A variety of polls of likely Michigan Republican voters late last week and over the weekend make tomorrow’s primary extremely tough to call.
A McClatchy/MSNBC puts Mitt Romney ahead 30 percent to John McCain’s 22 percent with Mike Huckabee at 17 percent, higher than he has polled in Michigan before. But the big story is the 11 percent of undecided voters. Romney led McCain by 2 to 1 among voters who cite the economy as their top concern, which is the biggest issue in Michigan. The poll was conducted January 9-11, and has a margin of error of 5 percent.
Meanwhile, a Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll taken Jan 11-13 shows McCain in the lead with 27 to 24 percent edge over Romney. Huckabee trails with 15 percent. This poll included all likely voters, which means that independents and Democrats were quizzed as well. Some Democrats are expected to vote in the open primary, because Michigan Dems were stripped of their delegates by the national party. The swing towards McCain is probably attributable to the independents and Democrats, because they are more likely to be McCain supporters, The margin of error was 3.4 percent.

Meanwhile, Detroit, Free Press, allied with local 4 (a TV station) and Selzer got very different results Jan. 9-11. Of likely voters, including Democrats and independents, Romney led with 27 percent to McCain’s 22 percent and Huckabee’s 16 percent. The margin of error was 4 percent.

The other Detroit newspaper, the Detroit News joined with WXYZ-TV to survey likely GOP voters Jan. 9-12 and their results show a squeaker: McCain leads Romney by just one percentage point (27-26) and Huckabee is a closer third with 19 percent. The margin of error was 4 percent.