Libertarian Polling Difference in Tight Michigan Gubernatorial Race

Navy veteran Mary Buzuma is polling the difference between Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and Democratic challenger Mark Schauer, a former congressman and ex-Minority Leader of the State Senate, in Michigan’s tightly-contested gubernatorial contest. According to a recent Public Policy Polling survey of 687 likely voters, the little-known Buzuma, a career intelligence specialist who spent ten years in the U.S. Navy, is polling at three percent in a race considered a statistical dead heat.

The poll — conducted between September 4th and 7th — showed the embattled Snyder clinging to a narrow 43 to 42 percent margin over his Democratic rival. Two other minor-party candidates — the U.S. Taxpayers’ Mark McFarlin and Paul Homeniuk of the Green Party — combined for an additional three percent of the vote. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percent.

The poll also showed a majority of the state’s voters disapprove of Snyder’s performance in office and by a 48 percent to 36 percent margin favor repealing Michigan’s controversial right-to-work law, which was signed into law by the Republican governor in December 2012.

Snyder, a wealthy venture capitalist and former chairman of Gateway, Inc., trounced Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero by nearly 600,000 votes to win the governorship in 2010.

This time around promises to be much tougher for the former business executive, thanks in no small part to the Libertarian ticket, a feisty duo making serious inroads among the state’s Tea Party activists and other traditionally conservative Republicans opposed to Snyder’s support of Common Core, pension taxes, and Medicaid expansion.

Buzuma, who currently serves as chair of the Libertarian Party of Michigan, could very well determine the outcome of the November election.

“Whenever the balance of power is this close, it causes the major party candidates to take a closer look at the philosophy, issues and agendas of the minor party candidates,” said Scotty Boman, Buzuma’s running mate for lieutenant governor. A frequent Libertarian candidate for public office — and one of the party’s hardest-working candidates, year in and year out — the 52-year-old Boman polled nearly 85,000 votes, or nearly two percent of the total, in Michigan’s 2012 U.S. Senate race.

“Since we are likely to draw more votes than the other minor party candidates, the spotlight will shine on our philosophy of maximum liberty, minimal government, and greater privacy,” added Boman, a physics, mathematics and astronomy instructor at two Detroit-area community colleges.