Poll: Gretchen Whitmer Down Six Points in Michigan Governor’s Race

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is trailing Republican challenger James Craig in the governor’s race, a Trafalgar Group survey released Tuesday found.

“If Gretchen Whitmer and James Craig were the candidates for Governor in the 2022 general election, for whom would you vote?” the survey asked, showing the former Detroit police chief leading the radically left governor by six percentage points, 50.4 percent to 44.4 percent:

Notably, Democrats comprise a greater portion of the respondents — 53.4 percent. Republicans make up 35 percent of respondents, and independents comprise 11.6 percent.

The survey, taken September 13-15, 2021, among 1,097 likely general election voters, has a margin of error of +/- 2.96 percent.

The findings coincide with a pair of internal polls showing Whitmer and Craig neck-and-neck in the Michigan governor’s race.

As Breitbart News reported:

The polls, both conducted by the firm Strategic National whose CEO John Yob is advising the Craig campaign, seem to indicate Craig is in the driver’s seat heading into next year’s governor’s race in both the primary and the general election. They also signal support for Craig surged after his campaign announcement earlier this month, when leftist agitators attempted to interrupt the event, forcing the former police chief to move locations to get away from the disrupters mid-event.

“Chief Craig has built a massive lead in primary polling as we head into the critical Mackinac Island Straw Poll this weekend,” Yob told Breitbart News. “The General Election is now tied as the violent actions of the leftist radicals pulled the Chief even with Governor Whitmer. The Chief has significant room to grow against Whitmer as his name identification improves among the 35% of voters who do not yet know of him.”

The general election survey of 600 likely voters conducted from Sept. 18 to Sept. 19 found that in a head-to-head matchup with Craig, Whitmer leads by a negligible 0.6 percent. Whitmer, at 46.6 percent, is statistically tied with Craig, at 46 percent even, since the survey has a margin of error of four percent. In that hypothetical matchup, there are 7.4 percent undecided.

Whitmer, a coronavirus restriction hardliner whose state is experiencing the slowest pandemic recovery, is also losing support among independent voters.

Notably, some of her restrictions were still in place throughout the summer. She came under fire in May after photos showed the Democrat violating her own coronavirus restrictions at a dive bar. She later apologized, contending that she did not think about capacity limits in the group “because we were all vaccinated.”

“In retrospect, I should have thought about it. I am human. I made a mistake, and I apologize,” she said, falling in line with many of her pro-lockdown Democrat colleagues who have also violated their own purported beliefs and continue to do so.