LANSING – Governor Rick Snyder has come under heavy criticism from some quarters of the Republican Party for spearheading the expansion of Medicaid, but a new poll released Thursday shows he still enjoys a strong favorability rating among those expected to participate in next year’s statewide Republican primary.
The survey, from the Republican polling firm Harper Polling, is something of a rebuttal to a recent iCaucus poll of current state Republican convention delegates that asserted 48 percent wanted to see a Republican challenge Snyder in the August 2014 primary compared to 39 percent who said such a challenge would be unwise.
In the Harper survey, Snyder enjoyed a 72 percent favorability rating compared to 17 percent unfavorable. And while the iCaucus survey showed Snyder trailing Attorney General Bill Schuette and Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema in hypothetical matchups among the convention delegates, the broader universe of Republican primary voters in the Harper poll showed Snyder running strong against Agema. Harper did not test Snyder against Schuette, who has made it clear he is running for re-election and would not challenge Snyder.
Snyder led Agema, 64 percent to 16 percent, in the Harper poll. Agema was almost totally unknown with 9 percent of Republican primary voters saying they had a favorable opinion of him and 5 percent unfavorable with the rest saying they either had never heard of him or had no opinion.
The survey, conducted Wednesday among 958 likely Republican primary voters via automated telephone interviews, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.17 percentage points. It was commissioned by Conservative Intel.
Snyder has not formally announced that he is running for a second term, but is widely expected to do so. While leading tea party activists have said they might sit out any efforts to help re-elect Snyder in 2014, none have called for someone to run against him in the primary.
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