As the U.S. Senate race is in its last two months, Democratic incumbent Gary Peters still holds a 3-point lead over GOP challenger John James, a Detroit News/WDIV poll shows. That's a statistical tie within the margin of sampling error.
Sen. Gary Peters and challenger John James
The race has tightened slightly as advertising ramps up -- Peters was up 4 points earlier in the year -- but James is battling some trends out of his control, The News reports:
"When you look at the undecideds, you see that they do lean Democratic," said (Richard Czuba, president of the Glengariff Group, who oversaw the Sept. 1-3 poll of 600 likely Michigan voters). "That is to Peters' advantage."
Four in 10 of those undecided in the Senate race said they would likely support Biden in the presidential race; three in 10 said they would support Trump.
What works against the Democratic senator is that "he's not winning them right now. They either don't know him well enough or haven't made that decision," he continued. "... Anybody who says the Michigan race is not close is not paying attention to the numbers."
The two are nearly tied in favorability ratings. James is slightly higher in unfavorables. And Peters, as expected, leads in name identification. But bottom line, Czuba said, the winner will likely be the one whose party takes Michigan in the presidential race. And now, that's leaning in Peters' favor.
The survey's error margin is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
