Gary Peters wins U.S. Senate race
Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press Washington Bureau
Democrats got their first — and perhaps only — key victory in Michigan's mid-term elections soon after the polls closed with U.S. Rep. Gary Peters winning the state's open U.S. Senate seat.
Based on results from key precincts and key counties, the Free Press called the race for Peters shortly after the last polls closed in the western Upper Peninsula at 9 p.m. With 9% of precincts reporting statewide, Peters led Republican nominee Terri Lynn Land 53%-43%.
Peters, a three-term congressman from Bloomfield Township, had been heavily favored to win despite facing Land, a two-term former Michigan secretary of state who led her party's statewide ticket in 2002 and 2006.
It could be one of few bright spots for Democrats in Michigan, however, with results favoring Republican candidates in several other statewide offices, including attorney general and secretary of state.
Going into Election Day, Land still had a slim chance of winning: With incumbent Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, caught in a tough re-election battle with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mark Schauer, her backers hoped that she could ride his coattails if enough GOP supporters came out to buoy his efforts.
Most considered that a longshot at best.
The results continued Michigan's statewide bias toward Democrats in federal elections. No Republican presidential candidate has won the state since George H.W. Bush in 1988; no Republican senatorial candidate has won the state since Spencer Abraham in 1994.
Land had been widely expected to challenge that bias this year with longtime U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat, deciding not to run for a seventh 6-year term. But her campaign failed to capitalize on leads in public opinion polls early in the year. Peters has led practically every poll taken in the race for months.
Democrats were so confident of victory in the Senate race, in fact, that Peters became the only Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in the final weeks of the campaign to welcome President Barack Obama — his disapproval ratings high — into Detroit for a rally the weekend before the election.
Obama was on Detroit radio on "The Mildred Gaddis Show" on WCHB (1200 AM/99.9 FM) on Monday and on "Afternoon Mix with Frankie Darcell" on WXMD Mix 92.3 FM Tuesday, urging voters to turnout and vote for Peters as well as Schauer.
Michael Traugott, with the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan, said Land never turned what was a perceived advantage — she had run and won statewide before — into an actual one
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