Premium Sponsor


Featured Sponsor


Our Sponsors


Ad Networks

Advertise Liberally

Buy an ad on all of the top liberal blogs with just one click.

Site Stats

AR-Sen: Polls Show Serious Lincoln Vulnerability - in General & Primary

by: DavidNYC

Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 10:22 PM EST


Research 2000 for Daily Kos (11/30-12/02, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 42 (44)
Gilbert Baker (R): 41 (37)
Undecided: 17 (19)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 44 (45)
Curtis Coleman (R): 39 (37)
Undecided: 17 (18)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 45 (46)
Tom Cox (R): 31 (29)
Undecided: 24 (25)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 46 (47)
Kim Hendren (R): 30 (28)
Undecided: 24 (25)
(MoE: ±4%)

Rasmussen (12/1, likely voters, 9/28 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 39 (39)
Gilbert Baker (R): 46 (47)
Undecided: 9 (8)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (41)
Curtis Coleman (R): 44 (43)
Undecided: 9 (11)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (40)
Tom Cox (R): 43 (43)
Undecided: 10 (11)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 39 (41)
Kim Hendren (R): 46 (44)
Undecided: 9 (10)
(MoE: ±4.4%)

These are Moe Szyslak numbers - plug-fugly. In fact, Tom Jensen says things are actually worse than they appear: In PPP's recent poll of AR-02, undecided voters in that district gave Lincoln wretched 11-58 favorables (yeah, you read that right). It's starting to make me wonder how Lincoln can survive, especially if Baker winds up being the GOP nominee - and it makes these other numbers from R2K all the more interesting:

Bill Halter (D): 34
Gilbert Baker (R): 42
Undecided: 24

Bill Halter (D): 35
Curtis Coleman (R): 40
Undecided: 25

Bill Halter (D): 36
Tom Cox (R): 32
Undecided: 32

Bill Halter (D): 36
Kim Hendren (R): 31
Undecided: 33
(MoE: ±4%)

Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is mooting a primary challenge to Lincoln, and as you can see, all of the Republican candidates fare identically against him as they do against the incumbent. The big difference, though, is that Lincoln's overall favorables are underwater at 41-50, while Halter is in positive territory at 36-25 - and two-fifths of the state doesn't even know him yet. On account of that, I have to believe Halter would do better than Lincoln once he's better-known. But the first question is, can he win a primary?

Blance Lincoln (D-inc): 42
Bill Halter (D): 26
Undecided: 32
(MoE: ±5%)

Forty-two percent is not where an incumbent wants to be in a potential primary matchup, especially against a guy who's unknown to a third of Democrats. Lincoln's numbers among members of her own party are fairly decent, 62-32. But among Dems, Halter clocks in at a nifty 55-11, and he clearly has room to grow

I'd also like to point out that Halter is hardly some unelectable left-wing gadfly. To the contrary: He won statewide office in 2006 with a higher share of the vote than even super-popular Gov. Mike Beebe. And while I certainly wouldn't expect Halter to be a progressive standard-bearer, there's little question he'd be better on healthcare than Lincoln, given that's how he's hoping to get traction against her.

In the end, I don't see how we wouldn't be better off with Halter, whose negatives almost surely wouldn't wind up as awful as Lincoln's, and who can't be tied to DC in quite the same way. It wouldn't be an easy fight - waging war against an incumbent seldom is. But I'd like to see him try.

(Note: According to the SSP calendar, Arkansas's filing deadline is March 8th and the primary is May 18th.)

RaceTracker Wiki: AR-Sen
DavidNYC :: AR-Sen: Polls Show Serious Lincoln Vulnerability - in General & Primary
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
AR-Sen: Polls Show Serious Lincoln Vulnerability - in General & Primary | 116 comments
I'm counting this seat as a likely loss
But for the current political environment in Congress, it would be quite useful for Lincoln to feel some healthcare pressure from the left.

In principle Lincoln should be as good as it gets from a state like Arkansas, but I think she's learning the wrong lessons from Landrieu's experience.  

Amen.
it would be quite useful for Lincoln to feel some healthcare pressure from the left

I'm more than willing to sacrifice Blanche Lincoln's career to get a good healthcare reform bill passed (not to mention EFCA, etc.).

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

[ Parent ]
Good luck with that
Southern Dems are going to make a run to the right, not the left. It's their nature.

Regardless of the merits of her re-election, she needs to perform strongly in Little Rock. I don't want her dragging Vic Snyder down with her.

[ Parent ]
2004 Polling?
Any idea how she fared in the polls leading up to the 2004 election? I'm just wondering considering that was her first time running for re-election.

Just wondering if she normally polls weak?

