Poll: Democrat Gretchen Whitmer Tied with Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig in Michigan Governor’s Race

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is tied with Republican gubernatorial candidate James Craig in Michigan’s race for governor, according to an internal polling memo released Thursday.

The poll, conducted by ARW Strategies from January 4 to 6 among 800 general election voters, revealed Craig, a former Detroit police chief, is in an even race with Whitmer. Craig received 46.1 percent support in the poll compared with Whitmer’s 46 percent.

While the Republican primary, slated for August 2, is currently packed with nearly a dozen candidates, the poll also revealed that in hypothetical head-to-head matchups with frontrunning candidates, Craig is the most competitive.

(Facebook/Chief James Craig)

Both businessman Kevin Rinke and chiropractor Garrett Soldano each trail Whitmer by seven points, while conservative media personality Tudor Dixon is ten points behind Whitmer.

The Craig campaign said in the polling memo that the poll findings confirm “that Craig is the ONLY viable option to defeat Whitmer and continues to strongly outperform his Republican primary opponents.”

While that poll showed Whitmer ahead of Craig by close to ten points in a hypothetical race between the two, a plurality of the respondents, or 41.1 percent, said they would opt for “someone new” over reelecting Whitmer. A total of 39.9 percent said they would reelect Whitmer, and 12.2 percent said they were undecided.

These new polls were taken prior to Wednesday, when news broke that a forthcoming Michigan auditor general report would be revealing that the Whitmer administration undercounted long-term care facility residents’ deaths from coronavirus by 42 percent.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks during a coronavirus briefing, May 29, 2020, in Lansing, Michigan. (Michigan Executive Office of the Governor via AP)

While the report has not been released to the public yet, Whitmer’s Department of Health and Human Services has spoken out ahead of its publication, claiming, according to a letter leaked to the Detroit Free Press, that the report contains a “series of errors.”

Michigan-based journalist Charlie LeDuff, who closely followed Whitmer’s coronavirus policy impact on long-term care facility residents, estimated the new report — if the numbers prove to be valid — would put the Michigan governor on par with disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in regard to potentially preventable nursing home deaths.

BREAKING — Covid Deaths in Michigan’s long-term care facilities are 42% higher than the Whitmer Administration admited, according prelim. report by state Auditor General.
This puts Whitmer’s Michigan on par with Cuomo’s New York in terms of blurring the truth about LTCFs.
MTC pic.twitter.com/TA1znexiQH

— Charlie LeDuff (@Charlieleduff) January 13, 2022

The ARW poll was conducted by telephone and has a margin of error of 3.46 percent.

Write to Ashley Oliver at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.

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