1990 Michigan gubernatorial election

The 1990 Michigan gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1990, to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the state of Michigan. John Engler, a member of the Republican Party and State Senate majority leader, was elected over Democratic Party nominee James Blanchard, who was seeking his third term. In what turned out to be one of the closest elections in recent Michigan history, Engler won by a 17,000 vote margin. The voter turnout was 38.6%.[1] As of 2020, this is the most recent gubernatorial election in Michigan in which the winner of the election was of the same party of the incumbent president.

1990 Michigan gubernatorial election

November 6, 1990

Nominee John Engler James Blanchard Party Republican Democratic Running mate Connie Binsfeld Olivia Maynard Popular vote 1,276,134 1,258,539 Percentage 49.8% 49.1%

County results Engler:      40-50%      50-60%      60-70%      70-80% Blanchard:      40–50%      50–60%      60–70%

Governor before election James Blanchard Democratic Elected Governor John Engler Republican

Republican Primary

State Senate Majority Leader John Engler faced nominal opposition in the primary, easily defeating retired General Motors engineer and perennial political candidate John Lauve.[2] Engler then chose state Sen. Connie Binsfeld as his running mate.

Democratic Primary

James Blanchard, a two-term incumbent, won the Democratic primary unopposed. He created controversy in the summer 1990 with speculation that he might drop Lt. Gov. Martha Griffiths from the Democratic ticket. There was speculation that Blanchard was positioning to appoint himself to replace Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. should Riegle have to resign due to his involvement in the Keating Five scandal and being under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and wanted a younger running mate to take over as governor. After weeks of speculation, Griffiths, 78, offered to remove herself from the ticket and not formally seek the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor at the Michigan Democratic Convention.[3] Olivia Maynard, who was the Director of the Michigan Office of Services to the Aging, was ultimately chosen as Blanchard's running mate. Ultimately, Riegle survived the scandal but the scandal along with the unpopularity of President Bill Clinton,[4] led to Riegle announcing that he would not seek re-election and he left the Senate at the end of his term on January 3, 1995.[5]

Results

Michigan gubernatorial election, 1990

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	John Engler	1,276,134	49.76
	Democratic	James Blanchard (incumbent)	1,258,539	49.07
	Workers World	William Roundtree	28,091	1.10
Majority

Engler's victory was considered the biggest upset of the 1990 mid-term elections and has become infamous among pollsters.[6] The final Detroit News poll showed Engler trailing by 14 points and the final Detroit Free Press showed Engler behind 4 points.[6] A retrospective of the polling suggests the Detroit News poll may have had questions that favored Blanchard and too heavily incorporated the opinions of registered voters rather than likely voters, and thus failed to correctly gauge turnout.[7]

References

1. "General Election Voter Registration/Turnout Statistics". State of Michigan official website.
2. Associated Press (August 8, 1990). "YOUNG FALLS SHORT IN GEORGIA RUNOFF; KANSAS GOVERNOR SURVIVES SCARE". Desert News. Retrieved October 15, 2017.
3. Isabel Wilkerson (September 5, 1990). "Elderly Woman Is Off Ticket, And Michigan Politics Churns". The New York Times. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
4. Richard L. Berke (July 27, 1993). "Senate Democrats See Re-election Perils in '94". New York Times. Retrieved October 17, 2017.
5. William J. Eaton (September 29, 1993). "Riegle Is 3rd Keating Case Senator to Not Seek Office". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 17, 2017.
6. Nate Silver (November 6, 2014). "Why Polls Missed A Shocker In Virginia's Senate Race". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
7. John H. Wilson; Gary Ferguson; Linda DiVall. "Media Polling in Michigan: A Case for Stricter Standards" (PDF). The Public Perspective January/February 1991. Retrieved October 16, 2017.