Poll: Incumbent Stabenow opens up big lead over Hoekstra in Michigan

Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) holds a 21-point lead over her Republican challenger, former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, according to an NBC News-Marist poll released Wednesday.
 
Stabenow, a two-term incumbent, leads 53 percent to 32.
 

Republicans are hopeful that Stabenow will be vulnerable in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, but the focus in February was primarily on a controversial ad the Hoekstra campaign ran during the Super Bowl, which featured an Asian woman speaking in broken English.
 
“Thank you, Michigan Sen. Debbie ‘Spend-it-now,’ ” the woman says in accented English. “Debbie spend so much American money, you borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spend-it-now.”
 
The ad was blasted from all sides, the actress has since apologized and the Hoekstra campaign — after first defending it — has since removed the clip from its YouTube page.
 
In the only poll conducted before the controversial Super Bowl commercial, a survey conducted by EPIC-MRA, Stabenow held only a six-point lead.
 
According to a report in the Grand Rapids Press last week, former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain will be joining Hoekstra on the campaign trail.

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