A FOX NEWS GOVERNOR IN MICHIGAN?

It's a GOP poll, so take it with a grain of salt, but...

If the election were held today, former Detroit Police Chief James E. Craig would defeat Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer – 45 percent to 38 percent – according [to] polling data ... released Wednesday by the Michigan Republican Party.

In that same poll, Detroit businessman John James trails Whitmer in a hypothetical match up -- 50 percent to 45 percent.

The poll [was] commissioned by the Michigan GOP and conducted by Competitive Edge Research and Communication Inc. ...

I'm sure this poll has a partisan skew, but even if James Craig isn't solidly ahead of Whitmer, it's striking that he does much better against her than John James, another Black Republican, who came within two points of beating incumbent Democrat Gary Peters for a U.S. Senate seat last year, and came within six points of beating Michigan's other senator, Democrat Debbie Stabenow, in 2018.

But John James isn't a Fox News regular. James Craig is.

Craig knows all the buzzwords, as he demonstrated in September:

His latest pop-in to "Fox & Friends" was to react to videos currently inflaming right-side media, of a mid-size U-Haul truck in Louisville unloading signs and "riot gear" to anti-police protesters in yesterday's reaction to the Breonna Taylor grand jury action.

Conservatives have siezed on the clips as evidence that organized forces are behind BLM and other protests in American cities.

Craig was on hand to agree, and called the scene evidence of outsiders stirring up trouble and a "Marxist ideology" at work.

On Fox & Friends, the Detroit police chief claims video of one U-Haul truck in Louisville is proof that nationwide violence "is coordinated, it's planned ... it's financed" by a "Marxist ideology" trying "to undermine our government as we know it." pic.twitter.com/lIobpm2VKg

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) September 24, 2020

This Fox News hit occurred a day after a widely shared Facebook post appeared claiming that the U-Haul was distributing weapons, and was paid for by an activist paid by George Soros's Open Society Foundations. PolitiFact quickly debunked those claims. Craig never mentioned Soros on Fox. However, he did say of the protest, "But it's coordinated. It's planned. And, not to mention, it's financed. The question is, who's financing it?"

Donald Trump is a Craig fan, as he told a Michigan interviewer in September:

“You have a great police chief,” Trump said. “I watch him. I really like him a lot. Say hello to him. I think he’s terrific. I think he’s just an incredible representative; he speaks so well about a very important subject, which is crime, and rioting, and all the things you see in certain cities.”

Can this get Craig elected? I don't know, but it's a problem for 2024 if Whitmer loses. Michigan's legislature is under GOP control. If a Democrat wins the popular vote in Michigan in 2024, it's an open question whether an all-Republican state government will award the state's electors to that Democrat.