The 1990 Michigan gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1990, to elect the

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

and

Lieutenant Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...

of the state of

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

John Engler John Mathias Engler (born October 12, 1948) is an American politician, lawyer, businessman, and lobbyist who served as the 46th governor of Michigan from 1991 to 2003. Considered one of the country's top lobbyists, he is a member of the Republi ...

, a member of the Republican Party and

State Senate In the United States, the state legislature is the legislative branch in each of the 50 U.S. states. A legislature generally performs state duties for a state in the same way that the United States Congress performs national duties at ...

majority leader, was elected over Democratic Party nominee, incumbent governor

James Blanchard James Johnston Blanchard (born August 8, 1942) is an American attorney, diplomat, and politician who served as the 45th governor of Michigan from 1983 to 1991. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Blanchard previo ...

, who was seeking his third term. In what turned out to be one of the closest elections in recent Michigan history, Engler defeated Blanchard by less than 18,000 votes and a 0.7% margin. Engler's victory was considered a major upset and became infamous among pollsters. The final ''

Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on February ...

'' poll showed Engler trailing by 14 points, and the final ''

Detroit Free Press The ''Detroit Free Press'' (commonly referred to as the ''Freep'') is a major daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest local newspaper owned by Gannett (the publisher of ''USA Today''), and is operated by the Detro ...

'' poll showed Engler behind by 4 points. A retrospective of the polling suggests the ''News'' poll may have had questions that favored Blanchard and too heavily incorporated the opinions of registered voters rather than likely voters, and thus failed to correctly gauge turnout. The

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...

was 38.6%. This was the first time since

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; ...

and the last time until

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

that the state elected a governor of the same party as the sitting president. As of , this is the last Michigan gubernatorial election in which the incumbent was defeated.

Democratic primary

Candidates

* James J. Blanchard, incumbent governor of Michigan

Campaign

, a two-term incumbent, won the Democratic primary unopposed. He created controversy in the summer 1990 with speculation that he might drop Lt. Gov. Martha Griffiths from the Democratic ticket. There was speculation that Blanchard was positioning to appoint himself to replace Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. should Riegle have to resign due to his involvement in the

Keating Five File:AlanCranston.jpg, Alan Cranston (D-CA) File:Dennis DeConcini.jpg, File:John Glenn Low Res.jpg, John Glenn (D-OH) File:McCain2 (1).jpg, John McCain (R-AZ) File:Riegle2.jpg, Donald Riegle (D-MI) The Keating Five were five United States Se ...

scandal and being under investigation by the

Senate Ethics Committee The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics is a select committee of the United States Senate charged with dealing with matters related to senatorial ethics. It is also commonly referred to as the Senate Ethics Committee. Senate rules require ...

and wanted a younger running mate to take over as governor. After weeks of speculation, Griffiths, 78, offered to remove herself from the ticket and not formally seek the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor at the Michigan Democratic Convention. Olivia Maynard, who was the Director of the Michigan Office of Services to the Aging, was ultimately chosen as Blanchard's running mate. Ultimately, Riegle survived the scandal but the scandal along with the unpopularity of

President Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the attor ...

, led to Riegle announcing that he would not seek re-election and he left the Senate at the end of his term on January 3, 1995.

Results

Republican primary

Candidates

, Michigan Senate Majority Leader since 1984 and state senator from Mount Pleasant since 1979 *John Lauve, retired

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

engineer and perennial candidate

Results

State Senate Majority Leader John Engler faced nominal opposition in the primary, easily defeating retired

engineer and perennial political candidate John Lauve. Engler then chose state Sen. Connie Binsfeld as his running mate.

General election

Results

References

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

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