Last Thursday, the political and business communities of Michigan saw the long-awaited results of the latest Mitchell Research poll of this year’s gubernatorial and far more were shocked than subdued.
According to the poll, Gretchen Whitmer,a Bernie Sanders-style Democrat and former state senator, leads Republican State Attorney General Bill Schuette (pronounced “SHOE-tea”) by 46 to 38 percent among likely voters statewide.
The margin of error was 3.8 percent.
Given that the moderate-to-conservative Schuette has been in some major office or another since he was elected to Congress in 1984 and that Whitmer was “termed out” of the legislature in 2014, the results were somewhat surprising.
“Whitmer was very fortunate to have two male primary opponents who attacked each other and left her alone,” veteran pollster Steve Mitchell, who conducted the survey for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, told Newsmax, “So she came out of the primary without scars.”
In contrast, Mitchell pointed out, Schuette “got beat up pretty badly in his primary. [Lieutenant Governor Brian] Calley, who was supported by [outgoing GOP Gov. Rick] Snyder, and two other primary candidates hit Schuette hard. They hit especially hard at him by charging he wasn’t tough enough with the officials in Flint [Mich.] responsible for the water poisoning.”
The pollster pointed to his findings that Schuette had favorable-unfavorable ratings of 41-to-26 percent after the primary.
In addition, Mitchell said that the Republicans controlling the governorship for the last eight years is fueling “a desire for change” among voters.
“They just want something different,” he told us.
But Mitchell quickly added that results can easily change in a matter of weeks when it comes to the Michigan electorate.
“At this point in 1990 [Republican] John Engler was trailing by twenty points and he wound up winning the governorship,” he said, “Two years ago at this point, Donald Trump trailed Hillary Clinton by more than twenty points and he eventually carried Michigan.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.