Like many of you, I have been reading the polling data — and I am confused . . . in part because the pollsters are no longer able to gather the data requisite for a representative sample (thanks to the abandonment of land lines for cell phones), in part because nearly all of the so-called “independent” pollsters are partisan manipulators. So, I will have to wait for the results on Tuesday night.

I will be watching Michigan, as you should. It is a purple state. Trump won it in 2016. Biden was awarded it in 2020. The Democrats’ gruesome threesome is up for re-election: our governor, our attorney general, and our secretary of state. All three are female. All three regard abortion as a sacrament and care very little about anything else. They represent better than any other candidates in the country a certain propensity within the Democratic Party. There is also a proposition on the ballot to make abortion a constitutional right for all individuals (including your fourteen-year-old daughter, if you have one). It would also legitimate a sex-change operation for one of your children without your permission. Bodily autonomy — that’s the ticket.

The gruesome threesome managed, with the help of the US Department of Justice, to eliminate the top three Republican gubernatorial contenders. The top two supposedly lacked the requisite number of legitimate signatures on their petition to be put on the primary ballot. The third was indicted for being present in DC on 6 January 2020. My bet is that the charges against him will be dropped after the election. The Michigan attorney general has also recommended that a special prosecutor be appointed to go after her opponent on the ballot. In this state, the Democrats are ruthless; the Republicans, completely feckless. They like holding office. They have no desire to rule. If catapulted into power, they would wring their hands and do nothing.

Our governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has also outspent her opponent (the fourth most popular of the Republicans who sought to be on the ballot in the primary) — who is a talk-radio veteran named Tudor Dixon. And she has outspent the lady by a margin of twenty-to-one or more. Online and on TV, I have seen one Dixon advertisement and a host of Whitmer advertisements. I have received in the mail one piece of literature favorable to Dixon and twenty or ore favorable to Whitmer.

In short, the fix is in. We have the forms of democracy here in Michigan, but not the substance.

All of this notwithstanding, Dixon is doing well in the polls, Real Clear Politics is persuaded that she is apt to win.

How could this be? This is a question you might well ask. Well, people are not happy that Whitmer defined marijuana dispensaries and abortion providers as essential during the lockdowns while she encouraged the schools to shut down. And the Whitmer campaign has predicated their advertising on the fact that Betsey DeVos, that bugabear, has given the Dixon campaign some money and on the fact that Dixon is no friend to abortion. If you are not a stalwart of the teachers’ unions and you are not a fierce supporter of abortion “rights,” you are apt to be unmoved . . . and, after seeing advertisement after advertisement, a bit annoyed.

I should perhaps add that the churches have campaigned against the abortion proposition. That might well affect turnout. And, yes, there is something else. The Muslims in Dearborn have en masse re-registered as Republicans. For some reason, they are not happy with boys in the girls’ locker room.

So, Michigan is a test. If Dixon wins, it will not be because she ran a brilliant campaign. She does not have the money to run any kind of campaign. If she wins, it will purely be because the voters in this state have repudiated everything that Whitmer stands for.

If the Republicans can take Michigan, they can take damned near anything. Stay tuned.