More bad news out of Michigan.
John James, a popular African-American conservative running for Senate, is now trailing Democratic incumbent Gary Peters by 10 percentage points (51% to 41%) in the respected Emerson poll released Thursday.
Other recent polls had James behind - 8 points in the CNBC poll and 7 points in a Reuters/IPSOS survey.
Democrats, fearing a potential surge for both Trump and James, have been pouring money into Michigan.
In just one week, the super PAC aligned with Chuck Schumer spent $5.4 million in TV ads backing Peters.
One key factor hurting James may be that the Trump campaign has all but abandoned Michigan as winnable, pulling out its TV ad dollars weeks ago.
“Bailing out of Michigan by the top of the ticket could not come at a worse time for John James,” Bill Ballenger, editor of the much-read Ballenger Report on Michigan politics, told Newsmax.
The same Emerson poll showed President Trump trailing Joe Biden by 52 to 42 percent, with several other polls showing Trump behind Biden by similar margins.
In the closest state results anywhere in 2016, Trump carried Michigan over Hilary Clinton by 11,000 votes out of 4.6 million cast — or less than one percent of the vote.
James, 39, a former West Point graduate and businessman, lost the state’s other Senate seat in 2018 to Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow by 52 to 46 percent.
This year, he had widely been considered one of his party’s best prospects anywhere to flip a Democratic Senate seat to the Republicans.
But now once solid GOP states like N. Carolina, S. Carolina and Georgia are toss-ups with Democrats showing surprising strength.
Washington sources say in the closing weeks expect Republican dollars flow into these close races to insure control of the Senate.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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