STERLING HEIGHTS, Michigan — When the Department of Energy announced $2.8 billion in funding for electric vehicle battery cell manufacturing, Michigan Democrats were shocked that none of that money would be coming here. Michigan is still the largest car-producing state in the country and the home to the only mine in the nation producing nickel, one of the crucial components of electric vehicle batteries.
The states receiving the funding include Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and North Dakota. This means that the funds will go to predominantly foreign-owned, nonunionized automakers in what Fortune magazine calls the “Battery Belt.”
OUT-OF-STATE PROGRESSIVES STILL FIGHTING TO STOP ALASKANS FROM DRILLING AND PROSPERING
The announcement came one month after President Joe Biden had been seen at the Detroit Auto Show holding hands with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He took a victory lap over his electric-vehicle push and the billions of dollars in investments that would be going to new battery plants funded by millions in government grants.
Not only did it take local Democrats by surprise, but it also underscored the problems Democrats and Whitmer have in this state with voters: over-promising and not delivering on things that are important to them. That includes Whitmer’s promise to “fix the damn roads” — the rallying cry that got her elected in 2018 but has proven an empty promise in the time since. It also includes the snub with the battery grants.
Michigan Democrats also have a problem with overreach — for example, the state government shutdowns of businesses and schools and Proposal Three, the anything-goes abortion referendum on the ballot in two weeks. These might help explain why Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon has gone from an untested, underfunded underdog in a written-off race to polling within the margin of error against Whitmer in the closing weeks of this election.
Three weeks ago, Dixon trailed Whitmer by a whopping 17 percentage points in a Detroit News/WDIV poll. As of today, she is only 3.2 points behind Whitmer, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls. In fact, based on the history of polling error in Democrats’ favor, RCP now rates the race a toss-up and projects that Dixon will win narrowly.
Whitmer’s problem began when voters started to see her as too closely tied to Biden. Whitmer reinforced the idea in 2020 when she said that she and Biden are “cut from a similar cloth.” Today, the administration’s failures in Afghanistan, followed by its insouciant dismissal of issues voters care about — inflation, crime, and problems in the education system — are dragging Democrats down everywhere.
Dixon has also gained on Whitmer because she took the best tool she had, her only tool for a very long time, and used it for all she could. Dixon worked tirelessly to take her message to the voters, one person at a time. Last Saturday, at Mueller’s Orchard in Linden, the mother of four, businesswoman, and breast cancer survivor reinforced her ability to activate and excite the Republican base at her outdoor fall family rally.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Dixon said that it’s all about listening to voters. “I think the most important thing if you’re trying to interview for a job is to listen to what people want you to do in that job,” she said. And so she did. She has gone everywhere, listening and talking to voters, often in places where Republicans rarely go or win.
“I knew my own perspective on the state,” she said. “I knew local folks around me who had been suffering with having their businesses closed, their kids locked out of school. But to me, it was critical that we hear from people across the state, and it’s just been this groundswell of momentum since we started talking to people in recent weeks,” she said.
Over 500 people were at her rally in Linden on Saturday.
“You hear about the quiet Republican,” she said. “But I’ve met them. Every time we stop at a gas station or a coffee shop, someone comes up and says, ‘I just wanted you to know that I’m voting for you.’ Very quietly, they’re whispering, but they’re showing their support, which I think is very neat.”
To win, Dixon will need to carry every rural county in the state by wide margins. She will also need big margins in the big, Republican-leaning population areas like Macomb County.
One big concern for Whitmer is the black vote in Detroit. For the first time in 70 years, there will be no black candidate on the ballot to represent the nation’s largest majority-black city in Congress. That’s because, earlier this year, eight black candidates split the vote in the primary, leaving state Rep. Shri Thanedar the Democratic nominee.
Whitmer also needs a huge turnout by liberal suburban women in Oakland County and Grand Rapids — assuming, at least, that they side with her on the shutdowns, the school closures, and the perception of woke culture infiltrating school curricula.
Dixon said she hears from some of those suburban voters who are now considering voting for her in this election. “As we go around the state — because of the last four years and having kids shut out of school, but also restaurants closed, businesses closed for so long — our communities have been really torn apart,” she said. “Parents and community leaders are fed up with that sentiment.”
Small-town business owners tell Dixon frequently they are struggling to pay their bills because they still haven’t caught up from the effects of the shutdowns or that they cannot get employees to work full time. “What we hear as we go around the state is people just saying, ‘We just want to bring our communities back. Please help us bring our communities back.’ … We’re 40th in the nation in education, and we continue that decline every year under Gretchen Whitmer. It’s also time to return to safe cities and make sure our communities are safe for our kids to go outside and ride their bikes.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It is also time to bring the American dream back to the state of Michigan,” she added. “Right now, our small businesses and our entrepreneurs feel crushed under big government in Whitmer’s Michigan. We have the opportunity to be a partner to our job creators and bring the American dream back.”