Did a quick Google search and found nothing.

See if you can find archives from Sabato's website.
It may mention them in the analysis.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
I found two from SUSA:
http://www.surveyusa.com/2004_...
http://www.surveyusa.com/2004_...

Lincoln was up 57-38 against Holt in each poll, while Bush was up 51-46 against Kerry in the first one, 51-45. The Dem numbers were only ~1% over the final results for Kerry and Lincoln, but all the undecideds went to the Republicans.

Looks like Lincoln underperformed compared to her polling.

[ Parent ]
Thanks (N/T)

[ Parent ]
Oh my lord
I...man...these numbers are horrendous.  And what's Lincoln done to deserve this anyway?  Seems like she's always been quite popular until the last six months or so, all because she happens to have a (D) next to her name.  

Hate to say it, but she's probably DOA in the general.  What a shame.  If I were her, I'd just retire.  It's not worth having to funnel money, time, and effort only to face an electorate that has clearly gone cuckoo for cocoa puffs in such a short amount of time.  

I'm starting to think that Landrieu got lucky having a 2008 re-election.  If she was up this year, she'd probably be a goner as well.  For the love of guacamole, Louisianans are going to keep a known adulterer just because he has a nice pretty (R) next to his name this year, because they've jumped off the same deep end that their Arkansas friends have.      

She's leading everyone and that is horrendous?
SSP becomes Tekzilla.  How else would a 44-37 LEAD among likely voters be viewed as "horrendous"?

For a Senator with issues with her own party, the Research 2000 numbers show her in an actually very strong position... and very surprisngly strong too.

A primary challenge sounds like a great development too.

Aside from swallowing the Rassmussen Kool-Aid, how can anybody make a case that these aren't very surprisingly good numbers?

[ Parent ]
You have a point.
But there are the issues of all four Republicans gaining on her AND her being under the magical 50% line we talk about.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
Oh I agree she is in danger
But it is way overstating to call her dead, or a sure loss, and "horrendous".

Bottom line, of all those people mention, she has the best chance to be elected Senator next year.  I would take her chances over Baker or Halter right now... the field versus her is no better than 50/50.

[ Parent ]
Oops, misread it, not as good
Still, she leads all her challengers, which is pretty good for someone with such base non-enthusiasm.
[ Parent ]
I see her numbers as pretty close to a ceiling
Undecideds really dislike her. They aren't going to come home to her. Similarly, with the Dem base depressed, I doubt she can up turnout among the base.
[ Parent ]
They could be a ceiling, but that is very unlikely
The Republicans have not doen their wingnut show yet.  Lincoln is a known quantity.  The more mmoderates and base Democrats see of the Republicans, the more they will have plenty of reason to detest them and vote for the lesser evil.

This is why a primary would be so helpful.  We need blue voters to get into it, and not sit around thinking about being stuck with boring, sucky Lincoln.

Undecideds will come home to they hate less.  That is the mantra of this year.  If the most moderate R wins, and she has no primary to rally support, she will be in more trouble than if she rallies her support in a primary and Team Red nominates the scariest, most creepy wingnut of her opponents.

I think you are looking at this like the other candidates don't have personalities, and are not capable of turning people off.  I have great faith in a three way Republican primary bring out the worst in their eventual nominee.

[ Parent ]
any "base" is pretty irrelevant here anyway

[ Parent ]
She unfortunately belonged to a party
that elected a black man President.  
[ Parent ]
Bingo
We have a winner.  Someone had to say it.
[ Parent ]
Oh I'm not afraid to say it
I don't even know why Lincoln is bothering anymore. Clearly her state has no interest to see their lives improved, so why bother?

I can never be a politician. My State Senator, whom I know very very well, voted against gay marriage yesterday (after telling me he would vote FOR it six months ago), and I cornered him today on it and he told me he couldn't vote for it because the Catholic Church threatened him (his political base is Italian Catholics)

So I told him I admired him, taking a job that takes him away from his family for days at a time, for 10-12 hours a day, weekends, etc. Running an expensive labor-intensive campaign only to have the Catholic Church run my life. I told him I could never do that, it wouldn't be worth it for me. I'll stay at my nice cushy 40-hour a week job.

[ Parent ]
Thanks you
I wanted to say something similar to my Congresswoman Kosmas, whom I volunteered for and donated a good bit of money to get elected.  Sadly my congresswoman and her staff are all cowering in fear afraid to reply to constituents like myself for her atrocious vote on health care reform.  

It's pretty damn pathetic that my former right wing nut Congressman Tom Feeney's staff was more responsive to his constituents than my democratic congresswoman.  At least Feeney had the guts to justify why he voted the way he did.

