Races wide open for both chambers

Lansing -- Voters casting ballots in Tuesday's primaries will be faced with an unusually high number of untried candidates for House and Senate seats left empty by term-limited lawmakers.

"This may turn out to be the second highest turnover in the House in recent Michigan history," said Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics, noting 1998 was the record-breaker with 64 new lawmakers.

Most of the 110 House districts and 38 Senate districts have no incumbent on the ballot. There are 52 open seats in the Democrat-dominated House and 29 in the Republican-ruled Senate. Overall, 510 candidates are running for the House and 163 for the Senate.

The election comes amid shifting political winds nationally as the fervor that swept President Barack Obama and many Democrats into office in 2008 has declined. Conventional wisdom says Obama's falling popularity ratings will boost Republicans nationwide in November.

Legislative candidates have raised more money than their counterparts in 2006, the last time both chambers were up for re-election.

Representatives are elected for two years and can serve no more than three terms, because of term limits.

Senators serve for four years and can be re-elected only once.

"This primary will decide our future leaders," said state Sen. Mark Jansen, R-Grand Rapids, co-chairman of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

"Michigan is at a crossroads ... and we have to get back on the right path."

Whether the balance of power will shift in the House or the Senate is anybody's guess, Ballenger said.

"There are a lot of open seats held by Republicans that Democrats could win -- so all these gains the Republicans think they're going to make are going to be offset by losses," he said.

State Rep. Jon Switalski, D-Warren, the House Democratic campaign chairman, downplayed predictions of a Republican sweep.

"We realize it's a tough political climate for Democrats, for incumbents," he said. "Some races may be more vulnerable than others, but overall we feel very comfortable with where we're at and how hard we're working to keep the majority."

Craig Ruff, senior policy fellow with Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based nonpartisan policy research firm, said it's unknown how the national Democratic downtrend will affect Michigan races.

"Every once in a while there is a referendum year where (the controlling) party, from the governor on down, is just shellacked and the incumbents get ousted," Ruff said. "Right now, there's plenty of national evidence of that, but there has not been polling at the state level to mirror that.

"There's really no concrete evidence that Michigan would follow the nation's lead. If there were, it could lead to the Michigan House of Representatives flipping.

"Everybody thinks the Democrats' margin in the House is sufficient to keep them in the majority. But that presumes a normal year, and this is not a normal year."

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