LANSING – Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder has a commanding 22-percentage point lead over Democratic candidate Virg Bernero and is even above the all-important 50 percent mark, according to a new poll.
With Snyder enjoying a 51 percent to 29 percent lead, Bernero has an extremely tough task ahead, said Bernie Porn, president of EPIC/MRA, which conducted the poll. Snyder not only has the support of 89 percent of Republican voters, but he also has cut into Bernero’s Democratic base where Bernero has an anemic support level of 68 percent. Thirteen percent of Democrats said they were voting for Snyder.
And among independent voters, Snyder has a massive 50 percent to 15 percent lead.
“Not only does Bernero have to start figuring out how to appeal to independent voters, he has to start figuring out how to appeal to his base,” Porn said.
Part of Snyder’s advantage is that 48 percent of voters said they had a favorable opinion of him while 12 percent had an unfavorable opinion. Meanwhile, just 22 percent had a favorable opinion of Bernero compared to 27 percent unfavorable. A sizeable 51 percent said they didn’t recognize Bernero’s name or didn’t know enough to form an opinion while just 39 percent had a similar description for Snyder.
Democrats “could certainly tighten the race” with negative ads that drive up Snyder’s unfavorable ratings, Porn said.
“But it won’t maximize the potential for Bernero unless he is able to increase his favorables at the same time or prior to the negatives,” he said.
The poll, with an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points, was conducted between Saturday and Monday and was commissioned by the Detroit Free Press, WILX-TV, WXYZ-TV, WJRT-TV and WOOD-TV.
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