I am so sick and F'n tired of some of this "democrats" who are supposed to represent us.  It's no wonder the party is crashing in the polls.  None of them will have a job next year if they keep the BS up.

[ Parent ]
they wouldn't have a job either way
Addabbo is right, the church could easily destroy him. They did to his former CoS.

[ Parent ]
Addabbo is still a backstabber
He shouldn't have courted support from the Stonewall Democrats if he wasn't going to vote on the single most important issue to us.  That's what aggravates me about marriage equality in the party - they want to appear pro-equality but most won't do it when anything remotely important is on the line.  If this were a vote on a key labor, womens', or minority issue and no Democrat would backstab them after courting their support.  But apparently with the gays that's ok.
[ Parent ]
A job
I think many of these office holders are actually angling for corporate and lobbying jobs for after they lose.  They pay really well (1 to 3 million at the federal level).

One thing we should have learned from Reagan and Bush is that a substantial number of voters would rather have someone they disagree with who has firm, somewhat predictable "principles" than someone with no guts and no backbone.

OPlling indicated that's why Bush beat Kerry.

[ Parent ]
Mmmmmhhhmmm
This is what happened with Wellstone, as even my quite Republican parents have very few negative things to say about him save for, he lied about only running for one term to throw the bum out.

But people are so used to politicians who say a lot words but dont actually say anything of substance that when they find one who stands up for a belief system, they may disagree with it but they at least can trust the politician and they know where he/she stands.

[ Parent ]
That is, if you believe Bush actually won
I still believe the election was stolen, especially in Ohio.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
And those Italian Catholics...
are they that much against gay marriage?  Do you think the Catholic Church would've been successful if they tried to knock him out of his seat had he voted in favor of gay marriage?
[ Parent ]
No
They are not.  My best friend growing up was Catholic and I spent a good many Saturdays and Sundays going to Mass with their family.  I always had the impression that they as well as many other Catholics only went to church because "they had to."  It was some cultural exercise they were forced against their will to take part in.  My friend's grandparents and many other people attending Catholic Mass slept through most of it.  Most of them consider the Pope/clergy as people to be respected but not listened to.  A big chunk of them could not care less about church policy on political matters.
[ Parent ]
in this part of Queens they are
this is a REALLY Catholic community.  
[ Parent ]
oh Holy Fuck yes
here they are...I was helping out Addabbo's chief of staff on his campaign to win Addabbo's NYC council seat...he lost in a landslide...I can't tell you how many people went up to him and told him "I voted for Joe, he better not vote to destroy marriage" or something to that effect.

The district is very old too...lots of people in their 50's, 60's, +

[ Parent ]
As far as successful in campaignig
absolutely, the churches were a major defining factor in a Republican winning Addabbo's city council seat against his former chief of staff.  
[ Parent ]
Sad.
I'm wondering if there's anything we can really do about this other than wait for the older generation to basically die off.  The No on 1 campaign in Maine, from all accounts, was very well run, and yet still lost by an even larger margin than Prop. 8 in California.

I know many like to blame spineless politicians, but when are we going to focus on the real problem: the voters themselves?  If the people in a district/state are soooooo homophobic, is it really realistic to expect their elected official to vote otherwise?

Sigh.

[ Parent ]
The evidence is thin that any legislator
has ever been defeated exclusively for supporting marriage equality. In principle the courts are supposed to help solve democratic process breakdowns like this one, but Republican Presidents have stacked the Federal judiciary with very unfriendly judges.  
[ Parent ]
That's partly because...
the evidence would only go back a few years.  Keep in mind that Howard Dean's support of civil unions in 2004 was considered a progressive stance at the time, and already too radical for some.  And in just 3 or 4 years, that's now considered a moderate position?  (And Dean is now fully a supporter of gay marriage.)

And those that support full marriage equality have usually come from very safe Democratic districts.  Can you find me an example of a race where the defining issue became one of gay marriage in a non-completely safe Democratic district, where the candidate supporting gay marriage won?


And if you want a recent example, just look at the Atlanta mayoral runoff, where support of gay marriage became a big issue.  It now looks like the pro-gay marriage candidate LOST to the anti-gay marriage candidate.  (Yeah, they're still counting, but it looks like Reed will win.)

[ Parent ]
That's the problem
No Dem will support marriage equality if they have anything at stake.  No one wants to take the chance.  Politicos take politically risky moves all the time for other Democratic constituencies, but the gays get thrown overboard the second there's even a remote chance it will lead to a problem.  That's the MO for elected democrats when it comes to marriage equality.

And Atlanta is not a fair comparison, as that election had as much to do with race and other cultural factors as it did marriage.

