LANSING, Mich. — As the final advertising and Get-Out-The-Vote efforts begin for all campaigns, Republican candidates in Michigan’s three major statewide races maintain the double digit leads they have enjoyed since the August primary election. After narrowing the gap to 14 in last week’s Rossman Group/Team TelCom poll, Democrat Virg Bernero has not maintained the momentum, instead sliding back into a 21-point deficit behind Republican Rick Snyder. This is the ninth and final independent, weekly poll conducted by The Rossman Group and Team TelCom before the election next Tuesday.
“At this point, Virg will need a Little Giants, Mouse Trap, Hail Mary, Immaculate Reception play all rolled into one to pull out a win on November 2,” said Kelly Rossman-McKinney, CEO and founder of The Rossman Group. “Voters don’t seem to be responding in any significant way either direction, despite the millions that have been spent by everyone involved over the last two months of this campaign.”
Snyder has an overwhelming 40-point lead among Independents and peels away four times as many Democrats from Bernero (13 percent) as Bernero does Republicans from Snyder (3 percent). Bernero is only down eight points in the metro-Detroit region, but he trails in every other region, among all age groups, and with both men and women.
Rossman-McKinney noted that even if all undecided voters choose Bernero, he still would lose the election by 10 points.
For the first time since this polling began nine weeks ago, the other Republican candidates for statewide office – Ruth Johnson for Secretary of State and Bill Schuette for Attorney General – have also broken the 50 percent mark in their races.
The automated poll, conducted October 25, surveyed 400 likely voters on several statewide races and has a margin of error of +/- 5.6 percent. The results of the questions on statewide races are below and charts showing the progress over the last several weeks follow the release.
Governor
Rick Snyder (R) – 55 percent
Virg Bernero (D) – 34 percent
Undecided – 11 percent
Secretary of State
Ruth Johnson (R) – 50 percent
Jocelyn Benson (D) – 32 percent
Undecided – 19 percent
Attorney General
Bill Schuette (R) – 50 percent
David Leyton (D) – 30 percent
Undecided – 20 percent
The statewide survey also asked the 400 respondents how they would like their Congressperson to handle the federal health care reform law. Just under half chose “repeal the law” at 46 percent, followed by “improve the law” at 39 percent, “leave it as it is” at 10 percent, and 6 percent “undecided.”
Surprisingly, 12 percent of Democrats actually favored a repeal, with Independents split 50/50 on the topic. Unsurprisingly, 91 percent of those who claim to be Tea Party supporters said they want their congressman to vote for repeal. The Thumb region was the highest in favor of a repeal at 52 percent. Respondents aged 65 and over and between the ages of 18-29 were the ones least likely to choose repeal (45 percent and 44 percent respectively), and men were much more in favor of repeal (52%) than women (40 percent).
“Repealing health care reform has been a central issue of many campaigns, but when you combine those who want to improve the law, leave it alone or are undecided, respondents were pretty much split on what Congress should do next,” said Rossman-McKinney.
Contact: Josh Hovey, 517-487-9320 (office), 517-712-5829 (cell) Jhovey@rossmangroup.com, Kelly Rossman-McKinney, 517-487-9320 (office), 517-749-0529 (cell) krossman@rossmangroup.com