ESCANABA – Christopher Germain of Escanaba says State Sen. Tom Casperson has the name recognition but the Democratic challenger believes he does have a chance to win the 38th District.

The district covers 13 of the 15 counties in the Upper Peninsula.

“If you look at the district as a whole, it actually has a 54.7 percent Democratic base. Obviously, name recognition between my opponent and myself, there’s a huge difference there,” Germain said. “We’re certainly going to try. We’re optimistic about it. We know the numbers are on our side if we can get enough contact with those voters and if they go out and vote.”

The issues, Germain said, include the senior pension tax and education funding.

“Right now we are taxing the senior pensions. That’s something I oppose. That’s something my opponent voted for,” he said. “We don’t have a whole lot of jobs up here so we need to work on job creation and that starts with fully funding education. In my opinion, I want to see vocational education fully funded and put into the high school level.”

Germain is a realtor in Escanaba and has been involved in political and business activities. He is now starting to raise money and work on the campaign full time.