Grand Rapids Reporter

New polls are showing that Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District’s upcoming election is a lot closer than previously anticipated, according to reporting from Conservative Intel.

In 2019, former U.S. Representative Justin Amash, now a Libertarian, received national attention when he became the first Republican congressman to call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. He has since left the Republican Party and is not seeking reelection.

The battle for Amash’s seat is between Republican Peter Meijer and Democrat Hillary Scholten. The race is shaping up to be much tighter than Republicans expected, especially since the district has not elected a Democrat since the Nixon era.

Many pollsters are calling the race a toss-up, with a slightly Republican advantage, but a recent poll by Strategic National gives the edge to Scholten.

Strategic National reports a trend of more voters self-identifying as Democrats. The firm says that they typically don’t weight poll samples by political party, because allowing the party identification to "float" is usually most reflective of the final results of an election cycle, but poll results in Michigan’s 3rd District came back significantly more Democrat than anticipated.

In response to these numbers, Strategic National released two variations of the poll using different models.

A floating model, which takes a random sample, came back Democrat +4. Strategic National believes that this model must be strongly examined, because more voters are self-identifying as Democrat, and because the most highly populated county in Michigan’s 3rd District, Kent County, has sometimes gone blue in recent years.

A weighted version of the sample came back Republican +4. This model is useful to those who believe the district still leans Republican, regardless of more voters self-identifying as Democrat.

The random Democrat +4 model has Scholten up eight points with 50% of the vote. Scholten’s image is much stronger, with 49% favorable and 30% unfavorable to Meijer’s 37% favorable and 39% unfavorable. 

The weighted Republican +4 model has Scholten and Meijer tied with both receiving 46% of the vote, but Scholten’s image is still stronger, with 46% favorable and 33% unfavorable to Meijer’s 42% favorable and 37% unfavorable.

Strategic National points out that the Scholten campaign outspent Meijer’s by almost two-to-one on television ads for the month of September. The ads branded her as a moderate Democrat and Meijer as a “rich kid” son of a billionaire. National Republicans and Super PACs are now making heavy TV buys to recover, but it could be too late.