In an effort to reclaim his former seat in the State House, Dan Scripps is running once again for the 101^st House District against Republican Mason County Board Chairman, Curt VanderWall. Both men are looking to replace term-limited Representative Ray Franz. This northern Michigan House Seat runs along the western lakeshore from Ludington north, to the Leelanau Peninsula. This is the third district MLC surveyed as we head towards Election Day and is a top-tier battle ground district for both House Republicans and House Democrats.

In the head-to-head matchup, Dan Scripps is leading Curt VanderWall 48-44% with 8% undecided. The survey was conducted October 18-19 by EPIC-MRA and has a margin of error of ±3.5%. With Scripps’ lead just outside of the margin of error, he is in a good position going into the final days of the campaign, but VanderWall does have an opportunity to make up the difference. One key influence in this northern Michigan matchup, which is different from other northern districts, is the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Mr. Trump has been doing well across most of northern Michigan, but Trump only holds a slight 42-40% lead over Clinton in this House District, which is within the margin of error. While Trump could actually help some Republican House candidates, at the time of this survey, VanderWall will not be able to rely on any voter momentum generated from Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

In the last eight days of the election, both campaigns will be working aggressively to strengthen their positions, while simultaneously drawing stark contrasts from their opponents. It appears that Democrats have done a better job at drawing those contrasts as Mr. Vanderwall’s favorable/unfavorable rating is nearly equal at 42-39%. Conversely, Mr. Scripps is being helped by much stronger favorability numbers, 53-35%. After analyzing the data, John Cavanagh from EPIC-MRA stated “Mr. Scripps has apparently done a good job of taking a resonant message throughout the district, in that his slight advantage holds in Benzie, Manistee and Mason Counties and he enjoys an eight-point margin in Leelanau.” He went on to say, “while this race will go down to the wire on Election Day, Mr. Scripps is in the stronger position to win.”

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MLC will be releasing the results of our two final surveys on Wednesday and Friday heading into the final weekend of the 2016 campaign.

Michigan Legislative Consultants is a bipartisan lobbying firm based in Lansing, Michigan. Our team of lobbyists and procurement specialists provide a wide range of services for some of the most respected companies in America. For more on MLC, visit www.mlcmi.com or connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.