Lansing — Democrat gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer leads Republican Bill Schuette by seven percentage points in a hypothetical general election match-up, according to a poll of 600 likely Michigan voters.

Whitmer’s edge comes from support among women and political independents even though the former Senate minority leader continues to struggle with name identification a year into her statewide campaign. Despite her status as a frontrunner for this fall’s Democratic nomination, fewer than 28 percent of the state’s voters know who she is, according to the Glengariff Group Inc. poll provided to The Detroit News and WDIV-TV.

Yet Whitmer is polling ahead of Schuette, the attorney general and Republican primary favorite who is known by 64 percent of voters. In a potential head-to-head match-up, the former Ingham County prosecutor from East Lansing holds a 40 percent to 33 percent lead over Schuette, according to the Jan. 16-19 survey.

Former Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed, who is also competing for the Democratic nomination, trailed Schuette 37.5 percent to 33.5 percent in a separate hypothetical head-to-head, a 4-percentage point gap that mirrors the poll’s margin of error.