[ Parent ]
marriage equality
wouldn't be THE reason Addabbo would lose in this situation. It would be because he had a Republican opponent at all, and his base would be encouraged to vote for him/her for a variety of reasons.


[ Parent ]
Wait for them to die
For the most part you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  The elderly are usually set in their biases and prejudices.  As morbid as it sounds they will be gone eventually and replaces with more socially progressive young people at the voting booth.  Time is on our side.

Not trying to lump ALL older people here.  Some are salvagable.  My own grandmother was actually changed her views for the better on almost everything before she passed earlier this year.  She had a strong dislike for minorities and Jews most of her life yet she became a solid liberal on most issues late in life.  The last vote she made was for a black man as President.  

[ Parent ]
Well, waiting is the problem
How long do you ask people to wait for their civil rights?
[ Parent ]
Better late than never

[ Parent ]
Sometimes
But as a member of the affected class I can tell you that the wait is almost as painful as every defeat.  
[ Parent ]
Understand
Well, not 100% obviously but you know what I mean. I guess like most things patience is key. But don't think for a minute I don't see it is hard.
[ Parent ]
It's frustrating
but it's how the system works, and by the time we get around to changing that, it will be a moot point as gay marriage will likely have a majority by then.

FWIW, as all three leading candidates for RI governor are pro-equality, I think our chances here are good in 2011, though I honestly don't know how easy the douchebaggery of the Democratic House and Senate leadership will be to overcome in this case.

Honestly, what is the excuse for a gay marriage bill dying in committee when Dems control the senate 33-4-1 and the house 69-6? RI makes Queens look like San Fran.

[ Parent ]
The over/under is about 189 years
that's pretty much how long African-Americans waited.  
[ Parent ]
72 years for women's suffrage
but I bet we'll have gay marriage probably within 20 years or so nationally, maybe a little longer.  There is certainly plenty of room for gay marriage to support to grow with each new generation.  Id guess my generation (Im 23) is maybe 60-40ish.  The next generation will probably be 70-30 and that margin will only get wider.  It took 72 years just for women to get to vote, another 50 years for control of their wombs, and still several battles that will take decades/centuries to also correct. There will always be plenty of stigma but by the time I am 80, no one is really going to give a shit and think nothing of it.

You know, Ive always thought that gays and lesbians were disadvantaged in that we're a group that you cant identify just by looking at them, well unless you are him.  It makes us invisible to many people which only makes our needs less pronounced.  But now that Ive thought about it, that is what is going to make the GLBT civil rights movement move so much faster.  Without us being so easily identifiable, there hasn't been a systematic process of discrimination against us for centuries like there has been for blacks and women.  The culture of homophobia is only decades old, rather than centuries.  Much easier for young people to defy their parent's beliefs in this situation.

[ Parent ]
Nationwide?
I'd say more like 30-40 years for that.  I think things are proceeding the correct way for the time being.  The states/courts are doing a decent (not great but decent) job in slowly but surely expanding marriage equality/gay rights.  By the time the federal government acts in 30+ years gay marriage will already be legal in most states outside the deep south and a few socially conservative midwest states and it will be a mere formality with little public opposition.
[ Parent ]
True about what you say
You know, Ive always thought that gays and lesbians were disadvantaged in that we're a group that you cant identify just by looking at them, well unless you are him.  It makes us invisible to many people which only makes our needs less pronounced.  But now that Ive thought about it, that is what is going to make the GLBT civil rights movement move so much faster.  Without us being so easily identifiable, there hasn't been a systematic process of discrimination against us for centuries like there has been for blacks and women.

That makes a lot of sense.  Since gays are more and more living open lifestyles just about everyone has a close friend or family member who is gay.  And unlike other minority groups people do not really see gays as wanting any kind of handout from society.  They are not asking for government assistance, etc. but rather they just want the same protections everyone else has like the right to marry who they want and not be discriminated against.

[ Parent ]
Look--polls are nothing but a snapshot in time
and we are still almost a year out--can't believe you guys are giving up already.  If the economy gets better by next fall, and we get a health reform bill passed, there will be a totally different political environment by Labor Day.  Besides, when people get ready to fill in the circles, they are often more likely to go with the devil they know than the devil they don't.
[ Parent ]
I agree
I've said many times that we ar probably at a low point right now.  The new nemployment rate resleased today dropped from 10.2 to 10.0.  Things are already starting to improve.
[ Parent ]
Let's wait for at least one more decrease
before drawing any conclusions.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Even without these figures
The longer term trends are clear. Things are certainly improving.
[ Parent ]
It's more complicated than that, though I know I'm not going to get anywhere with this.
Yes, race is a big issue.  But it's more complicated then a two dimensional complex.

