Tudor Dixon tells Trump she failed to pivot on abortion issue despite his advice

Former Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon told former President Donald Trump in a podcast aired Wednesday that her failure to "pivot" on the abortion issue hurt her in last year's race, again suggesting that GOP candidates may have to allow for some exceptions to the procedure if they are to win elections.

Speaking to Trump on "The Tudor Dixon Podcast," Dixon — who was soundly beaten in the 2022 race by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — said his advice that she change her message on abortion was "absolutely right" and that she hopes he can "navigate that issue" successfully in next year's presidential race.

Dixon opposed abortions even in cases of rape or incest during her campaign and was widely portrayed as an extremist on the issue. Democrats launched millions in attack ads against her as support grew for a referendum that enshrined a right to abortion in the Michigan constitution following the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of the Roe vs. Wade decision last summer.

Toward the end of the podcast interview, Dixon told Trump, who had endorsed her, "You came to me and said you've got to talk differently about abortion, and we could not pivot, we could not pivot in time."

She noted the presence, then and now, of "attack ads" on abortion against Republicans, saying, "It is not a fair issue for them to attack on."

Trump responded, "Yep that’s what happened to you and that’s what happened to a lot of other people. (It) Didn’t happen to me because, you know, there’s a way of talking about it. … You know, they (the Democrats) are the radicals and you have to explain it. I think exceptions are very important, I think you need the exceptions. You and I talked about that."

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Neither Trump nor Dixon discussed what exceptions to abortion they might believe are acceptable or if Trump advised her on any specific exceptions.

It wasn't the first time Dixon indicated that Republicans need to take a different tack on the abortion issue after the court — with a 6-3 conservative majority installed by Trump — overturned the longstanding precedent. After last week's Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee, she appeared on Fox News, praising former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is running for president, for arguing that GOP candidates must insist on stopping late-term abortions and encouraging adoptions without taking extreme positions if they are to reach consensus.

"It's just not a winning message," Dixon said of an insistence that there not be any exceptions to abortion, calling Haley's stance, "the perfect response."

"I was defined by the Democrats," Dixon said during that Fox interview. "No one really understood how important abortion would be in 2022 because no one had run in a post-Roe world."

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tudor Dixon tells Trump he was right on abortion advice