Uniroyal Giant Tire, Allen Park, MI
EPIC-MRA (8/13-16, likely voters, February in parentheses):
Debbie Stabenow (D-inc): 47 (44)
Peter Hoekstra (R): 38 (42)
(MoE: ±4%)
Local pollster EPIC-MRA is the first pollster to take a look at the Michigan Senate race since Republican ex-Rep. Peter Hoekstra's sorta-surprising decision to reverse his previous "no way" on the race and challenge Dem incumbent Debbie Stabenow in her bid for a third term. The news is fairly good for Stabenow: she isn't above the 50% mark, but she's up 9 on Hoekstra, which is an improvement from her 2-point lead in February (before Hoesktra had ruled out the race the first time). Today's numbers aren't that much different from where PPP found the race in their last look (back in March), when they saw a 50-38 race, suggesting that earlier EPIC-MRA poll has a whiff of outlier to it.
The biggest red flag for Stabenow is that, even though her head-to-head numbers have improved, her approvals have worsened. In February, she had 41 positive and 43 negative approvals, while she's down to 37/54. It's worth noting that EPIC-MRA is one of those pollster who insists on using an "excellent"-"good"-"fair"-"poor" formulation and then (incorrectly, in my mind) counting both "fair" and "poor" as negatives, though, so that drop probably has a lot to do with generally indifferent people's feelings of "meh" expressing themselves more as "fair" rather than "good" as the nation's mood has soured this summer.
Here's one other important caveat to this poll, too: Hoekstra still has to win a GOP primary first, and EPIC-MRA didn't look at any other candidates, including charter schools entrepreneur Clark Durant (who has some local power-player endorsements locked up already, and is DK Elections' dark horse pick to win the primary). At any rate, the increasing unpopularity of politicians applies to both sides of the aisle, too: Republican Gov. Rick Snyder fares even worse. He gets only a 33 positive rating, with 62 negative.