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.”