Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: New poll has Stabenow cruising while Hoekstra goes ultra-birther

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' MI-Sen (PDF): Public Policy Polling. 5/24-27. Michigan voters. MoE: ±4.4% (2/10-12 results):

Debbie Stabenow (D-inc): 53 (51)
Pete Hoekstra (R): 37 (37)
Undecided: 10 (12)

Debbie Stabenow (D-inc): 53 (50)
Clark Durant (R): 31 (33)
Undecided: 16 (16)

Republican primary (MoE: ±5.2%):

Pete Hoekstra (R): 42 (42)
Clark Durant (R): 11 (9)
Gary Glenn (R): 4 (4)
Randy Hekman (R): 4 (2)
Peter Konetchy (R): 0 (1)
Undecided: 38 (34)

Not a whole lot to see here. Perhaps the most interesting observation regards the Republican primary, about which Tom Jensen observes:

There is one caveat with Hoekstra's early lead, which is that much of it is based on superior name recognition. 65% of likely primary voters are familiar with him, compared to only 22% who know Durant. With that small subset of voters that does have an opinion about Durant, whether they like him or not, he leads Hoekstra 31-29. That suggests some possibility for another Nebraska or Indiana style GOP primary upset where a candidate who starts out well behind in the polls ends up overtaking the frontrunner as they become better known. It's just a question of whether Durant will have the kind of resources and outside help necessary to make that sort of climb.

The problem for Durant is that no major outside groups have really gotten involved on his behalf. But Michigan's primary is not until August, so there's still time. I'm thinking I'd almost rather face the wounded Hoekstra, though, if I were Stabenow, especially since he just went ultra-birther:

Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), who is running for Senate to take on Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, told a tea party town hall last month that the federal government should establish an official committee to review presidential candidates' birth certificates. [...]

"But I do now believe that I'd like to establish a three-person office in Washington, D.C., OK ' knowing it, we'll go to five (audience laughs). But there's no reason why we should have this kind of question, you know, for the president of the United States. So that at any future election, all right, that someone would have to walk into that office, and prove that they meet the minimum qualifications to be president of the United States."

In a subsequent interview with CNN, where he was grilled aggressively, Hoesktra defended his proposal, then got huffy when the interviewer tried to link this outbreak of High Birtherism with Hoekstra's infamously racist "Debbie Spend-it-now" ad. He ain't handling himself too well.