Tudor Dixon

Dixon emerged from a 10-candidate field to win the nomination with a combination of media-savvy, a deep roster of Republican endorsements and a super PAC ...

We look forward to Tudor ushering in a brighter future for the state.” The candidates who were betting their success on grassroots enthusiasm — particularly Soldano and Kelley — had a foil in Dixon from that point onward. That morning the DeVos family, billionaires who cast a long shadow of influence in Michigan Republican politics, endorsed her campaign. “Now we have the opportunity to truly hold Gretchen Whitmer accountable for the pain she has inflicted on each and every one of us during the past four years.” An audience of well-dressed attendees were buzzing in a small ballroom at the Amway Grand Plaza hotel in Grand Rapids as results rolled in. Running and growing a Michigan-based steel company as a woman — that was tough. “I know what fighting and beating breast cancer was like — that was tough. Her platform married the longstanding priorities of the state’s conservative kingmakers — school choice, regulation slashing and workforce development — with rhetorical red meat for the grassroots and MAGA faithful. Creating a family-friendly Michigan just benefits the entire state.” “Thank you for standing up for what’s right,” she said in her acceptance speech. Hours later, the state’s Bureau of Elections dropped a series of bombshell reports identifying at least 68,000 fraudulent signatures, from candidates trying to qualify for the August ballot. “My message is really a message for everyone,” she said in a previous interview.

Tudor Dixon has won Michigan's Republican nomination for governor, NBC News projects, emerging from one of the year's most turbulent primaries in a state.

Despite efforts to frame her as an insufficiently conservative instrument of the establishment, Dixon projects a hard-line stance against abortion that Democrats have seized on to paint her as an extremist. Soldano, in an interview Sunday with NBC News after a campaign event in Warren, said he would support Dixon if she won the primary but would do little to activate his fervent supporters for anyone other than himself. And I am just getting going." Dixon had a few things going for her, though. Prospects with far more familiar names, including two-time Senate candidate John James and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, were floated as possibilities but stayed out of the race. After entering the race as an unknown political quantity with low poll numbers and little cash, she capitalized on the missteps of better-positioned rivals. The DeVos-funded super PAC gave Dixon air cover, spending more than $2.5 million on ads, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Dixon spent only $118,000. Craig and another top candidate, self-funding businessman Perry Johnson, were disqualified for submitting allegedly fraudulent petition signatures. Whitmer, a rising national star and frequent object of Trump's ire, figured to draw a marquee opponent. But Dixon's rhetoric has been less consistent and less forceful than claims echoed by other Trump allies in Michigan and across the country. Trump continues to falsely claim that a second term was stolen from him in 2020 and is teasing another run in 2024. Today I think that's not an appropriate question," Dixon replied, adding that she was focused on her own election.

Ms. Dixon, who was backed by former President Donald J. Trump and Michigan's powerful DeVos family, topped a field of relatively unknown Republican ...

Mr. Rinke said that there had been fraud, but that he could not be certain it was enough to flip the state to Mr. Trump. Mr. Kelley pleaded not guilty and said he had joined rioters outside but had not entered the building. At a debate in May, Ms. Dixon raised her hand when asked if she believed Mr. Trump had won Michigan in 2020, a race he in fact lost to President Biden by 154,000 votes. And Ryan Kelley, a real estate broker, was arrested in June and charged with four misdemeanors for his actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6. A former commentator for the conservative media channel “Real America’s Voice,” Ms. Dixon, 45, was previously an actress and an executive at her family’s steel company. A mother of four school-age children, Ms. Dixon favors per-pupil education funding to follow students to any school they choose, including private schools. Of the four leading candidates, three — Ms. Dixon, Mr. Kelley and Mr. Soldano — falsely said during the May debate that Mr. Trump had carried Michigan in 2020. Her top rival, the self-funding former auto dealership owner Kevin Rinke, attacked Ms. Dixon as a tool of the DeVos family when Ms. DeVos said in June that she had sought to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Ms. DeVos endorsed Ms. Dixon’s campaign, and her family helped fund it, and a handwritten “Dear Mr. President” letter from Ms. DeVos to Mr. Trump last week appeared to have prompted his endorsement of Ms. Dixon. Garrett Soldano, a chiropractor who gained political attention by organizing rallies against Ms. Whitmer’s pandemic mitigation efforts in 2020, urged Mr. Trump not to endorse Ms. Dixon. He said in a video message to Mr. Trump that after Jan. 6, the DeVos family “basically abandoned you, sir.” But on Sunday, after securing Mr. Trump’s endorsement, Ms. Dixon backed away from that position, saying instead she was concerned about “how the election was handled.” A lengthy review by Republicans in the State Senate in 2021 debunked the claims of Trump supporters that there was widespread fraud. Ms. Dixon and the rest of the Republican field were relative unknowns in Michigan, with polling showing that two in five Republicans didn’t know or had no opinion of any of the candidates just two weeks before the election. In its final weeks, the primary became a race to win the backing of former President Donald J. Trump, who ultimately did endorse Ms. Dixon. But she didn’t wait for his formal support to air a TV ad of Mr. Trump praising her at a campaign rally and release internal polling showing that half the primary electorate thought Mr. Trump had already endorsed her.

