Four years ago, Gretchen Whiter rode the 2018 blue wave to a blowout victory, promising Michiganders that she would "fix the damn roads" and invest in education. She has since become a rising star in the Democratic party and even made Joe Biden's finalist list for the Vice Presidency. Her national presence will be sure to fuel the grassroots fundraising of both her campaign and her opponents.
The GOP views Michigan as one of their top targets, and it's easy to see why they think they have a fighting shot. The GOP has performed better here than they did with the national popular vote in the last two presidential elections. In the early 2020 polls, Michiganders were split evenly on Whitmer’s performance, and her most likely opponent, Former Head of the Detroit Police James Craig, was beating her in the head-to-head polling.
I run an Election Forecast for the Michigan Governor Race at RacetotheWH, and in December we found that Whitmer’s chances of winning another term had fallen to just 54%. However, Whitmer has been defying expectations in the early months of 2022, and mounted an impressive comeback. She’s emerged once again as the frontrunner in the Great Lake State. with a 73% chance of victory.
There are two main reasons for her rise. First, Whitmer has flipped the script and taken the lead against James Craig, ahead by 4% in our polling average. Chances are high that voters are giving Whitmer credit for a booming economy that has been one of the most successful in the nation in 2022. Unemployment has dropped from a pandemic high of 24% to under 6%, and incomes have risen at a much faster rate than the national average.
Second, Whitmer has done a phenomenal job of building support with small-dollar donors. Historically, that's a great early way to measure a candidate's grassroots support. Our model assumes incumbents will have an early lead in fundraising, and we balance it out by giving challengers a boost in the first few fundraising quarters. However, Whitmer's performance is far stronger than just an early good start. She has raised $20 million, ten times more than Craig.
Our election forecasts were one of the most accurate in the nation last cycle and were closer than Nate Silver at predicting the final margin in Senate races. Nonetheless, we fully expect these projections to change over time, they will be updated every day with the latest polling. It's also important to remember that just because Whitmer is stronger today doesn't mean she is even close to assured victory. There's still about a 25% chance of an upset or in other words the odds of flipping a coin twice and getting heads both times. You can follow our Michigan forecast here.
For more, check out our new House forecast, which shows Democrats with a fighting shot of holding off the GOP and securing another term. You can also explore our Senate Forecast, which shows a highly competitive election, centered on Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.