Snyder up big

Rick Snyder has the best favorability numbers of any first time Republican candidate for Governor or the Senate PPP has polled anywhere in the country this cycle and given that it's no surprise he holds a 52-31 lead over Virg Bernero.

43% of Michigan voters have a favorable opinion of Snyder with 28% viewing him unfavorably. Most remarkable are his numbers with independents. In a political climate where they look down on most all politicians they see Snyder favorably by more than a 3:1 margin, 53/17. There's no candidate anywhere of either party we've seen with those kinds of numbers in 2010.

Snyder would be in solid shape on his own merits. But Virg Bernero is not proving to be a particularly strong opponent. His favorability numbers are the inverse of Snyder's, with just 28% of voters seeing him in a positive light to 43% with an unfavorable opinion. And outgoing Governor Jennifer Granholm's unpopularity continues to work to Snyder's considerable advantage as well- 63% of voters are unhappy with the job she's doing and usually when that's the case for an outgoing Governor they get replaced with someone of the opposite party.

Snyder has his party locked up, leading Bernero 82-8 with Republicans. He's also holding Bernero to 66% of Democrats while picking up 17% himself and he has a 40 point lead with independents, 58-18.

While Snyder may be headed for a romp Democrats look competitive further down ballot in Michigan, trailing but by considerably smaller margins. In the Attorney General's race Bill Schuette leads David Leyton 43-36 and in the Secretary of State contest Ruth Johnson leads Jocelyn Benson 39-30. With a lot of undecideds those races are both still winnable for Democrats and it's worth remembering that Republicans won the two down ballot open seats in 2002 even as Granholm was elected Governor. Ticket splitting is not out of the question.

Republicans would have been favored in this race regardless of their nominee but this is one of the rare cases across the country this year where they clearly nominated their most electable candidate- Snyder turned this from a race that would likely have been in the 10 point range and within striking distance for Democrats to the 20 point range and out of reach.

Full results here