Give you an example.  I once talked to a lady in St. Francis county-in her sixties, white, etc.-who tore me a new one over how I was supporting a secret Muslim who's wife hates America etc., then she turned around and talked about how great Wendell Griffin is, a former supreme court justice from this state who's black and probably more liberal than Obama (or at least he doesn't mind speaking his mind on things...)  The thing is, people down here never got the chance to get to know Obama beyond the birther/teabagger/racist nonsense.  Sure, his race is going to be held against him in some quarters here, but it's not the whole story.  The biggest problem with Obama and Democrats in Arkansas is that no one is standing up to fight-certainly not Blanche Lincoln and the party establishment-and Obama's made no effort to reach out to anyone here.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.

[ Parent ]
If Blanche Lincoln loses, we can chalk it up directly to Fox News.
It's Fox that has legitimized and semi-mainstreamed the completely poisonous narratives around Obama, and in Arkansas and Tennessee and Louisiana and other plausibly-Democratic states, it's that toxic Obama narrative that is turning the bulk of the electorate solidly against any federal-level Dems.  The Blue-Doggish base in Arkansas seems to have just evaporated in nine months.  Fox News did that.
[ Parent ]
The averave Lincoln numbers in the R2000 polls is 44.5%
So asserting "The Blue-Doggish base in Arkansas seems to have just evaporated in nine months" seems waaaaay over the top.

A year ago a black man got 39% of the vote, so in the past nine months... almost nothing has changed.

It seems more likely that all Fox News has done has made a bunch of nervous Nellies.

[ Parent ]
Lincoln should be polling much better than Obama did

[ Parent ]
Wendell Griffin was also FROM Arkansas
while Obama is from liberal Chicago.

Maybe you're right, maybe if Obama showed up in Arkansas, he'd get better poll numbers there...or maybe he's not showing up in Arkansas cause this state just isn't worth it.  

[ Parent ]
You get what you pay for.


Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
Question:
Was there ANY sort of campaign presence by Obama in Arkansas in 2008?  If there wasn't, that would really explain a lot, also in surrounding Tennessee and Oklahoma where he also got slaughtered, and the Democratic Parties in each of those states are on life support.
[ Parent ]
Nope. Nothing.
My 70 year old grandmother was so upset last year because he wouldn't show up.  I had to practically beg, borrow, and steal to hunt down a sign for her yard.  Not only was there no effort, there was no presence at all in this state, and the state party only got in half heartedly at the last moment when the writing was already on the wall.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
Be very honest here
Did you really think Obama would get only 39% after Kerry got 46% in 2004?  

I was shocked when I saw the numbers from Arkansas.  I figured he might do a point or two worse than Kerry, but not under 40%.  

[ Parent ]
Like I said earlier, you get what you pay for.
Obama never invested in the state, never made an effort to come down and make connections or give people the chance to get to know him.  Honestly, I was surprised he did as well as he did.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
Even so
there is a core anti-Bush anti-GOP vote.  In a state that is so heavily Dem at the local level, I assumed that it would be around 45%.  I was wrong.
[ Parent ]
Here's a good article about Obama ignoring Arkansas
[ Parent ]
Yes
I believe there was a poll or two taken a few months before the leection showing Obama relatively close to McCain in Arkansas.  Had there been resources invested in the state he probably could have at the very least kept it close.
[ Parent ]
I'll tell you what she's done
She's given voters here the impression that she doesn't care about them.  You drive through small town Arkansas and you'll see places that look like they were hit with atomic bombs and she doesn't do a damn thing for us.  Still, she's happy to vote to eliminate the estate tax, fight the public option (which is popular in Arkansas), etc.

Folks down here don't call her "Plantation Blanche" for nothing.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.

[ Parent ]
Your DailyKos diary.
Your line about Halter being the only prominent Democrat to actively campaign against the gay adoption ban sold me on him.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
Good to know.


Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
I know exactly what you're talking about
I drove through a good chunk of northern and southeast Arkansas on my vacation a couple months ago.  It's mostly dying small towns with countless abandoned houses and all local shops out of business and boarded up.  I have a hard time figuring out why these people need estate taxes cut and health care reform destroyed as Blanche is so intent on doing.
[ Parent ]
You should have been there at the free clinic
All those people down there...a woman in the third stage of cancer who's dying and just wanted treatment for an absyssed tooth...an amputee who couldn't afford a prosthesis...a man with high blood pressure who hasn't seen a doctor in five years...and all while Blanche Lincoln was pulling her healthcare shinanigans-and she wonders why her polls are tanking.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
And the worst part is
Lincoln is probably seeing these numbers and saying "I need to move further right, I'm too liberal", and she will proceed to do everything she can to block health care reform.  And she will still lose, wondering why it didn't work.
[ Parent ]
Except the numbers do kinda say she needs to
or conventional wisdom looking at this is she needs to.  
[ Parent ]
Thank you, ARDem. The economic cause of the rural South
can and should be in the Democratic agenda.
[ Parent ]
David, some other numbers worth noting:

QUESTION: Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans? (Democratic Primary Voters Only)

         FAVOR OPPOSE NOTSURE
ALL        84          10         6
MEN       80          12         8
WOMEN  87           9          4
WHITE   83           11         6
BLACK    88           5           7

QUESTION: If Senator Blanche Lincoln joins a Republican filibuster of the Democratic health care reform plan, for whom would you vote for in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate if the choices were between Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter and U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln? (Democratic Primary Voters Only)

                  ALL MEN WOMEN WHITE BLACK
Lincoln       37  42     34        39       27
Halter          27  23     30        27       27
Undecided  36  35     36        34       46



Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
Interesting
that Halter performs better among women than men.
[ Parent ]
That is interesting.
Perhaps a sign that party and issues are more important than sharing the same gender.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
Wonder why no one tested 2004 nom Jim Holt?
He has started raising money and revived his old website.
He only raised 12k last IIRC and came within 9 pts
Rasmussen an outlier?
Color me shocked!
She's definitely in danger of losing her seat...
Not that I'd be that sad to see her go, but it would suck to give up a seat to the GOP. We'd be better with Bill Halter because he's got some room to grow, whereas Lincoln is known to practically the whole electorate already.

If she's in so much trouble, why hasn't Arkansas' lone GOP congresscritter decided to throw his hat into the ring?

Hasn't Gilbert Baker antagonized the state party and GOP base somewhere along the way? I'll be interested to see how the primary plays out. I think it'd be hard to name any one of these candidates a front runner at this point.

Lincoln will outraise any of these candidates by a mammoth margin, but if the environment in Arkansas is absolutely toxic come November, it won't really matter.

I'm not so sure.
Bill Halter is not some unknown, he's the Lieutenant Governor, and as the diary states, he got even MORE of the vote in 2006 than super-popular Governor Mike Beebe did.  And then he spearheaded a very popular state lottery as Lieutenant Governor.

It's funny to see over a third of Democrats still have no opinion of the guy, even when they probably VOTED for him.

not really that odd
i'm sure there are lots of people who went straight ticket in 2006 (not as many in 2008 obviously.  party members who see the D, and voted for him without even checking the name.  

being normal is for the mediocre.
[ Parent ]
Here's Halter on the stump:
campaigning for Obama and standing up for LGBT issues no less-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.

This is a rare case
Where I'd gladly risk losing a seat by running a good democrat.  
[ Parent ]
Judging from the polls
running Lincoln might be more of a risk.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
You might be right
Anyone might be better than Lincoln.  And even if Lincoln is the more electable candidate I'd still rather a real democrat go down trying.
[ Parent ]
Why here and no where else?
Seems to me this is the least best place to do that.  
[ Parent ]
I disagree
Arkansas still has a strain of economic populism, and southern progressives like Bill Clinton and Dale Bumpers have served down here before.  There's a lot worse places to run good Democrats than Arkansas.
[ Parent ]
eh I'm not sure Bill Clinton qualifies as progressive

[ Parent ]
He did from 1974-1978.
That was when he first got into politics, running unsucessfully for Congress, successfully for Attorney General, and winning the Governorship in 78 back when we had two year terms.  Back then Clinton was very progressive, the "centrism" bit only came about after his defeat by Frank White in his reelection bid, losing in Reagan's landslide of 1980.  When he came back two years later, we saw a much more moderate and cautious Clinton, but his more corporate leanings really kicked in big after 1984-that was when the DLC came about as a response to Mondale's loss and the rise of Jessie Jackson.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
How was Bill Clinton progressive in the 1970s?
Do you have some examples of his progressiveness?  I've always gotten the sense that Bill Clinton was a strong liberal but was a better politician.

I'm not being argumentative here, I just would like to know what kind of policies that Clinton advocated in the 1970s.

[ Parent ]
Sure do.
Clinton was a great supporter of civil rights (growing up he actually got in trouble for protesting a segregated pool by swimming with his black friends FYI), he was a big supporter of labor, universal healthcare, campaign finance reform, a strong supporter of Roe and the Equal Rights Amendment, etc.  In his first term as Governor he worked to set up more funding for clinics in rural areas-a measure that proved so popular that people swarmed Little Rock in protest when Frank White tried to do away with the program.  He was a strong advocate for early childhood education and nutrition.  And as attorney general he worked to do away with laws criminalizing homosexuality.  A lot of those positions sound reasonable or even mainstream now, but back then they were VERY progressive positions to hold.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
Wow
Some of these positions would have been considered way out there for Arkansas in the 1970s.


