and where she stands on the issues by visiting her campaign website.
Dixon, who received an endorsement from former President Donald Trump ahead of the primary election in August, is a former steel industry executive, conservative media talk show host and horror movie actress. Dixon emerged victorious in August from a crowded primary field, in which she was the only female GOP candidate on the ballot. A mother of four daughters, Dixon has said time and time again that education is her top priority, namely, giving parents more say over what happens inside the walls of their kid’s schools. She is also a proponent of using taxpayer dollars to fund education at charter, private and religious schools and has outlined a plan to provide vouchers for 25 hours of tutoring using leftover federal COVID relief funding. She often touts her experience as a business executive, having spent several years running a steel foundry in Muskegon that, at times, struggled to pay suppliers and faced lawsuits as a result. Dixon earned a key endorsement from former President Donald Trump mere days before the primary election in August and has closely aligned herself with high-profile names in Michigan politics like Betsy DeVos, who has donated to her campaign. She is pro-life and has voiced no support for exceptions in the cases of rape or incest, something Democratic campaign attack ads have honed in on relentlessly. Dixon has proposed a phasing out of the state’s personal income tax and cutting 40% of the state’s regulatory code to remove red tape for prospective business owners. Learn more about Dixon and where she stands on the issues by visiting her campaign website.
