MI-11: Kyle Melinn of MIRS News has graciously shared a pair of House Democratic primary polls they commissioned from Target-Insyght.
In the competitive open 11th District, they give Haley Stevens, who served as chief of staff to Barack Obama's Auto Task Force, a 21-15 edge against businessman Suneel Gupta. State Rep. Tim Greimel is just behind with 14, while former Detroit Director of Immigration Affairs Fayrouz Saad takes 7. The only other poll we've seen of the Aug. 7 primary was an April Target-Insyght poll that found Stevens edging Gupta 14-13, while Greimel took 8; we haven't seen any data from the GOP contest.
While Gupta takes second in MIRS' recent poll, he ended June with a big cash lead over the rest of the field. Gupta led Greimel $800,000 to $456,000 in cash-on-hand, while Stevens and Saad had $340,000 and $314,000, respectively. Stevens’ campaign tells us that they made a $241,000 TV reservation in May in order to lock in ad time before it became more expensive.
The money race is much more lopsided on the GOP side. Businesswoman Lena Epstein, who has self-funded much of her campaign, held a wide $658,000 to $145,000 cash-on-hand lead over former state Rep. Rocky Raczkowski. State Sen. Mike Kowall, who has the support of much of the local establishment, had $138,000 in the bank, while state Rep. Klint Kesto had just $20,000. Finally, ex-Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, who accidentally represented this seat in 2013 and 2014, had $86.00 to spend (not a typo).