Stabenow up 14 on Hoekstra as ad backfires

Debbie Stabenow's taken her biggest lead yet in 4 polls of the Michigan Senate race PPP has conducted dating back to December of 2010. She now leads Pete Hoekstra by 14 points, 51-37, and has an even wider 17 point advantage over Clark Durant at 50-33. In 3 previous polls Stabenow led Hoekstra by an average of just 7 points and on the most recent one, in July, her lead was 9.

What's interesting is that Stabenow's approval numbers have barely budged at all over the last 6 months. Over the summer we found her at 46/40, and now she's at 47/41.  But Hoekstra's numbers have taken a turn for the worst.  In July his favorability was narrowly positive at 31/30. Now he's dropped a net 11 points to a -10 spread at 28/38. There hasn't been a big shift in his numbers with Democrats or Republicans but with independents his numbers have flipped from +10 (33/23) to -10 (29/39).

Hoekstra appears to have been damaged by his controversial Super Bowl ad. 54% of voters in the state were familiar with it, and within that group 45% said it made them less likely to vote for him compared to only 16% who considered it a positive and 37% who said it didn't make a difference to them either way. Independents said they were turned off by it and he's gone from leading with them by 6 points in July to now trailing by 4 points.

Hoekstra remains the overwhelming favorite in the Republican primary. He's at 42% to 9% for Clark Durant, 6% for Scotty Boman, 4% for Gary Glenn, 2% for Randy Hekman, 1% each for Peter Konetchy and Rick Wilson, and 0% for Chuck Marino. Although he continues to have a large lead Hoekstra is looking less inevitable than he did in our last Michigan poll.  At that time he was polling at 78% with Randy Hekman, Peter Konetchy, and John McCulloch combining for 11%. As the field has expanded GOP voters have at least become more open to supporting someone other than Hoekstra, even if he remains the clear front runner.

Stabenow's numbers aren't awe inspiring. A 47/41 spread is about middle of the pack for our polling on Senators and she's under water with independents at 40/47. But with Hoekstra making self inflicted errors and things looking up for Obama in the state she finds herself in the best position she's been in quite a while.

Full results here

Comments

[chris durant]

I have faith in the American people again!

[pbrower2a]

I saw the ad, and it showed a complete lack of civility by Pete Hoekstra. Rule #1 -- do not distort an opponent's name. Rule #2 -- make any threat credible. The young woman in the ad looks like the sort of woman available in a catalogue of mail-order brides, and the evidence of prosperity in the Far east is more to be seen in the gleaming skylines of Hong Kong or Shanghai, and not in the rice paddy. Add to that, her broken English comes with a command of talking points of the American Hard Right.