LANSING, MI (AP)-- Democrats' plan to spoil Governor Rick Snyder's re-election was to coax a lot more of their sporadic voters to cast ballots this time around. But it didn't work.
Without higher turnout, the other way for Mark Schauer to defeat the Republican incumbent could have been to win over independents.
Yet Snyder fared very well with that group and did slightly better with his core base of GOP voters than Schauer performed with Democrats.
Of the three in 10 Michigan voters who identified themselves as independents or members of other parties, Snyder prevailed by an almost 2-to-1 margin. That's according to the results of an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.
Political analyst Ed Sarpolus says Democratic Senator-elect Gary Peters connected more with voters than Schauer did.