With Election Day 2010 less than a week away, the GOP is poised to make seri­ous gains at both the state and national levels.

In this elec­tion, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 37 U.S. Senate posi­tions are up for grabs. In Michigan leg­is­la­ture, all 38 state sen­ate and all 110 state rep­re­sen­ta­tive seats are up for reelec­tion as well.

Michigan is also one of 37 states with guber­na­to­r­ial races this year.

Michigan Gubernatorial Race

Everything is look­ing good for Republican Rick Snyder who, accord­ing to polls, is lead­ing Democrat Virg Bernero by about 20 points in the race to suc­ceed term-limited Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

If all the signs play out, it looks like Michigan will be chang­ing from a blue to a red state this fall. It’s no won­der the GOP will be reclaim­ing the gov­er­nor­ship after eight years of Granholm. In recent years we’ve seen an eco­nomic down­turn, the col­lapse of the Michigan auto indus­try, and double-digit unem­ploy­ment rates under the lead­er­ship of a Democratic gov­er­nor and a Democratic-controlled state House.

As a for­mer Gateway exec­u­tive and suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man, Snyder has what it takes to help grow Michigan busi­nesses and help the state’s econ­omy flour­ish once again. His busi­ness back­ground also gives him what is needed to help bal­ance Michigan’s bud­get on time, some­thing which hasn’t hap­pened for some time now.

He has the abil­ity to con­trol and limit unnec­es­sary gov­ern­ment spend­ing and isn’t afraid to err on the side of fis­cal con­ser­vatism, some­thing the cur­rent Michigan leg­is­la­ture has a prob­lem with.

The other fac­tor Snyder has going for him is that he’s a polit­i­cal new­comer. Snyder has no polit­i­cal bag­gage and has not entwined him­self in the leg­isla­tive bureau­cracy of gov­ern­ment, some­thing that can’t be said for Lansing Mayor Bernero.

In this time of anti-incumbent, anti-government fer­vor, Snyder presents the most attrac­tive offer. He reshaped the polit­i­cal cam­paign land­scape by run­ning a grass­roots move­ment and stick­ing to his mes­sage, “Reinvent Michigan.”

This strat­egy helped beat out sea­soned politi­cians like Pete Hoekstra and Mike Cox in the GOP pri­mary and has aided him in the fight against Bernero.

“It’s crit­i­cal that I am an out­sider, we need some­one new,” Snyder has said. “Someone who has com­mon sense [and] real world solutions.”

Real world solu­tions and com­mon sense are exactly what the cit­i­zens of Michigan need because our cur­rent leg­is­la­tors have none. Snyder has the real world solu­tions and com­mon sense to rebuild Michigan’s econ­omy, cre­ate jobs, and make the state thrive again.

U.S. House of Representatives and Senate

Democrats cur­rently hold 255 seats in the House and Republicans hold 178 seats. There are two vacancies.

Recent pro­jec­tions show there is going to be a major polit­i­cal shake-up in the House, with the GOP likely to claim dozens of seats cur­rently held by the Democrats, many of whom were elected in the anti-Republican zeal in 2006 and 2008.

The cur­rent make-up of the Senate is 59 Democrats and 41 Republicans. In order to seize con­trol Republicans would need to hold on to all 41 of their seats and win 10 of the 19 Democratic seats up for grabs: an unlikely, yet not impos­si­ble feat. n