A new poll of the Michigan Senate race found Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) leading former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R-MI) and, notably, Peters has an even bigger lead among women voters.
An EPIC-MRA poll released late Tuesday found Peters leading Land 44 percent to 38 percent among 600 likely Michigan voters. That poll also found Peters leading Land 47 percent to 33 percent among women voters with 20 percent undecided.
Gender issues have been one of the trending topics of the Michigan Senate race. In April TPM noted that Land, in a 2010 speech at the Senior Women’s Club in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, argued that women prioritize flexibility in a job over salary. That comment sparked prominent criticism from Democrats and two weeks later Land released a new ad pushing back at the implication that Peters knows more about women than she does because she is a women.
“Congressman Gary Peters and his buddies want you to believe I’m waging a war on women. Really?” Land said in that ad.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, cautioned to TPM that a gender gap showing women preferring a generic Democrat to a generic Republican has been a longtime trend in federal elections for a while. Kondik pointed to a Crystal Ball post showing that in the last six presidential elections women voters tended to prefer a generic Democratic candidate over a generic Republican.
Another poll, by the Detroit News/WDIV-TV released near midnight on Tuesday, also found Peters leading Land. That poll of 600 likely voters found Peters leading Land 39.6 percent to 35.3 percent among likely voters while 23 percent said they were undecided.
The EPIC-MRA poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. It was conducted from May 17 to May 20.
The Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll was conducted May 20-22. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
