LANSING – In the second poll in a week, Governor Rick Snyder is shown leading his Democratic opponent Mark Schauer by 6 percentage points.
The poll, conducted by the Lansing firm of EPIC/MRA, also showed, however, that 8 percent of those polled would favor an unnamed third party candidate, and another 8 percent said they were undecided.
Asked who they would favor for governor, 45 percent of those polled said Mr. Snyder and 39 percent said Schauer.
The poll was of 600 likely voters – 20 percent were contacted by cell phone – with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The poll was conducted September 25-29. The last EPIC/MRA survey, conducted August 22-25, showed Schauer at 45 percent and Snyder at 43 percent and did not include an unnamed third-party option.
The poll was the second in a week to show a lead for Snyder over Schauer outside the margin of error – Rasmussen Reports showed a similar lead last week – and Bernie Porn with EPIC/MRA said Snyder’s pickup is due largely to his return to the television airwaves with advertising.
The Democratic campaign, especially through ads released by the Democratic Governors Association, has been hitting Snyder hard on the issue of whether he cut school funding, and the DGA unveiled a new ad Wednesday. Snyder has called the assertions lies, and last week his campaign released an ad challenging it by saying Schauer voted to cut school spending.
Porn said with outside organizations, such as some newspapers, saying Snyder did increase school funding, the tactic may have problems. The pushback is “raising a problem of believability of the argument,” he said.
The race is still close, Porn said, and Schauer can come back.
The poll also showed Snyder with a 49 percent favorability rating. Schauer had a 29 percent favorability rating and 29 percent unfavorable, with 17 percent still not knowing who he was.
Zach Pohl, campaign spokesperson for Schauer, said the poll was an outlier as other recent polls have continued to show the race essentially tied. Plus, he said, Snyder has not moved past the mid-40s in support, meaning there is room for Schauer to build support.
He also questioned the ability to compare this survey to the last one considering that the previous survey did not have an unnamed third-party option.
Porn said the firm included a third-party option because the election is nearing and the firm’s final poll will name the third-party candidates and give respondents the chance to select one of them.
A Gongwer News Service analysis shows that historically the actual vote for third-party candidates is small, 2.08 percent combined when averaging the vote in the last seven gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.
AG/SOS: The poll also looked at support in the attorney general and secretary of state races, and found that Attorney General Bill Schuette was supported by 38 percent of those asked with 32 percent for Democrat Mark Totten. Another 11 percent backed a third party candidate and the other 18 percent were undecided.
Secretary of State Ruth Johnson lead Godfrey Dillard 40 percent to 30 percent, with 10 percent saying they would vote for a third party candidate and 20 percent were undecided.
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