Michigan gubernatorial election, 1990

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Michigan gubernatorial election, 1990
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  John Engler (cropped).jpg James Blanchard 1981 congressional photo.jpg
Nominee John Engler James Blanchard
Party Republican Democratic
Running mate Connie Binsfeld Olivia Maynard
Popular vote1,276,1341,258,539
Percentage49.8%49.1%
Michigan gubernatorial election 1990.svg
County results
Governor before election

James Blanchard
Democratic

Elected Governor

John Engler
Republican

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]

Governor of Michigan head of state and of government of the U.S. state of Michigan

The Governor of Michigan is the chief executive of the U.S. state of Michigan. The current governor is Gretchen Whitmer, a member of the Democratic Party, who was inaugurated on January 1, 2019, as the state's 49th governor. She is eligible for a second term under Michigan's term limits, which limit a governor to only two, four-year terms.

Michigan State of the United States of America

Michigan is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The state's name, Michigan, originates from the Ojibwe word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". With a population of about 10 million, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area, and is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies.

John Engler American politician

John Mathias Engler is an American businessman and member of the Republican Party who was elected to serve three terms as the 46th Governor of Michigan from 1991 to 2003. He later worked for Business Roundtable, where The Hill called him one of the country's top lobbyists.

Contents

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.

Michigan Senate

The Michigan Senate is the upper house of the Legislature of the U.S. State of Michigan. Along with the House of Representatives, it composes the Michigan Legislature. Article IV of the Michigan Constitution, adopted in 1963, defines the role of the Legislature and how it is to be constituted. The primary purpose of the Legislature is to enact new laws and amend or repeal existing laws.

General Motors American automotive manufacturing company

General Motors Company, commonly referred to as General Motors (GM), is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Detroit that designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes vehicles and vehicle parts, and sells financial services, with global headquarters in Detroit's Renaissance Center. It was originally founded by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908 as a holding company. The company is the largest American automobile manufacturer, and one of the world's largest. As of 2018, General Motors is ranked #10 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

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]

James Blanchard American politician

James Johnston Blanchard is an American politician and former diplomat from Michigan. A Democrat, Blanchard has served in the United States House of Representatives, as the 45th Governor of Michigan, and as United States Ambassador to Canada.

Martha Griffiths American politician

Martha Wright Griffiths was an American lawyer and judge before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1954. Griffiths was the first woman to serve on the House Committee on Ways and Means and the first woman elected to the United States Congress from Michigan as a member of the Democratic Party. She was also the person "instrumental" in including the prohibition of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1982, Griffiths was also the first female elected as Lieutenant Governor of Michigan.

United States Senate Upper house of the United States Congress

The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislature of the United States. The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

Results

Michigan gubernatorial election, 1990
PartyCandidateVotes%
Republican John Engler 1,276,13449.76
Democratic James Blanchard (incumbent)1,258,53949.07
Workers World William Roundtree 28,0911.10
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]

<i>Detroit Free Press</i> newspaper

The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes referred to as the "Freep". It primarily serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties.

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1990 in Michigan

Events from the year 1990 in Michigan.

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. 1 2 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.


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