Rasmussen (9/21, likely voters):
Robin Carnahan (D): 46
Roy Blunt (R): 46
Some other: 2
Not sure: 5
(MoE: ±4.5%)
Considering what a drubbing Democratic Senate candidates have been taking in Rasmussen polls lately, a 46-all tie in their first look at the open seat race in Missouri sounds pretty good. (In fact, it’s not much different from where we began the race in January, when PPP found Carnahan beating Blunt 45-44; the most recent poll of the race seems to be a GQR poll in May, with Carnahan holding a 53-44 edge.) There’s a huge gender gap at work here, with Blunt holding a 17-point lead among men and Carnahan holding a 13-point lead among women.
Maybe Roy Blunt has been doing a great job of rehabilitating the Blunt name (although somehow I doubt it, given his frequent attacks on Medicare and his recent comments comparing Democrats to monkeys), as this sample finds him with a 57/33 favorable, better than Carnahan’s 52/42. Barack Obama gets a 46/54 approval, and Governor Jay Nixon is at 58/38.
RaceTracker: MO-Sen
No campaign yet and I imagine it will be pretty easy to attack him while much more difficult for him to paint her negatively.
Probably a 3-5% victory. Maybe a point or two higher or lower if Obama’s incredibly popular/unpopular.
They look like God Damn push polls…
I haven’t even looked at this race very closely, but from what I can tell, Blunt is acting like a retard in congress, while Carnahan has been relatively silent with no gaffes yet.
Carnahan will easily win this one. The fact that Rasmussen has this so close is a god damn embarrassment.
and probably has one of the largest far-right hardcore fundy conservative populations by percentage, (around 40% of the electorate never votes Democratic), it also has its liberal areas and swing areas.
Still I doubt Blunt is doing this well. Making racist slurs, attacking wildly popular medicare, and publically placing himself in the reality-denying birther camp make it incredulous to me that he somehow has a 57-33 approval. Moreso still that he was a high profile GOP leader in the House for many years and was publically involved in fighting the scandals and was allied to Tom DeLay. Party leaders don’t carry that kind of popularity, especially not in a closely divided state like Missouri.
Whats more is his son Matt drug the family name through the mud in route to single-handedly helping Democrats prop themselves back up in an increasingly unfriendly state. What’s more is that Carnahan geographically has an edge in many of the moderate to swingish to conservative St. Louis burbs and will likely do reasonably well even in Todd Akins St. Charles based district while Blunt comes from the most overwhelmingly and reliably Republican area of the state and possibly one of the most reliable such areas in the country, (I believe Democrats only win those areas when they are running unopposed and it wouldn’t surprise me to see a popular statewide Democrat winning by 70% against some no name libretarian and still only win by low single digits in many of those counties). The real key for Carnahan will be to rack up a large overall lead in the St. Louis metro area including those Republican areas, do good along the river counties that have a slight dixiecrat swingishness to them, (and went for Nixon), while pulling strong margins in St. Joseph and Boone county. Its also very important that she hold margins down in Ike Skelton’s district and perform well in rural central MO.
Still I see her doing it. She has completely outcampaigned him so far. I toss this Rasmussen poll out of the window right away based on Blunt’s approvals. No way. Simply no way. If he had 100% approval among Republicans, (which he shouldn’t, a lot of the rank and file is antagonistic against the leadership these days), and 100% among independents Democrats alone, perhaps even 80% of Democratic/liberal opposition, would make up more than 33%. Its impossible that a guy like Blunt is the most popular politician in state, from political studies to statistics its simply impossible.