I know it's very popular here to go R internal = trash, add 5 points to Democrats. I would just ask those of you to provide some examples in 2020 (the most recent election) of this phenomenon actually being true.
Honestly, I'd point out that the 2021 governor elections were the most recent. The forum as a whole overestimated the Democrats in VA and NJ, but actual polling didn't really (enough polls in VA had Youngkin leading towards the end). And in my state's recall the GOP was overestimated both on the forum and in polling. And internals always tend to be biased towards the campaign they are conducted by. So...while 5 points is probably an exaggeration, it'd be reasonable to add about 3 points to the polling for equillibrium, which makes it Whitmer+3. Either way, unless you think an internal poll by his campaign actually underestimates him, Craig isn't doing better than Whitmer.
Whitmer's gonna lose big.
She might lose, but whether or not she wins the margin will be under 5 points and most likely under 3 points.
I'm going to offer a hot take, and that is that Whitmer's chances of re-election look materially better than Evers. As much as some ding her for her COVID response and argue it'll energize Republican turnout, which it probably will, it does also give her a distinct brand and Democratic-leaning voters see that she is actually doing something with the governorship, which very well may incentivize them to turnout. On the other hand, in neighboring Wisconsin, Evers is constantly involved in headlines of fighting with the Republican legislature, and does not really have this type of brand. There's a reason that I have this one at Tossup and I have WI at Lean R.
I agree. The MIGOP is more vocal and mad in their opposition, but redistricting at least was relatively quite. The WIGOP voters despise Evers almost as, or just as, strongly as the MIGOP despises Whitmer, they're just less vocal. And now he's become more polarized over the redistricting battle. Lastly, WI voted more than 2 points to the right of MI in 2020, and back in 2020 Whitmer won by 9.5% while Evers won by 1.1% (though to be fair, he did face an incumbent who had survived a recall). So I think MI-GOV 2022 will be friendlier to Democrats than WI-GOV 2022. As for which victory is more
important overall, I'd say MI is more important since the WI legislature has weakened the powers of the governor (I think; they did that for other offices, at least) and MI also has way more people than WI.
