Tudor Dixon is a businesswoman and conservative commentator running for governor in Michigan. The Republican primary is on Tuesday, and Dixon just received former President Donald Trump’s endorsement on Friday.

Dixon and I speak about her background in manufacturing, creating a business-friendly environment In Michigan, and why she believes she’s best suited to take on incumbent Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November. Dixon says she supports decreasing the personal income tax, cutting back regulations, and modernizing the education system to promote vocational options.

Please note: this interview has been edited for grammar, length, and clarity. 

Cameron Arcand: Could share a little bit about your background and how you’re feeling after yesterday? You just got President Trump’s big endorsement.

Tudor Dixon: Yes. What an honor to have him come into this race. We feel really excited about where we’re going, how we’ve gotten here, and how much work we’ve done to get here.

I can tell you what led me up to this, and you asked about my background. I come from a manufacturing background. My family had a steel foundry in Michigan. We moved from the foundry industry into the forging industry, and went from heavy equipment to more of the automotive industry. And then in the last five years, I have been fighting for conservative voices on a conservative media network. That’s how I was led to the political world–by talking to congressmen and senators every day, and then building a team to run up against Gretchen Whitmer.

CA: Awesome. So right now, the big story nationally is the economy. This week, we saw the White House try to downplay the fears of a recession. We are technically in a recession right now. I was wondering if I could hear about what your plan is to tackle some of the economic issues we’re handling.

TD: Yeah, that’s challenging at the state level, but we definitely want to look at what we could do to ease the burden on the people of Michigan. One of the things that we can do right away is that the legislature has passed a bill to reduce the personal income tax. Now, they’ve done that two different times at two different levels. The governor has vetoed that both times. So, we think that’s one way to immediately get some relief into the pockets of the people of Michigan. But [it would] also protect against the dangerous policies that would continue if Gretchen Whitmer were to continue to be governor, because she wants to shut down one of our pipelines here in the state of Michigan, which would increase the cost of gasoline. We want to make sure that we don’t have any increases in costs on the people of Michigan, and certainly not on the products that travel through our state.

CA: How do we bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S., and how do you plan to make Michigan really the gold standard for manufacturing as governor?

TD: We need to be friendly to the job creators and make sure that they feel that they have a friend in the government in Michigan, and that’s not happening right now. Even if you talk to the automotive industry, which is our legacy industry here in the state of Michigan, they’re even looking outside of the state of Michigan when they’re building new factories.

Even if it’s going to be a U.S. factory, it’s not coming to the state of Michigan anymore. The reasoning behind that is that the regulatory system in Michigan is just so bloated and out of control. They’ll tell me these are our largest industries, but even our smallest industries are telling me that if they wanna expand[…] the government will say, “You know, it’s gonna take a long time for us to get the permits. You might be able to break ground in eight months and then start making product within a year.” Whereas our neighboring states, and some of our Southern states, are saying, “We’re gonna help streamline the process. We’re gonna come alongside you. We know you’re in a race in manufacturing, and we wanna make sure that our state is the place for you to be, and we’re gonna have you break ground right away.” That’s not happening in Michigan.

It needs to be happening, so that not only can we bring business back from overseas, but we can bring business back from the rest of the country, into the state of Michigan and thrive. Manufacturing is our niche, and that’s what we need to focus on. We need to make sure that if a business comes here, they’re going to have a strong workforce. That means that we have to help our students ,who may not be the student that wants to go to college or thrives in a college environment, to have the opportunity to work in a skilled trade and have that training, whether it is in a tech school or vocational school, and that training is available to students across the state.

CA: It’s so interesting that you talk about how they’re not coming to Michigan in particular. Have you been hearing any stories on the campaign trail of people whose job in manufacturing or another sector either went off to another state or went to another country like Mexico and China? What’s your message to those people who aren’t feeling optimistic about the future?

TD: Well, we had one of our dairy farmers, actually, because our agriculture is our second largest industry. They’re experiencing the same thing with government overreach. And so, one of our dairy farmers said, “I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to expand my farm. Even though I had the land, I couldn’t expand my farm in the state of Michigan because I wasn’t allowed to add more cows to my dairy farm. So I decided to go to Indiana, and I decided to go to South Dakota. And at the end of the year, both of those governors called me and said, ‘Thank you for doing business here’.”

He said, “It’s a shame, but I’ll continue to expand in those states rather than expand in Michigan, because I just don’t feel like I’ve wanted here.” In Gretchen Whitmer’s government, she’s created this environment where the government is the big brother. They don’t trust business. They feel like they constantly have to go in and find businesses doing something wrong and control the businesses. Whereas other states are saying, “Hey, we get it. There’s no government without business. We’re grateful that you’re here and treating businesses better.” I mean, if you’re talking about farmers who are saying, even though I have the land, I’ll go someplace else, that’s pretty significant.

CA: There are a lot of other candidates on the ballot on Tuesday. What sets you apart from the rest of the pack?

TD: I think exactly what we’ve been talking about. The fact that I understand our manufacturing environment in the state of Michigan and also, what it is to be a manufacturer and have the state come in and peer into your business, and want to know what you’re doing all the time. I know how that works on the private sector side, and I can make it easier on the public sector side to make sure that we are drawing our business in, but also I’m a mom of four daughters and my girls are all school-age. One of the other big issues that we have in the state of Michigan is that we have a declining education system and we can bring that back.

This is our huge opportunity because we’ve got parents involved in ways they’ve never been involved before. We have the legislature on board for making sure we make the crucial changes in education to bring our education system back up to par. So, I think that sets me apart and I really hope that that message gets out on Tuesday so we can get people voting for us.