What to Expect Ahead of Tonight’s First General Election Debate in Grand Rapids

Tonight, Michiganders will have the first chance to see DeVos sellout Tudor Dixon’s backwards agenda stacked up against Governor Whitmer’s extensive record of proven leadership. The televised debate is expected to feature the following key moments:

Tudor Dixon Will Push Blatant FalsehoodThat Governors Can’t Do Anything About Abortion

For weeks staunch anti-abortion extremist Tudor Dixon has been attempting to mislead voters and hide her plan to completely eliminate reproductive freedom for millions of women and families. Last month, she “caused some confusion” by encouraging voters to back the choice ballot proposal and also vote for her.

She also recently tried to argue that reproductive rights are “not something that the governor has any impact over” – a lie that has been thoroughly debunked as Governor Whitmer continues to serve as the last line of defense for Michigan women and families. Just weeks ago, Whitmer expanded access to reproductive care by allowing pharmacists to directly prescribe certain forms of contraception. 

Well aware that her stance is completely out of touch, Dixon will try and fail to push this “definite shift in tone” on the debate stage to feed Michiganders more lies. But Dixon’s callous rhetoric on the matter speaks for itself.

It is an extensively-documented fact that Dixon unequivocally supports a dangerous abortion ban from 1931 that criminalizes abortion, makes felons out of reproductive health care providers and provides no exceptions for rape or incest. Reinforcing her extremism that also disregards the health of the mother, she’s also said that child sexual assualt victims should not have access to abortion because there’s “healing through that baby.” 

Tudor Dixon Will Rail Against Job Creation

Tudor Dixon has wasted no time prioritizing politics over empowering working families by slamming  a $2.3 billion-dollar “undeniable win” of an investment from electric vehicle battery-making company Gotion, slated to “create 2,350 new jobs with an average hourly wage of nearly $30 an hour” in Big Rapids. 

Beholden to special interests and outside groups, Dixon will again demonstrate she would cost Michigan billions in lost investments and cause thousands of jobs to be diverted to other states. Voters can expect her to use the debate stage to rail against bipartisan incentives that have helped secure historic economic development deals adding thousands of good paying jobs further solidify Michigan as an auto industry juggernaut as it evolves into the future of electric vehicles.

Dixon’s full-throated opposition to these massive deals has already planted her firmly against elected officials in her own party, many of whom worked with Governor Whitmer to attract companies like Gotion to Michigan. It has also confused conservative talk show hosts who had to remind Dixon that Gotion isn’t an “adversary of the American people” but instead is providing a massive boon to the Big Rapids community.

For the Fifth Time, Tudor Dixon Won’t Commit to Accepting the Results of November’s Election

Unwavering election conspiracy theorist Tudor Dixon – who “has said repeatedly that the 2020 election was stolen” – is now refusing to commit to accepting the results of next month’s election. Already asked four times to respond with a definitive yes or no to this basic question, Dixon is expected to dodge it for the fifth time tonight in Grand Rapids.

Already banking on manufacturing “fresh post-election chaos,” Dixon is continuing to spread the election disinformation she’s pushed for two years straight. In statements provided to both the Washington Post and New York Times, she used baseless and discredited allegations about the outcome of 2020 to preemptively cast doubt on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s ability to “[run] a fair election, the way she should be.”

These baseless criticisms have come despite the election being administered by the same officials who certified Dixon’s win in the Republican gubernatorial primary – an election she has yet to take issue with.

Tudor Dixon Will Make More Desperate Pleas for Special Interests to Prop Up Her Campaign

DeVos sellout Tudor Dixon will use tonight’s debate stage to brag about the special interests that have already been putting in overtime to prop up her wrong-for-Michigan agenda and make the hard ask for others to jump in.

Dixon, who is “not on television herself” and hasn’t been since before the August primary, has relied on “allied super PAC” Michigan Families United “to a heavy degree, both in the primary and in the general election.”

Bankrolled almost exclusively by the DeVoses, who have already “contributed more than $4 million to outside groups” on Dixon’s behalf this cycle, Michigan Families United has run the majority of the airwave interference propping up her campaign. 

Aside from MFU, PACs supporting Dixon funded by other “deep-pocketed donors” were able to spend “a combined $2.18 million” in her favor to drag her through the bitter primary. Since then, a Koch-funded PAC has spent a total of $1.6 million to boost Dixon, one PAC put five figures on the radio, another threw in $100,000, a different one “reserved $103,000 worth of airtime,” another announced a  $1 million ad campaign, and Susan B. Anthony List announced they would be parachuting in six figures. Most recently, the Republican Governors Association “provid[ed] some more backup” with a multi-million dollar ad buy that started airing this week.

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