Todd Spangler

Detroit Free Press

Poll shows Peters leading among age groups%2C income brackets%2C both genders

Land trails by 23%25 in metro Detroit%2C the most populous part of the state

Republican needs low turnout%2C governor%27s coattails to improve her chances

WASHINGTON – Not so long ago, it appeared Terri Lynn Land had a respectable shot at capturing Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat for the Republican Party.

But, as it stands now, if Land were to beat the Democratic nominee, U.S. Rep. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township, it would come as an Election Day upset.

The latest EPIC-MRA poll done for the Free Press, WXYZ-TV and their outstate polling partners shows Peters extending his lead over Land, a former Michigan secretary of state, to 11 points, 45% to 34% — more than double the poll's 4-percentage-point margin of error.

It continues a trend: Peters has consistently led in practically every poll taken in the race for months, with the average margin growing to 9.4% in the most recent Real Clear Politics calculation. The website FiveThirtyEight, which aggregates polling data, gives Peters a 93% chance of winning.

Now, with Republicans nationwide having a strong chance of capturing at least six U.S. Senate seats currently held by Democrats and regaining control of the chamber, it appears Michigan — which hasn't elected a Republican to the Senate in 20 years — is unlikely to be part of that pattern.

"It's certainly trending in the wrong direction for her," Mike Traugott, with the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan, said recently.

The most recent poll, which surveyed 600 likely voters between Oct. 17 and 20, indicates an electorate diverging sharply from a Republican candidate once touted by national pundits as a potential game-changer in the race to capture a seat left open by Sen. Carl Levin's retirement.

Peters holds leads over Land not only in metro Detroit — the most populous part of the state, where he has a 23 percentage point edge — but in every section of Michigan except in the west, where Land hails from. Meanwhile, Peters is winning among all age groups and income levels, and not only holds a commanding 14% lead among women but, for the first time, leads among males voters by 7% as well.

Perhaps tellingly, 17% of likely voters surveyed who say they'll back Republican incumbent governor Rick Snyder also say they support the Democrat, Peters. Land gets just 4% of those saying they'd vote for Snyder's Democratic opponent, Mark Schauer. The Free Press reported online Tuesday that Snyder had opened up an 8-point lead on Schauer, making Peters' 17% of those voters an even larger share of the electorate.

The results suggest Peters and his allies have successfully defined Land, true or not, in the minds of many voters as wrong for women voters and an enemy of the environment — as many of the negative ads about Land have claimed.

But they also suggest Land and her campaign strategists have done her no favors either, with too few publicly announced appearances until recently and questions about where she stands on many issues remaining open far too long.

That's despite her having no trouble raising money — at least $2.9 million from her own pocket — and at least $15 million spent on her behalf by outside groups. Just this week, campaign reports showed her father, Paul Land, gave $500,000 to a group, Ending Spending, which has spent more than $5 million on her race. With Peters' allies spending at least $17 million on the race, it is already the most expensive in Senate history in Michigan.

Lately, she has focused on characterizing comments by media sources — including a columnist at the Free Press — and Peters' Democratic allies about the multiple times she mentioned on a radio show that she was a mother as being "anti-mom." But her critics say those comments were more directed at what they believed should have been more comprehensive responses by a nominee to the U.S. Senate on subjects ranging from health care, to military intervention in the Middle East and Ebola.

"It's slipping away from her, obviously," said Bill Ballenger, the founder of Lansing-based Inside Michigan Politics. "She's always had the question hanging over her head, especially from the news media, whether she was ready for prime time. ... She's never reached a defining moment where she's broken through."

If there is good news for Land in the poll, it is Snyder's growing momentum in what has been considered a tight gubernatorial race. If turnout among Democrats and ticket-splittters is low enough, it's possible she could ride his coattails to victory.

"The fact that the governor's race is competitive gives Terri hope until the end," Saul Anuzis, a Republican consultant and former state party chairman, said recently, adding. "Everything is kind of up in their air."

She could also be heartened that Peters' share of support remains at under 50%, with 14% undecided and 2% saying they'll sit out the race. But it would be difficult for her to pick up those undecided potential votes with her unfavorable ratings plummeting to 49% compared with 30% for Peters.

But it's still a long shot at best.

"It shouldn't be a surprise that a lot of conservative talk show hosts and others have been critical of the Republican candidate because they think she and her campaign have not run the kind of campaign they expected," said EPIC-MRA pollster Bernie Porn. "I think the time has just about run out on her ability to (turn it around)."

Even as the trend line seems to have turned against Land, however, she has continued to hammer Peters for supporting the Affordable Care Act and opposing the Keystone XL pipeline. But she and her allies have also lobbed accusations at him which are baseless — such as those trying to link him with Albanian loansharking or profiting from Detroit water shutoffs.

Peters' and his allies, too, have at times stretched credulity, such as when they tried to link Land with pollution in Detroit. But when his campaign accused her last week of wanting to cut access to mammograms, cancer screenings and prenatal care — charges she called lies — hers was the harder case to make since she has called for repeal of the ACA, which increases access to those services.

As for Land's accusations against Peters, he called them "ridiculous" and "an example of a campaign that is becoming desperate." Land says Peters has "resorted to lying about Terri and her positions."

Larry Sabato, at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said it's not that Peters is an unbeatable candidate, but that Land has been "unable to project consistently a strong rationale for her election — at times almost seeming to disappear from the campaign trail altogether."

"You can't do that," he said.

Contact Todd Spangler: 703-854-8947 or tspangler@freepress.com