U.S. SENATE NUMBERS

Polling one year ahead of next year’s general election has to be taken with a grain (a big one) of salt but one released by pollster Bernie Porn of the most reliable EPIC-MRA caught our attention. We took in stride the portion of the poll (+/- error rate of four percent) on the Donald Trump potential Michigan race with President Joe Biden, showing the former prez leading by 46-41 percent, similar to other polls of late. But what caught our attention were the numbers in the general election race involving Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing), the presumed party winner of the August primary, and two of her possible Republican opponents, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig and former U.S. House member Mike Rogers. In a head-to-head poll with Rogers, Slotkin garnered 39 percent and Rogers a respectable 37 percent, with 24 percent undecided. Against Craig, Slotkin polled 40 percent with Craig taking 38 percent. Twenty-two percent of those polled were still undecided in that matchup. No idea if there were polling numbers for former west Michigan  Congressman Peter Meijer, who has been wrestling with members of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) who some say have basically written Meijer off because he was one of 10 House Republicans in 2021 to vote in favor of Trump’s impeachment. Just not sellable to the GOP base of voters in the state. Frankly, they may have also written off  the U.S. Senate race here entirely. According to Meijer, as he stated in a November 18 radio program, when he met with NRSC members this fall, they said the Michigan Senate race was “not winnable.” A couple of GOP stalwarts agreed, with one of them saying: “I am not at all hopeful of the GOP chances, especially if Trump is top of the ticket.”