[ Parent ]
Didn't Bill lose his re-election for Gov?
He was elected Governor in a landslide 1978, lost a close one in 1980 then won the job back in by a solid margin in 1982?  Anyone know why he lost in 1980?  Was it just due to the Reagan/republican national landslide that year or did he have some real screwups?
[ Parent ]
The Reagan landslide
but also because the Carter admin moved many Cuban refugees to Arkansas, which Clinton accepted.  This probably hurt him more than the Reagan landslide on its own.

Heck Jimmy Carter did very well in the South in 1980, he lost 7 states (Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama) in the South by less than 2%, which is very strong given that he lost nationally by 10%. In some of these states, no Democrat since has matched Jimmy Carter's 1980 performance.

[ Parent ]
Weird
I'd never heard of Cuban refugees being moved to Arkansas.  Was there a similar Cuban crimewave in Arkansas like there was in Miami at that time?  If I recall correctly that was the flood of refugees that contained a lot of criminals Castro forced out of Cuba into the U.S.
[ Parent ]
That's interesting
Let's remember that many of the Mariel boat people were black Cubans. That might have been a relevant factor politically in Arkansas.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
"Cartags and Cubans"
There were two big things that worked to bring down Clinton in '80, besides Reagan's landslide.  One was, as stated before, the Cuban issue.  A lot of people who'd fled Cuba were housed as a military base in western Arkansas by the Carter Administration.  Some of them got a little rowdy and left the base and had to be rounded back up.  Things got a little scary back then-there was one account of a little old lady sitting on her roof with a shotgun waiting for the Cubans to try and attack her.  Clinton raised a fuss and got a promise from Carter not to send anymore, but Carter went back on the promise.  Clinton, by all accounts, handled the situation properly, even moving the National Guard out, but Frank White butchered it into attack ads nonetheless.  (As I recall though, Clinton won the areas actually effected by the issue.)

The other was a ten dollar car tag increase he signed into law to pay for road construction.  Frank White really went after that one big.

Sometime you guys will have to give me an excuse to tell you about Frank White-then you'd see why Arkansans tend to be sceptical of local Republicans...

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.

[ Parent ]
One account?
That's nothing compared to south Florida during that era.  If you havn't seen it I highly recommend this documentary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

But housed on a military base nd forcably rounding escapees up?  That sounds like a concentration camp to me.

[ Parent ]
Remember the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act?

[ Parent ]
Yes
And I also remember the 1995-2000 period when he sold out progressives every chance he could.  Clinton could have blunted the right-wing legislationb by becoming a Dr. No and vetoing a lot of GOP legislation for his last 6 years in office.  Instead he did their bidding.
[ Parent ]
I give him a little more credit than that
He was governing in a different time, and to a large degree he saved us from gingrichism. Remember when he vetoed their budget in 1995 and saved Medicare? I can rattle off the shitty things he did (or accepted) too, but it could have been much worse.  
[ Parent ]
That was pretty progressive
Assuming what ARDem said above is true about Clinton's progressivism, my gut feeling is that Clinton is really a strong liberal deep down, but adapted with the times.  

He was a liberal in the 1970s until he lost and turned right.  He was a liberal in 1993-1994, GOP took over Congress, Clinton moved right.

[ Parent ]
Damn
Didn't realize a casual Clinton reference would inspire so many responses.  I should have clarified - as an Arkansas politician he was pretty progressive until he was forced to go right.  He certainly was more progressive than Blanche Lincoln.
[ Parent ]
and then there was NAFTA

[ Parent ]
There was a time when Free Trade was the D Liberal position
with the exception of Ds from states with industries specifically threatened with foreign competition. (And that was the time when Labor Ds were not trusted by Liberal Ds, especially on war-related issues. Fortunately, that time is past.)

To me, free trade is more intellectually consistent with positions such as freer immigration, diplomatic engagement on the world stage, etc.

But we have come to a time where we have to protect some industries fundamental to the US economy.

[ Parent ]
I still support NAFTA

[ Parent ]
Why?
It sucks to be perfectly honest.  I bought into the "free trade" nonsense at first because they indoctrinated us into believing that crap when I was in college.  Thankfully I've awakened to realize what a disaster it is, as have most Americans.
[ Parent ]
Open borders, free flow of goods, improving the whole world--
not just America. I'm also for free immigration.
[ Parent ]
Ya
NAFTA has sure helped the impovrished masses of Mexico.  It destroyed their farms, pushed them into sweatshops working for pennies and drove many of them to ditch their country and start over in America.

