Kathleen Gray and Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

The race for governor has tightened into a virtual dead heat heading into the final days of this election cycle. And the Democrats' strategy to increase turnout by getting people to vote by absentee ballot is a big driver.

With less than a week before the Nov. 4 election, Gov. Rick Snyder has only a two-point, 45%-43%, lead over Democrat Mark Schauer, according to an exclusive 600-person poll of likely voters taken Oct. 26-28 by EPIC-MRA for the Free Press, WXYZ-TV and their media polling partners. Nine percent of respondents said they still are undecided, and 3% percent said they are voting for third-party candidates.

Among those 9% undecided, however, the partisan leanings of 8% are toward Democrats and 1% toward Republicans. If those undecideds are put into the mix, the race is a 46%-46% tie, said Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA.

"The ground game is starting to take effect with absentee voters," Porn said. "We've got ourselves a horse race."

The Michigan Democratic Party sent out more than 1 million absentee ballot applications — mostly to people identified as Democrats who traditionally vote in presidential election years but sat out the 2010 midterm election when a GOP wave hit the state and Republicans took over all the major statewide offices, the state Legislature and the state Supreme Court.

• Michigan Voters Guide:Compare candidates and see where they stand at freep.com/votersguide

"This is going to change the way we practice politics in Michigan forever," said Lon Johnson, chairman of the Democratic Party. "It's my job to turn out Democratic voters."

Indeed, clerks around metro Detroit are reporting increases in the number of people requesting absentee ballots, and, generally speaking, increased turnout usually helps Democratic candidates.

In 2006, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm won by a 56%-42% margin over Republican Dick DeVos when 3.8 million voters turned out. But in 2010, Democrats lost badly when only 3.2 million voters cast ballots and Snyder won by a 58%-40% margin over Democrat Virg Bernero, Lansing's mayor.

In Detroit, Clerk Janice Winfrey said she expects to process 60,000 absentee ballots, up from 35,700 in 2010.

"Turnout was at 31% in 2010. We think we're probably going to do 40%," Winfrey said. "Whenever you have a close race, you get more participation."

Livonia City Clerk Terry Marecki said she has gotten a "ton" of the applications mailed to voters by the Democratic Party and expects absentee ballot numbers returned to increase by about 2,000 this year over the 2010 election. In close races, that could be the difference up and down the ticket.

"Oh definitely, you always have to treat those absentee votes as very special," she said.

Troy City Clerk Aileen Bittner said she expects turnout to increase from 57% in 2010 to about 60% this year.

"We've got a really good turnout for absentee ballots, but it's pretty much in line with 2010," she said. "We've had more interest and activity this year, but we've got a good local judges race, and some state House and Senate races that are causing a lot of interest."

In Warren, the city had 10,000 absentee ballots in 2010, and the clerk's office has already sent out more than 10,000 this year.

"And we've always gotten a very good rate of return, in the 92%-94% range," said City Clerk Paul Wojno. "In one delivery from the Post Office last week, we had 300 applications in one day. The grass-roots effort has been very dramatic in this election over four years ago."

Darren Littell, a spokesman for the Michigan Republican Party, disputes the idea that absentee ballot efforts by the Michigan Democratic Party are running ahead of those by his party.

"They've shown a lot of numbers, and I know what our numbers are," Littell said Wednesday. "We are beating them."

Littell said the Republican have "three times as many low-propensity Republican voters already casting a ballot this year as we did in all of 2010," which was a Republican wave election nationally.

"This notion that the Dems are the only people who are targeting folks who don't normally vote in midterms — it's laughable," he said.

Littell said the party also expects to benefit from MI Team Dashboard, a computer system that cost more than $500,000 and helps thousands of volunteers across the state encourage friends and neighbors to vote and follow up with those who haven't.

Others tracking absentee ballots, however, said the rates of requests and returns are favoring Democrats. More than 800,000 people had requested absentee ballots as of Tuesday evening, said Matt Marsden, of RevFix Data Systems of Pontiac, which tracks absentee ballots and whose main clients are Republicans.

And that's nearly 10,000 more than in 2010 — and there's still six days left before the election.

The absentee ballot requests are trending toward the voters Democrats are targeting, Marsden said, based on where they live, how they've voted in the past and their voting patterns. Seventy-six percent of the voters asking for absentee ballots have either never voted by absentee or have voted in only one or two of the past five elections. In addition, more women — 57.7% — are asking for absentee ballots than men.

"I think that shows the impact that groups like Planned Parenthood and the League of Conservation Voters are having in this election," Marsden said. "They're definitely targeting the people who voted in 2008 and 2012 but who haven't voted in nonpresidential election years."

He also said that the numbers he's seeing allows him to help his Republican clients by exclusively contacting voters in GOP areas who have asked for absentee ballots but haven't turned them in yet.

"We can, in real time, make adjustments where needed," he said. "It's foolhardy not to make adjustments on game day and get your people out to the polls."

Democrats are doing the same thing, Johnson said, knocking on doors and calling people to make sure they've turned in their ballots.

"We can target people wherever they live," he said. "Turnout used to be a geographic paradigm. We understand that individual door knocks are still important, but we need to do more. We have to chase people who typically don't vote in midterm elections. We've leaned in to that strategy."

In the poll for the governor's race, Schauer picked up support among independents, people who make less than $75,000 a year, and both older and younger Michiganders.

Snyder is leading in Macomb and Oakland counties but is down 58%-31% in Wayne County. He has a 10-point lead among men but is losing women by 5 points.

"The trend line would suggest that the Snyder campaign should start to get a little worried," Porn said, noting that ads being run on Snyder's behalf are beginning to attack Schauer for not having a plan for issues such as roads and education. "They're seeing the need to try and drive up Schauer's negatives."

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. The partisan split among the 600 respondents is 42% Democrat, 38% Republican and 18% independent.

In the race for attorney general, incumbent Republican Bill Schuette is widening his lead over Democrat Mark Totten with a 47%-35% advantage. But Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, a Holly Republican, has seen a 10-point advantage shrink to a 41%-37% edge over Democrat Godfrey Dillard.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 517-372-8661, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.

How to vote by absentee ballot

■ Local clerk offices will be open until 2 p.m. on Saturday to accommodate people who want to vote by absentee ballot.

■ 2 p.m. Saturday is the last time voters can ask clerks to mail them an absentee ballot.

■ Clerk offices will be open Monday for people to vote in person by absentee ballot.

■ To see your ballot or find where you vote on election day, go to www.michigan.gov/vote

Voting by absentee over the years

2008

Total votes: 5,039,080

At the polls: 3,760,283

By Absentee: 1,278,797

2010

Total votes: 3,258,467

At the polls: 2,497,621

By absentee: 760,846

2012

Total votes: 4,780,701

At the polls: 3,507,883

By absentee: 1,272,818