The Republican nominee for governor of Michigan, Tudor Dixon, is being left behind as Governor Whitmer’s campaign buries her in negative ads and surges in the polls in what is normally considered a swing state.

In 2020, President Biden narrowly carried the Great Lake State, defeating President Trump by 51 percent to 49 percent. Now, polling from the Detroit Free Press and EPIC-MRA is showing the Democratic governor with a 16-point lead.

The RealClearPolitics average of polling shows a more modest lead, 9.5 points, but either way Ms. Whitmer appears to be running away with the race. 

A political analyst at the University of Michigan, Jonathan Hanson, explains that though scandal has plagued the Michigan GOP all summer, Ms. Dixon’s lackluster performance comes down to losing control over the narrative of the race.

“By the end of the primary race all of the Republicans including Dixon had spent their limited treasuries to get through the primary election,” he says. “Meanwhile Governor Whitmer has been successfully fundraising and didn’t have a primary opponent.”

Ms. Dixon was able to win the Republican primary in Michigan with just 40 percent of the vote in a field of five, in part due to Mr. Trump’s endorsement, which came at the end of July, just before the primary.

The latest campaign finance filings show that Ms. Whitmer’s campaign has some $14 million in its war chest while Ms. Dixon has just more than $500,000.

Although Ms. Dixon’s candidacy was initially financially supported by the DeVos family, the money seems to have dried up following the primary, with records showing she didn’t even receive funding from the state GOP.

“It’s become clear that the GOP, which went from establishment heavy at the top of the ticket in 2018 to outsider, activist heavy this year, will depend on third party spending or a red wave,” a Michigan political communications consultant, John Sellek, told the Detroit Free Press.

One third party spender, the Republican Governors Association, dropped $23 million worth of ad buys into Michigan in May. Although it’s not public knowledge how many of these ads have already run, it’s clear the group is trying to change the issues at play in the race.

A spokesman for the organization, Chris Gustafson, attacked Ms. Whitmer for an alleged “anti-small-business agenda and refusal to work with Republicans to grow the economy,” saying it is “dragging Michigan families back to the Democrats’ lost decade of layoffs and population loss.”

One ad aired by the association attacks Ms. Whitmer by claiming that her health care plan would “double” Michiganders’ taxes — in direct contrast to Ms Whitmer’s promises of “no new taxes.”

Despite saber rattling from the Republicans, Ms. Whitmer’s campaign has parlayed its financial advantage into attack ads hammering Ms. Dixon for some of her unpopular opinions, including her stance on abortion.

One ad, titled “No Exceptions,” criticizes Ms. Dixon for her support for the state’s 1931 law that, if allowed to go back into effect, would make performing an abortion a felony, with the only exceptions being in cases where it is “necessary to preserve the life” of the mother.

Abortion will be particularly relevant in the Michigan election because the state will see a ballot measure this November that would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution.

The measure is likely to pass, as most Michiganders support abortion rights, according to a WDIV/Detroit News survey that reported that 77 percent of voters believe that abortion should be the decision of the mother.

“It’s pretty clear that the abortion rights issue has become the most defining difference between these candidates,” Mr. Hanson said. “It really overran the narrative that Republicans were hoping to run on this fall.”

Ms. Dixon has tried to run away from abortion as an issue, saying in an interview with Rachel Louise Just it’s “on the ballot, this is up to the people,” and adding that “this is not an issue in the governors race this is a bright shiny thing that she is holding up to distract form her record.”

The GOP in Michigan was preparing to make the race a referendum on Mr. Biden’s presidency, the economy, education, and the handling of Covid. They even flew Governor Youngkin in to campaign in August to help them do so.

However successful this message could have been appears to be a moot point at this juncture, given Ms. Whitmer’s polling lead.

Now Ms. Dixon has become the nominee under fraught circumstances after the initial Republican frontrunner was arrested on January 6 related charges and was then disqualified — alongside four other Republican candidates — for turning in petitions with thousands of fraudulent signatures.

However, the state of the race in Michigan also stands as a reminder of how enough money, deployed in the right way and at the right time, can “set the narrative in the race, define key issues, and create an impression in the electorate,” as Mr. Hanson puts it.

He says that Ms. Whitmer was able to effectively create a public image of “Dixon that Dixon did not have the ability to counteract.”