And most of the free trade agreements have few if any regulations regarding human rights or unionization.

[ Parent ]
And don't get me started on their environmental regulations.
Or lack thereof.

Check out the 2010 California races (http://2010californiaracetracker.wetpaint.com) and help us take back Red California! (http://www.takebackredcalifornia.org)
[ Parent ]
Out of curiosity, have you ever talked to any Mexicans
about trade with the US?

I doubt if many would be too happy were we to impose a hefty tariff.

This is the last comment I'll make on the topic here (we're probably going off topic, but on balance, free trade is good for everyone:

[T]he problem free traders face is not that their theory has dropped them into Wonderland, but that political pragmatism requires them to imagine themselves on the wrong side of the looking glass. There is no inconsistency or ambiguity in the economic case for free trade; but policy-oriented economists must deal with a world that does not understand or accept that case. Anyone who has tried to make sense of international trade negotiations eventually realizes that they can only be understood by realizing that they are a game scored according to mercantilist rules, in which an increase in exports - no matter how expensive to produce in terms of other opportunities foregone - is a victory, and an increase in imports - no matter how many resources it releases for other uses - is a defeat. The implicit mercantilist theory that underlies trade negotiations does not make sense on any level, indeed is inconsistent with simple adding-up constraints; but it nonetheless governs actual policy. The economist who wants to influence that policy, as opposed to merely jeering at its foolishness, must not forget that the economic theory underlying trade negotiations is nonsense - but he must also be willing to think as the negotiators think, accepting for the sake of argument their view of the world
.
[ Parent ]
THAT is what we need to turn red areas.
Someone who'll argue progressive causes, social and economic, with both heart and soul.  And if it takes a slight Southern drawl, fine with me. What we don't need someone who's going to cower and pander and vacillitate or, worse, reinforce the conservative beliefs with bipartisanship.  

Someone set up an ActBlue draft page STAT!

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

[ Parent ]
Do we?
I notice the numbers show the Republicans polling the same or much better against Halter than against Lincoln. And even if Halter was able to get every Democratic vote behind him, he'd only be in the mid-40's...meaning he'd need those non-progressive independents to put him over the top.

[ Parent ]
You know, I remember when Halter was running for Lt. Gov
The whole state establishment was freaking out that the race between him and Jim Holt, a man that excites the crazies here like no one else can, was going to be close...He won easily.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
I was talking more long-term there.


Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
OK
It's time to dump Blanche Lincoln.  Lt. Gov. Halter sounds like a terrific improvement, and he might actually improve our odds of holding the seat.
I don't think Lincoln or Halter can keep this seat blue
So yeah, we may as well stick to our principles and cheer on the liberal guy.
Speaking from the ground
I'm confident Halter could keep it.  Lincoln has a lot of damage control to do if she wants to hold onto it.

Stop complaining and whining and get to work.
[ Parent ]
and even if he lost
I'd feel better about the DSCC having spent money on him than on Lincoln.
[ Parent ]
He's not from Washington and not an incumbent
By those two aspects alone he'd do a better job than Lincoln in an anti-DC, anti-incumbent environment that will likely linger in 2010.
[ Parent ]
AR-Sen: Polls Show Serious Lincoln Vulnerability - in General & Primary | 116 comments

Copyright 2003-2010 Swing State Project LLC

Follow Us

Primary Sponsor

You're not running for second place. Is your website? See why Campaign Engine is ranked #1 in software and support among Progressive-only Internet firms. http://www.mediamezcla.com/

Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?

About the Site

Publisher: DavidNYC

Senior Editor: James L.

Senior Editor: Crisitunity

Contributing Editor: Jeffmd

SSP's Frappr Map

Search the SSP archives:

Sign up to receive a daily e-mail whenever the SSP is updated:

SSP Resources

Presidential Vote by CD

Partisan Voting Index

House Open Seat Watch

SSP Document Collection

Race Tracker Wiki

2010 Political Calendar

SSP Race Ratings

Senate Race Ratings

Gubernatorial Race Ratings

House Vulnerability Index

Blogroll

Daily Kos
DemConWatch
DLCC Blog
Five Thirty Eight
From The Roots (DSCC)
Hotline On Call
Kicking Ass (DNC)
Political Wire
Pollster.com
Project 2010 (DGA)
The Next Hurrah
The Stakeholder (DCCC)
The Thicket (NCSL)
Powered by: SoapBlox