×

Pros and cons voting for your favorite

By this point in the campaign the vast majority of folks would recognize Gretchen Whitmer or Bill Schuette if they walked in the room. But if the typical voters who support them walked in the room you would not recognize them because no one has taken a snap shot of who they are … until now.

Based on internal polling data from EPIC-MRA on behalf of the Detroit Free Press, we have a fairly clear composite of what these folks look like.

If you’re a Bill Schuette zealot, you are for sure someone with a high school education or less. Half of those voters are on his side while Ms. Whitmer garners only 31%. You are also over the age of 65 which is an important point because of all the age groups that vote, seniors vote in the largest number.

The typical Mr. Schuette voter is also a Trump supporter or maybe you already knew that. He nails down 79% of those folks which goes along with where they generally live i.e. up North. The candidate beats Ms. Whitmer by 13 point with Northern voters.

If you watch Mr. Schuette at an event and look around the room the chances of seeing an African-American would be pretty slim as he gets only 6% support from that community. The same goes for any union workers in the crowd. He receives 28% from them.

Since angry white guys make up a good chunk of the Trump bunch, you would expect that most of Mr. Schuette’s are male but in a somewhat surprising finding, the two contenders are tied at 40% for the male vote.

On the issues important to voters, those who rank taxes and the economy as their number one issue are all in with Mr. Schuette who has locked his message into rolling back taxes and being the “pay check and jobs governor.” His only challenge there, those two issues are not the most important to most voters. Only 7% go to bed worrying about taxes and only 10% are worried about the economy.

The snap shot for the proto-type Whitmer voter reveals, lots of independent women. She has a 23 point lead over him in a category that many of the political know-it-alls predict will decide the eventual winner. Mr. Schuette is rejiggering his message to appeal to these influential female voters.

Ms. Whitmer has more educated voters with a 17 point lead with college grads and a 14 point lead with those having a post high school education. She wins the union vote by 28 points, she wins every age group except for seniors, she wins the African-American vote at 70% and is tied with him with white voters.

Ms. Whitmer has lost some ground with independent male voters. The two are tied but at one point she had a strong lead with them. She leads in every income level from those earning under $25,000 to those over the $100,000 a year mark.

While Mr. Schuette has his support on issues that are not that popular, she nails down support from voters in the top three issues in the state including infrastructure and roads, maybe you heard her say “fix the _____ roads?” She ranks high with those who feel education and health care are most importnat. Her lead over him is a whopping 37% on the health issue.

Finally if you run for office you want support from the regions that have the most voters and she has it as she beats him by ten points in Macomb County, 18 points in Oakland County, and 25 points in Wayne. She’ll glady concede northern Michigan to him if she can hold onto these numbers in southeast Michigan.

Having finished second in the last six statewide surveys, the Schuette insiders are reading the same polling stuff you are reading here and they are making some changes.

Recall that when Gov. Rick Snyder proposed Healthy Michigan to insure needy families without health care, Mr. Schuette fought him tooth and nail claiming this was just another form of Obamacare. He didn’t seem moved at the time that 680,000 citizens/voters got into the program with the help of the governor and his eventual opponent Ms. Whitmer.

During the primary race, Mr. Schuette doubled-down on his oppostion to the program as he blasted his GOP opponent Brian Calley for supporting the it.

However in an attempt to get back in the race, he’s now saying that the program is not going anywhere and he’ll try to imporve it.

Flip-flop?

The voters will have to decide that.

Two prominent pollsters claim Mr. Schuette can not win with Trump voters alone and will need to cut into her support among the groups listed above in order to win.

Is there time to do that?

You bet.

But can he?

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today