Republican Mike Rogers leads Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s open U.S. Senate race, according to a new survey that puts the contest in toss-up territory.
Rogers pulled 45.8 percent to El-Sayed’s 44.4 percent among 600 likely voters, with nine percent undecided, in the poll conducted for the Detroit News and WDIV-TV. The former congressman’s 1.4-point edge sits inside the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus four points.
The result reverses a run of recent surveys that put the Democrat ahead. An EPIC-MRA poll released last week showed El-Sayed leading by four, 47 percent to 43 percent, and a Susquehanna survey earlier in the summer had him up seven.
Richard Czuba, the veteran Michigan pollster who conducted the new survey, called the race a “toss-up.”
El-Sayed moves ahead among voters most committed to casting a ballot, leading 46.7 percent to 44.4 percent with that group. Czuba pointed to a 10-point enthusiasm gap between base Republicans and base Democrats who “definitely” plan to vote. That gap is the widest he has measured across four elections.
Czuba tied the numbers to President Donald Trump, whose job approval landed at 35 percent in the survey.
“We cannot talk about this Senate race without talking about Donald Trump’s numbers, because they are literally the elephant in the room,” Czuba said, noting that more than 80 percent of undecided voters in the race disapprove of the president.
Rogers led among independents by nearly 14 points and ran stronger with voters over 40 and those without a college degree, according to the poll. El-Sayed carried younger voters, college graduates, and Black voters.
An AARP poll last month had the two candidates virtually tied. A separate Fox News poll gave Rogers a four-point lead.
El-Sayed, backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), says he does not identify as a democratic socialist. Rogers has described his opponent as an “extremist.”
Chris Turner of Inkster told the Detroit News he does not trust El-Sayed and opposes the Democrat’s push for single-payer health care.
“I really don’t want someone screwing with that again,” Turner said.
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