Republican Tudor Dixon conceded the Michigan gubernatorial race to incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Wednesday morning after Whitmer secured a victory late Tuesday night.
Dixon, a conservative media commentator and businesswoman, said she called Whitmer “to concede and wish her well” after unofficial results showed Whitmer nearly ten points ahead of Dixon with 88 percent of the vote counted as of Wednesday morning.
Several mainstream outlets, including NBC, the New York Times, and Fox, called the race for Whitmer beginning a few hours after polls closed on election night.
Dixon said in her concession statement, “Michigan’s future success rests not in elected officials or government, but all of us. It is incumbent upon all of us to help our children read, support law enforcement, and grow our economy.”
Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon addresses the audience during an election night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. (Evan Cobb for the Washington Post via Getty Images)
Dixon had been an underdog from the outset of the race, notching a Republican primary victory after a late burst of momentum with the backing of former President Donald Trump.
While Dixon initially trailed Whitmer by double digits after winning the primary, she again gained traction to the point that final polls showed the race had become a statistically tied and competitive contest. The RealClearPolitics average of polls found Whitmer with a mere one-point edge over Dixon heading into Election Day.
In debates, Dixon focused heavily on education and crime, condemning Whitmer for her notoriously stringent coronavirus mandates and school closures and highlighting that several major law enforcement players, including nearly two dozen county sheriffs across the state and the 12,000-member Police Officers Association of Michigan, had endorsed Dixon.
Dixon thanked her supporters Wednesday morning “for working so hard to forge a better Michigan.”
She added, “We came up short, but we will never stop fighting for our families.”
