LANSING – In a new poll released Tuesday that Democrats cheered and Republicans dismissed, Governor Rick Snyder and his Democratic opponent Mark Schauer tied with 40 percent support each.

The poll was released by Public Policy Polling, the North Carolina-based firm that has proven generally reliable in polling Michigan races, though the firm is a Democratic one.

The poll, conducted of 578 likely voters from June 26-29 (80 percent were conducted by phone, and 20 percent via the Internet, with an error rate of 4.1 percent) also shows that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Gary Peters is ahead of Republican candidate Terri Land with 41 percent to 36 percent.

The poll in general had good news for Democrats, showing, for example, that 48 percent of those asked said they would vote for a Democrat for the Legislature while 34 percent said they would vote for a Republican. The poll also found 42 percent of those asked would support repealing the state’s right-to-work law while 35 percent would oppose such a measure.

Emily Benavides, spokesperson for Snyder’s campaign, called the poll an outlier and said Schauer and “his Democratic polling buddies are trying to put some life in his campaign” by “messing with the numbers.”

One point that Republicans emphasized was that of those surveyed, 35 percent identified as Democrats to 27 percent identifying as Republicans. That was up from PPP’s last survey that showed a 35 percent to 30 percent split. Democrats countered that the survey simply reflected that Michigan has more Democrats than Republicans.

And in a fundraising email, Schauer praised the poll and his supporters. “Thanks to you, our campaign to defeat Snyder is working!”

The poll on the gubernatorial race is the first to show an actual dead heat between Mr. Snyder and Mr. Schauer.

The most recent PPP poll before this, released in April, showed Mr. Snyder leading with 43 percent to Schauer’s 39 percent.

And most polls recently released have shown Snyder ahead by an average of five to 10 percentage points. But the spread has narrowed over the last several weeks.

In mid-May, a poll by the Lansing firm of EPIC/MRA showed Snyder holding 47 percent to Schauer’s 38 percent. The Detroit News had a poll some days after that showing Snyder with 45 percent to Schauer’s 35 percent.

Then in early June, a poll by Mitchell Research showed Mr. Snyder holding 46 percent to Schauer’s 41 percent.

The PPP poll also shows just 37 percent of those polled approve of Snyder’s performance while 54 percent disapprove. Benavides said that too goes against other polls’ findings.

However, the poll also showed just 27 percent had a favorable view of Schauer, and 24 percent had a negative view, but still 49 percent did not know who Schauer was.

The poll results also come out after the Democratic Governors Association has spent $2.9 million, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, on television ads blasting Snyder. As issue ads, they cannot promote Schauer directly, though Schauer appeared in some of the ads.

Earlier in the year, the Republican Governors Association ran a series of ads attacking Schauer, but that organization has been quiet recently. The group has spent $1.5 million and when combined with the $1 million Snyder has spent, the DGA actually has outspent Mr. Snyder and the RGA this year, according to the MCFN.

Snyder went back on the air himself with an ad praising himself as a supporter and someone who cares about the state.

Benavides said that in the end the voters will “value results over rhetoric.”

SENATE RACE: The poll’s numbers on the U.S. Senate race were unchanged from a poll PPP did in April that showed exactly the same numbers of support for Peters and Land.

The poll is also consistent with other polls that have showed Peters holding a lead of anywhere from three percentage points to nine percentage points over Land.

Peters has held the lead despite still being not as well-known statewide as Ms. Land, who served for eight years as secretary of state.

ATTORNEY GENERAL: In a bit of a surprise, the poll showed that Attorney General Bill Schuette was within the margin of error against possible Democratic candidate Mark Totten, leading Totten 34 percent to 32 percent. The survey did not include the other Democratic attorney general candidate, attorney Godfrey Dillard.

Several other polls have showed the theoretical race tight, explained in part by the fact that both men still have relatively low voter recognition. Schuette is not known by half those polled, while Totten was not known by 75 percent of those polled.

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