Dixon received a huge boost Friday when she was endorsed by former Republican President Donald Trump, who holds huge sway among GOP primary voters.

Though Trump's decision to support Dixon garnered the biggest headlines, it was only the latest in a series of significant endorsements that gave her campaign a sense of momentum. “All the actions of the Democratic Party have caused issues in this country, economically, crime-wise. Rinke, whose family made a fortune selling GM and Toyota cars, was expected to outspend the other four Republican candidates after pouring about $10 million of his own money into the campaign. She said she thinks Whitmer has a good shot at reelection. All five sought Trump's endorsement and made criticism of Whitmer's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic a central plank of their appeals to voters. And as an accomplished and qualified woman, she would present a conservative contrast to Whitmer, he said. But Whitmer also faces headwinds as she approaches Nov. 8, including an unpopular Democratic president, midterm elections that usually do not bode well for the party in power in Washington, D.C., and continuing high inflation. Dixon's next challenge will be shifting to a general election race in which she will need to attract independent voters and moderate Republicans. All the primary candidates ran far to the right. On the ballot with Dixon were Oakland County businessman Kevin Rinke, who had about 21% of the vote, Kalamazoo chiropractor Garrett Soldano, who had 19%, Ottawa County real estate broker Ryan Kelley, with 16%, and retired Farmington Hills pastor Ralph Rebandt, who trailed with 4%. None of the Republican candidates has ever run for — let alone been elected to — political office. All the GOP candidates for governor were political newcomers and not well-known. Referencing problems at the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency, Dixon also said Whitmer "allowed criminals to steal millions from our unemployment system, while those who needed it, couldn't get it."

The win Tuesday sets up a tough general election race against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has millions in her campaign fund.

Contentious primaries are not new, but the hostility seems heightened in some places this year as Republicans split over whether to relitigate the 2020 election or look ahead, including to the 2024 presidential race. He predicted he will win with the help of a “grassroots army” that came together when Soldano organized protests against Whitmer’s COVID-19 restrictions. Dixon is a former steel industry executive who also hosted a conservative program on a streaming channel and once acted in low-budget zombie movies in what her campaign described as an “admittedly lame” hobby. Kelley organized rallies against the governor, including one where armed paramilitary groups entered the Michigan Statehouse. I only know her from 20 seconds of a commercial.” She opposes abortion, except to save the life of the mother, and says Michigan should eliminate the requirement for permits to carry concealed weapons.

Tudor Dixon received a major boost Friday when former President Donald Trump endorsed her in the five-candidate Republican race for governor.

Though Trump's decision to support Dixon garnered the biggest headlines, it was only the latest in a series of significant endorsements that gave her campaign a sense of momentum. “All the actions of the Democratic Party have caused issues in this country, economically, crime-wise. Rinke, whose family made a fortune selling GM and Toyota cars, was expected to outspend the other four Republican candidates after pouring about $10 million of his own money into the campaign. But Whitmer also faces headwinds as she approaches Nov. 8, including an unpopular Democratic president, midterm elections that usually do not bode well for the party in power in Washington, D.C., and continuing high inflation. All five sought Trump's endorsement and made criticism of Whitmer's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic central planks of their appeals to voters. None of the Republican candidates has ever run for — let alone been elected to — political office.

