New polling by Clarity Campaign Labs shows Democrats Mark Schauer and Gary Peters with sizable leads over Republicans Rick Snyder and Terri Lynn Land in the statewide races for Governor and U.S. Senator among likely voters.
Snyder’s approval rating is now less than 40% (39%) while nearly half of the voters polled (46%) disapprove of his performance. Schauer leads him 47-40%, a 7-point gap that is well outside the margin of error of +/- 2.55%. Among independent voters, Schauer has a 5-point lead, 38-33%.
Gary Peters, facing an opponent who has had no public events of significance for many months, leads 46-40% over Land.
Pollster John Hagner, Senior Vice President of Clarity Campaign Labs, analyzed the results this way:
With improved name recognition and continued dissolution with the direction Gov. Snyder is taking the state, Mark Schauer has the ability to continue building on this lead. With undecided voters disapproving of Gov. Snyder’s performance by a huge 44% to 10% margin, a full 40% of these voters identify as Democrats with only 26% identifying as Republicans.
Full polling results can be found HERE.
Democrats are understandably upbeat about the new numbers which show Governor Snyder’s popularity on the wane as he remains one of the country’s least-liked governors. Land’s strategy of staying out of the public eye and letting the Koch brothers spend money on her behalf appears to be backfiring.
“Michiganders are seeing right through former RNC Committeewoman Terri Lynn Land’s secret campaign to hide behind dark money allies and billionaire oil tycoons like the Koch brothers, said Michigan Democratic Party Communications Director Joshua Pugh. “Land is clearly trying to buy this U.S. Senate seat.”
These numbers show that the enormous cash advantage enjoyed by the two millionaire Republicans aren’t enough to make up for poor job performance and refusing to engage with votes.
One more thing: this poll has Democratic voter turnout 7% more than Republican turnout. This is an assumption that is generous given Democrats’ propensity to stay home during midterm elections. Just look at how we got clobbered in 2010 because of it. However, Dems are fired up this year and are far more prepared to get out the vote (GOTV) than they ever have been before so I’m confident that this assumption will bear out. However, it’s up to everyone one of us to make sure that it does. That means YOU!
Schauer/Peters photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog. GOTMFV photo by Chris Savage.
