For Republican Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land, the last few polls have looked bad.
But some Michigan Republicans argue that the Senate contest is a sleeper race and that polls will tighten sharply in the coming weeks.
For now, it doesn’t look good.
A USA Today/Suffolk University poll of 500 likely voters conducted from Sept. 6-10, Democrat Gary Peters led Land by nine points. And a survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling from Sept. 4-7 of 687 likely voters gave Peters 43 percent and Land just 36.
The wild card factor is whether the Democratic voter turnout will be sizably bigger than Republican. In presidential years, the state’s loyal Democratic base — energized by union organizing and unflagging commitment to the party’s candidates — shows up. But in off years, partisan turnout is typically equal, and that makes the state very competitive for Republicans.
Michigan Education Board races are the easiest way to gauge party turnout, since Michigan doesn’t register voters by party. And the off-year education board contests from 1998 to 2010 show Democrats with just an 0.04 percent turnout advantage. In 2006, a wave election year for Democrats, they led Republicans by nearly 10 percentage points. And in the 2010 Tea Party wave that put Republicans in power around the state, Republicas led Democrats by 7.32 percentage points.
For evidence that off- and on-year elections in Michigan are two fundamentally different types of contest, look no further than the state senate. Michigan state senators are always elected in off-years. And in that chamber, Republicans hold the supermajority that let them pass right-to-work laws. They have 26 seats and Democrats only have 12, and they’ve controlled that chamber since 1983.
The USA Today and PPP polls gave Democrats a significant turnout advantage. Forty-one percent of USA Today’s respondents said they were Democrats, and 35 percent Republican. And 37 percent of PPP’s respondents were Democrats, while 29 percent were Republican.
If the electorate looks more like a presidential year, Michigan Democrats will be in good shape, but not everyone thinks that’s a given.
“These polls bouncing back and forth, it does show a volatility for both candidates,” said Stu Sandler, a Republican consultant based in Ann Arbor. “I think the electorate’s wide open at this point.”
Sandler also points to outside groups’ hefty spending in favor of Peters to indicate that the race is more competitive than it may seem.
But T.J. Bucholz, a Democratic consultant who heads Vanguard Public Affairs in Lansing, says the big bucks Democrats are shelling out could indicate the opposite.
“Now that Peters is pulling away a little bit, the question is, who wants to be on the bandwagon?” he said. “Who wants to be the one to say they got Peters over the hump or whatever to get elected?”
Joe DiSano, who consults for Democrats in the state, argues the state party’s efforts to replicate Obama’s strategies is going well.
“There’s a lot of activity going on under the radar that Republicans aren’t privy to,” he said. “Basically it’s the blocking and tackling of politics, it’s very quietly identifying voters who have a propensity not to show up in non-presidential years, and then making sure that you have a structure in place to turn them out.”