Dixon received former President Donald Trump's backing late last Friday and will face Gretchen Whitmer in November.

Why it matters: The meeting will further infuriate Beijing, which claims Taiwan and rejects any gesture that seems to treat the self-governing island as its own country. Why it matters: Arizona has become ground zero for election denialism, a phenomenon that will be put to the test in Tuesday's GOP primaries for governor, secretary of state and key down-ballot races. Driving the news: Former President Trump's last-minute endorsement of “Eric” ahead of today's Missouri Senate primary — in a field that includes both the state’s attorney general, Eric Schmitt, and disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens — highlights how disruptive and unpredictable a force the former president remains in the GOP.

Tudor Dixon, who on Tuesday won the Republican nomination for governor, has worked in both the steel industry and in mass media.

Early in the campaign, Dixon said changes in election practices in Michigan created the potential for fraud, but did not say fraud affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential vote. After about seven years at home, Dixon also handled Michigan sales for Chicago-based Finkl Steel for less than two years. She says she worked for the foundry — starting in customer service and ending in sales, with time in-between on the shop floor — until 2009, when she left to start a family with her husband, Aaron, who works as a financial controller for a manufacturing company.

Her campaign was trailing badly just six weeks ago. It's Tudor Dixon vs. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the Nov. 8 general election, and the two are worlds apart ...

The Michigan Secretary of State noted that 846 ballots were rejected from people who voted absentee and then died before the general election. She previously told Bridge Michigan that she worked her way up from customer service to running sales and human resources at the company. We report because the news impacts all of us. The revenue primarily goes to the state’s general fund but also supports schools and bridge construction. In 2020, Zuckerberg gave $419 million to two non profit organizations that distributed money to roughly 2,500 election departments. If elected, Dixon also wanted to “clean up” the Qualified Voter File “to get rid of the thousands of dead and long lost out-of-state voters that remain on the rolls,” according to her campaign website. Some states, like Florida, have banned such donations. If Dixon takes office, she states on her website she wants to sign legislation that will make Michigan’s voter ID laws the “strongest in the country.” Dixon was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Illinois before attending the University of Kentucky. She moved to Michigan in 2002, when she took a job at her dad’s Muskegon steel foundry. She racked up several prominent endorsements, including the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Right to Life of Michigan and the Police Officers Association of Michigan until the big one came last Friday: President Donald Trump endorsed Dixon calling her a “conservative warrior…ready to take on" Whitmer, who he called "one of the worst governors in the nation." Dixon regards herself as an optimist, “wife, mother and cancer survivor” who is “pro God, pro life, pro gun and pro freedom.” Her campaign leads on a promise of “the mother of all comebacks” for Michigan. Dixon ran as a proud conservative mother of four children who vows to stop what she considers the indoctrination of kids in school.

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. — Tudor Dixon, a former conservative media personality and now the Republican nominee for governor in Michigan, paused during a ...

Fred Starcher, 61, a truck driver, said he had only recently heard of Ms. Dixon, but was hopeful that she would ease the financial burdens of the working class. Ms. Whitmer has seized on the issue and made it a centerpiece of her campaign. At an elementary school in Sterling Heights, Mich., on Tuesday, two Republican voters struggled to remember Ms. Dixon’s name, though they intended to cast a ballot for her. A Republican governor would make a difference.” Ms. Whitmer has drawn criticism from conservatives over rising inflation, her handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the perpetually run-down state of Michigan’s roads. Ms. Dixon, a relative unknown who was previously an executive at her family’s steel company, suffers from a lack of name recognition in the state, even within her own party. The sweeping rejection by Kansas voters on Tuesday of a constitutional amendment that would have let state legislators ban or significantly restrict abortion has further elevated issues of reproductive rights, which could be an especially potent issue in Michigan in the general election. “Michigan needs help. “I think she’d be for the blue collar. Don VanSyckel, a member of the board of commissioners in the Republican stronghold of Macomb County, said he had favored one of Ms. Dixon’s opponents in the primary, and remained doubtful that Ms. Dixon was qualified for the job. She wanted to acknowledge one factor that helped catapult her to victory: a late-breaking endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. Ms. Dixon has said that abortion should only be allowed if necessary to save the life of a mother, and that she would not support exceptions for rape or incest.