LANSING – Republican Governor Rick Snyder has a small, but statistically insignificant, lead over Democratic challenger Mark Schauer, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Gary Peters leads Republican Terri Land in the U.S. Senate race, according to a new poll.

Snyder received 43 percent to 40 percent for Schauer in the telephone interview survey of 600 likely voters conducted September 11-13 by Denno Research and commissioned by Vanguard Public Affairs. The error margin is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The last survey from Vanguard/Denno, in July, showed Snyder at 43 percent and Schauer at 35 percent.

“The governor has not made significant gains in the polls since July while Mark Schauer has,” TJ Bucholz, Vanguard Public Affairs president, said in a statement. “Our polling data clearly shows that Schauer is doing better with his base and is convincing more independents that he is the right choice for governor. Certainly, it’s been a great summer for Mark Schauer.”

The survey showed Schauer consolidating his Democratic base, Snyder seeing some softening among Republicans and a shift of independents toward Schauer.

Meanwhile, Peters received 45 percent to 38 percent for Land in the U.S. Senate race. In July, Peters’ lead in the Vanguard/Denno survey was 3 percentage points.

“Gary Peters is beginning to pull away with female voters,” Dennis Denno of Denno Research said. “In July, he only led Land by 3 percent with women, but he’s now increased that gap to 8 percent. Again, this is a critical sign that Peters’ appeal with female voters could spell the beginning of the end for the Land campaign.”

Both Bucholz and Denno are Democrats.

In the survey, Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette led Democratic challenger Mark Totten, 41 percent to 33 percent. Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson had a statistically insignificant lead over her Democratic challenger, Godfrey Dillard, 36 percent to 33 percent.

Of those participating in the survey, 34 percent identified themselves as Democrats and the same percentage identified as Republicans.

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