GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — In the wake of stunning Democratic midterm gains, candidate for Michigan governor Tudor Dixon on Thursday made public a Michigan Republican Party memo spelling out what led to historic GOP losses in this week’s election.
In a Tweet, Dixon, who was the winner of the GOP primary in August, called for new leadership in the wake of the memo that appeared to blame her for the party’s sweeping losses Tuesday. Behind an unexpectedly high blue voter turnout, Democrats were able to gain control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the Michigan legislature for the first time in 40-years.
The document, apparently authored by MIGOP Chief of Staff Paul Cordes and sent to a list of “interested parties” in the recipient’s line, claims Dixon “started from zero” with funding and name recognition, suggesting “Dixon’s campaign had no money” and “no statewide operation.”
Further down in the document, the party suggests the endorsement of former President Donald Trump hurt instead of helped Dixon, saying Trump’s backing of Dixon didn’t appeal to a “general election audience with a more unfavorable opinion of the former President Trump than of President Joe Biden.”
“Countless hours spent courting donors consistently shifted into back and forths about Mar-A-Lago’s influence over the process,” the memo continues.
The document also points to the fact that Dixon was vastly out-fundraised by incumbent Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
“With almost no cash on hand and work to be done to gain the trust of the Party’s grassroots, Dixon had to start from scratch while Gretchen Whitmer and allies were sitting on tens of millions of dollars, of which they immediately deployed, blasting Dixon on statewide TV, digital, and radio throughout, early and often,” to memo reads, under a section titled ‘Starting From Zero.’
Indeed, the Dixon campaign was late to run campaign ads on TV and radio – prior to the start on one gubernatorial debate in October, Dixon told a live TV audience it was likely the first time many were hearing from her. The MIGOP apparently also took issue with the content of Dixon’s campaign advertisements, and the messaging it portrayed.
“There were more ads on transgender sports than inflation, gas prices and bread and butter issues that could have swayed independent voters,” it reads. “Voters simply didn’t like what Tudor was selling.”
But Matt Grossman, a political science professor with Michigan State University, says the blame certainly doesn’t rest squarely on the shoulders of the Dixon campaign.
“The party’s always going to have an incentive to say the reason we didn’t win is because you didn’t give us enough money,” said Grossman. “So you want to be a little careful about accepting that as an explanation. But I do think that it is clear that Dixon did not start the general election campaign with resources and that was particularly harmful in a race where most voters did not know anything about Tudor Dixon.”
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Dixon emerged in August as one of five candidates – none with any legislative experience. The candidate pool was already a whittled down by half after a controversy over fraudulent petition signatures disqualified five other gubernatorial hopefuls.
Dixon won convincingly in the August primary but struggled early in the midterm race to get her name out to voters. Democrats took every opportunity – in person and in campaign ads – to attack Dixon’s no-exception stance on abortion the same year Proposal Three appeared on the ballot, seeking to codify abortion rights in the state constitution.
“The first thing that they learned about Tudor Dixon was that she was for no exceptions on abortion, and they knew that because the Whitmer campaign made sure that that was the first thing voters knew,” said Grossman, who also noted Dixon shouldn’t be wholly blamed for the passage of proposal three. “I’m a little skeptical of the party’s explanation that the Dixon and proposal three votes were so closely tied that they couldn’t have won opposition to proposal three independently. I do think that more voters supported proposal three than opposed and that probably had as much influence on the governor’s race than vice-versa.”
The MIGOP memo claims Democrats spent millions “defining the abortion narrative” and “aggressively targeted women and young voters” to “hold Tudor Dixon accountable for her comments” on no exceptions.
They go on to say that the attack ads used Dixon’s own words against her to “doom not just her at the top of the ticket, but Proposal 3 as well.”
For her part, Dixon’s campaign offered no further comment Friday beyond what was tweeted out by the former candidate.
“This is the perfect example of what is wrong with the [Michigan GOP],” said Dixon’s Tweet, which included four screenshots of the memo. “It’s easy to come out and point fingers now, but the truth is they fought against me every step of the way and put the entire ticket at risk. We need fresh leadership at the [Michigan GOP] or Republicans will never have a voice in Michigan again.”
“We did nothing but stand with her, so that’s a clear lie," said Gustavo Portella, Deputy Chief of Staff and Communications Director for the Michigan GOP. "We turned out more Republicans than in previous midterm elections. I’m struggling to find what parts of the memo, based on data from this past Tuesday, she’s struggling with. Our memo speaks for itself."
The memo also appears to blame Dixon’s underperformance for losses down the ballot, like in state races and in the race for Attorney General and Secretary of State. But internal MIGOP statistics included in the memo also indicates that internal polling by the party didn’t match what was being broadcast publicly.
“Out internal polling showed Tudor Dixon able to marginally close the gap over the last month, but unlike some pollsters, we never showed her within striking distance,” the memo reads.
A trend in polling known as the “coattail effect” indicates that top-of-the-ticket races like presidential and gubernatorial races affect what happened down-ballot. The MIGOP appears to admit that their own internal polling showed that not only would Dixon’s campaign face a loss, but many down-ballot legislative races would turn out the same result.
“Our position had been that if Tudor Dixon could keep the race within 3-4%, our state House and Senate majorities would be safe,” it says. “If she lost by 7-8%, we were going to be in danger of losing one or both chambers. It looks as though Tudor will end up losing by 11 points and Republicans find themselves shut out of every level of power for the first time in forty years.”
Dixon ended up losing the race by just over 10.5% behind Whitmer.
“Michigan is historically a ticket splitting state, and our data, modeling and mail and field program were very effective,” reads the memo. “However, the hole created by Tudor at the top of the ticket was too much to overcome.”
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