Democrats are pleased with a new poll that shows Rep. Mark Schauer ahead of his Republican opponent Tim Walberg by six points. But some observers are confident that Walberg will win. 

“We feel very good about Tim Walberg’s chances heading into the final weeks of the election,” Ken Spain, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, tells Battle ‘10. “Our internal polling shows this race to be a competitive one. And we expect Tim Walberg to win. Democrats have a series of problems in the state of Michigan: number one, the state of the economy; and number two, they have a serious problem at the top of the ticket where Republicans are expected to win big.”

The key to Walberg’s victory says Ken Braun, director of MichiganTransparency.org, is for him to stay on message.

“Walberg was embroiled in some comments about the president’s birth certificate and that’s generally a way to get off message concerning the economy,” says Braun, whose wife worked in Walberg’s congressional office. He expects the Republican to win: “I would consider this still a dogfight till the end. To get back into it, they need to get back on the issues that people really care about.”

Spain says those issues are the same ones that concern voters nationwide: “If we continue to focus on Mark Schauer’s abysmal record of supporting the stimulus bill, cap-and-trade, and the health-care bill, then voters will continue to realize that he has been an utter failure in representing their interests and values in Congress.”

In Michigan’s seventh congressional district, Republicans are all frowns this morning. The Detroit Free Press has released a poll of 400 likely voters, in which the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Mark Schauer, leads his Republican opponent, former Rep. Tim Walberg, 45 to 39 percent. (The margin of error is 5 percent.) Voters are splitting their tickets between the popular Republican gubernatorial candidate, Rick Snyder, and the Democrat. Walberg also has a problem with independents:

In the EPIC-MRA poll, self-described independent voters gave Schauer an edge – among them, he led Walberg 45%-28%. Geographically, the district varies greatly, with voters in Calhoun, Eaton and Washtenaw counties giving Schauer a big edge. He also held a slim 41%-36% lead in Jackson County, which is considered critical.

Still, Schauer has been in office for only one term (he beat Walberg in 2008). He’s the second Democrat to represent the district since World War I. And Walberg initially won the seat by ousting the moderate incumbent, Joe Schwartz, in the Republican primary. In other words, the district seems pretty conservative. Precisely because it’s so conservative, however, the Detroit Free Press sees this district as a must-win for the GOP:

Most political pundits expect this to be a watershed election in which Republicans could regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives by picking up more than 40 seats nationwide, and the Michigan 7th has been considered a tossup throughout. If Republicans can’t retake the seat, it could hurt their overall chances of winning the House.