In the end, the horse race was not a photo finish, but more like Gov. Rick Snyder (and his fellow Republicans) won by three lengths, Nancy Nall Derringer and Ted Ted Roelofs report in a Bridge magazine analysis.
The collapse of Mark Schauer’s campaign, said to be in a virtual dead heat with the incumbent in its final days, left not only a chastened Democratic Party but the continued drift rightward for Michigan that might not have been imaginable a generation ago.
Both U.S. Senators will be Democrats, due to the easy victory of Gary Peters over Republican Terri Lynn Land. But after Tuesday’s election, Lansing will be redder than ever, “the most conservative legislature we’ve seen since the 1950s,” in the observation of Mark Brewer, the former chairman of the state’s Democratic Party.
In Wednesday’s aftermath, political observers were left to debate whether increased GOP majorities in the House and Senate will push the state further right, potentially disrupting the agenda of a governor who ran first as a moderate and then as a moderate with a solid record of accomplishments to please both parties – Medicaid expansion and a rejuvenated Detroit for Democrats, a substantial business tax cut and right-to-work legislation for Republicans.
But with Snyder now term-limited, and an even larger Republican majority set to arrive in 2015, including more tea party adherents, the question of whose agenda takes priority may not be entirely settled. Some Republicans, like veteran GOP insider and former Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, say this new era could be one of mainstream Republican achievement rather than extremism.
