Michigan Republican John James in Virtual Tie with Democrat Incumbent Gary Peters: Poll

John James, the Republican Senate candidate for the state of Michigan, is trailing incumbent Democrat Gary Peters by just one percentage point in a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Monday.

Peters leads James 43-42 percent in the new poll. Respondents to the same survey taken in June gave the incumbent 41 percent support to James’s 31 percent.

“Tie ball game!” James wrote on Twitter. “The recent NY Times/Siena poll…shows Michigan is one of the most competitive races in the nation.”

The tight race comes as the Trump campaign and Republicans attempt to hold their ground in Michigan, a pivotal swing state that helped vote President Trump into office. The Times/Siena poll showed Joe Biden leading Trump among respondents by 48-40 percent.

James is considered a rising star within the Republican Party, a graduate of West Point who completed multiple tours in Iraq. Peters himself serves in the Navy reserves.

Republican donors contributed over $14 million to James’s campaign during the third quarter alone. Stewart Boss, spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, portrayed James as “the handpicked candidate of Mitch McConnell, Betsy DeVos, and the out-of-state billionaires and corporate special interests who are trying to buy this Senate seat,” in comments to Fox News.

However, Stu Sandler, general consultant to James’s campaign, wrote in a memo obtained by Fox that Democrats were nervous about losing Peters’s seat.

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“Chuck Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC will spend $5.4 million [in Michigan] in one week — this is the most money they are spending on any Democrat in the entire nation,”Standler wrote. “They are very nervous about John James, and they should be.”

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