LANSING – Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder leads Democrat Virg Bernero by 21 percentage points and has the best favorability numbers of any candidate for governor in the country among independents, according to a new poll.

The numbers mean doom for Bernero’s bid, said Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, the North Carolina firm that commissioned and conducted the survey and typically works with Democratic candidates.

In the head-to-head match-up, Snyder leads Bernero 52 percent to 31 percent.

But more notably, some 53 percent of independents polled had a favorable view of Snyder compared to 17 percent unfavorable. That’s despite a blitz of negative television advertising launched by the state Democratic Party against Snyder’s management of Gateway. The poll was conducted among 497 likely voters from Friday through Saturday and appears to affirm early surveying following the Democratic ads showing they were having no impact on the race.

“He’s just a different kind of Republican,” said Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, of Mr. Snyder’s crossover appeal to centrists and some Democrats.

Jensen noted that his firm’s survey showed 42 percent of voters think the Republican Party is too conservative, but only 26 percent said the same of Snyder.

Further, Bernero’s favorable/unfavorable rating is struggling with just 28 percent having a positive opinion of him and 43 percent negative. Snyder’s number is exactly reversed. Jensen attributed Bernero’s struggles in that regard to the unpopularity of Governor Jennifer Granholm and President Barack Obama.

“I’d say Bernero’s chance of winning, unless some major scandal breaks about Snyder, and I mean really major, I’d put at 1 percent,” Jensen said.

However, there is some hope for Democrats in the secretary of state and attorney general races. For secretary of state, Republican Ruth Johnson leads Democrat Jocelyn Benson, 39 percent to 30 percent. And for attorney general, Republican Bill Schuette leads Democrat David Leyton 43 percent to 36 percent.

The Republican tide is boosting Johnson and Schuette to their leads, but neither Republican has broken away because both Benson and Leyton have at least secured the Democratic base. Michigan voters’ penchant for ticket-splitting in the secretary of state and attorney general races could open the door for Benson and Leyton, Jensen said.

That happened in 1998 when Granholm won the attorney general race despite a Republican sweep that year and 2006, when Republicans Terri Land and Mike Cox won re-election to the secretary of state and attorney general posts, respectively, despite a dominating Democratic performance.

“Folks may go out and mostly vote Republican, but decide to vote for a few Democrats here and there,” he said.

The error margin in the survey is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. That puts Leyton within the margin of error against Schuette and Johnson just outside the error margin against Benson.

This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com

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