Over the last two months, residents in Calhoun and Jackson Counties have been without representation in the Michigan State Senate.  Despite the Governor's announcement, that won't change anytime soon.

Instead of calling the special during the local May elections, she's decided to wait until August for the Primary and November for the General.  Unclear immediately just how many extra tax dollars will be wasted by forcing local clerks to ramp up otherwise unneeded efforts in August but I'll see what I can do to crunch some numbers.

Worth asking the question why she'd bite the bullet and waste the extra cash, though.  The answer won't surprise you.

The unofficial scuttle-butt around the Capitol today is that Dem polling looks down right ugly.  Rumor has it they had a poll in the field, testing a variety of candidates.  Republican Mike Nofs positively cleaned the floor with likely Democrat candidates, Reps Mike Simpson and Marty Griffin.  A certain freshman Democratic Rep fared better than the longer tenured Dems but even she lost in the head-to-head.

I spoke with Senate Republican officials at Convention this evening and they claim to have polling that shows the exact same thing.

By holding off, avoiding an election as long as they can, the Granholm-Cherry administration is hoping against hope that the local political environment will shift back in their favor.  This was a Dem seat and it looks like a real GOP pick-up opportunity.