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WV-Sen: Raese Ahead of Manchin; SSP Moves to Lean D

by: Crisitunity

Tue Sep 21, 2010 at 12:57 PM EDT


Public Policy Polling (9/18-19, likely voters, no trendlines):

Joe Manchin (D): 43
John Raese (R): 46
Undecided: 10
(MoE: ±2.6%)

If this year's quest to hold control of the Senate is starting to feel like a giant game of whack-a-mole to you, you're not alone. We've bashed Mike Castle and Dino Rossi down into their holes? Ooops, up pop Ron Johnson... and now John Raese? Well, yes, at least according to PPP, who see mondo-sized enthusiasm gaps at work in West Virginia, enough to give a small lead to Raese despite Joe Manchin's popularity as governor. (Bear in mind that Rasmussen has been pretty consistent in seeing a high-single-digit race in favor of Manchin here, including a 7-point lead in a poll taken in the same timeframe, so PPP's seeing something even they aren't.)

Manchin's approvals are 59/32, which makes him one of the most popular governors in the country that PPP has found. The problem here seems to be the association with the national party in a federal-level race: Barack Obama's approvals are 30/64, and this likely voter sample broke for McCain in 2008 by a 58-35 margin (instead of the 13-percent spread that actually happened in 2008). PPP estimates that if the sample mirrored 2008 composition, Manchin would be up 50-44. There's one other bit in the fine print that gives Manchin a possible route to take: embrace the Robert Byrd legacy. Byrd's posthumous approvals are 68/23, and by a 52-33 margin, voters want someone to "carry on Byrd's legacy" (whatever that means to them).

UPDATE: Swing State Project is moving this race to "Lean Democratic" (from Likely Democratic).
Crisitunity :: WV-Sen: Raese Ahead of Manchin; SSP Moves to Lean D
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WV-Sen: Raese Ahead of Manchin; SSP Moves to Lean D | 45 comments
Manchin
I still think Manchin will pull this out in the end, but WV voters seem to realize they can have their cake and eat it to.  Manchin as Gov and Raese for Sen.

43 - Male - GOP/Libertarian - FL 22
Agreed
They like how Joe is doing as Gov but they don't want to empower national Dems. I don't necessarily see high Gov approval numbers translating to Senate votes in a situation such as this and I think PPP's numbers bear that out.  
[ Parent ]
As I said in the other thread
Funny how WV's polling reflected the Massachusetts race. Rasmussen came out with that poll showing a tight race a few weeks ago, you all laughed at it, and now PPP has Raese ahead.

I think Rasmussen has been vindicated in this cycle. Sure, their toplines and methodology are weird, but they are oddly prescient about emerging races such as this. I think they were the first to detect a competitive race in Wisconsin, in fact.

Rasmussen had Manchin's lead expanding...
The same weekend PPP has Raese ahead...  Don't remember that happening in MA.
[ Parent ]
Yes, every open seat race is MA-Sen 2010
And every Democrat in those races is Martha Coakley.
[ Parent ]
Not exactly...
Just this week, PPP contradicted them on CA-Sen in showing a healthy Boxer lead. And just this morning, Jon Ralston let them have it on their Fox outfit's new NV-Sen poll.

Now I'm not someone who just calls Razzy bunk. Their numbers do hold some legitimacy for me. I just find it hard to deny their pro-GOP house effect, and they do have their unique quirks with uglier Obama approval numbers than anyone else has shown, wild post-primary "bounces", and inclination to push voters one way or another with their questions.

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)

[ Parent ]
Time for a Big Dog appearance?


Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
Probably...
I don't see how he hurts.

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)
[ Parent ]
While he is popular in WV
How many people associate him with the national Dem party, which, according to this poll, is VERY unpopular in WV.  
[ Parent ]
I always figured Manchin could pull upwards of 25% of GOP-ers here
If that's not the case, he's in trouble, cuz Raese is surely poised to siphon-off a bunch of conservaDems.

For daily political commentary, visit me at http://polibeast.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/polibeast
Good analogy. What Democrat isn't in trouble?
54% of respondants want a GOP controlled congress...not a good sign for Manchin. I'm surprised to see an outright Raese lead.

WV really "should" elect Republicans to the Senate given how strongly it now votes GOP at the presidental level.

This is probably one of the top states where all the mosque talk is hurting the national democrat brand the most.  

The key number here is the 22% ov voters who have cross loyalties
In the PPP blog memo this line stuck out:
"22% of voters in WV have the competing impulses of both liking Manchin and wanting Republicans to control the next Congress. With those folks Raese leads 57-29"

That means about 7% of the electorate want GOP control of congress but are voting for Manchin because they like the job he's doing as Gov and 3% of the total electorate (and 30% of the undecideds) likes Manchin but want the GOP to control Congress.

These are the troubling numbers. For Manchin to win he's got to give the voters of WV who like the job he's doing as Gov but want the GOP to run Washington a reason to to have him switch jobs.

Fight global warming & help disaster relief efforts by raising money for Music for Relief when you search the web! Click here for more info:
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The reason is right in front of him...
Whatever people outside West Virginia thought about Robert Byrd, he was VERY popular in the state. Manchin has to show he'll "carry on Byrd's mantle".

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)
[ Parent ]
It seems we have the key...
To winning/losing this race. If it's about "continuing Byrd's legacy", Manchin can win. If it's about "Obama Obama OBAMA!!!", Manchin may actually lose this. "Carrying on Byrd's legacy" means having someone looking out for West Virginia's best interests, and IMHO Joe Manchin is the perfect candidate to argue this as the current Governor. If he can frame the race this way, he'll probably win.

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)
eh

That would actually be the Massachusetts dynamic all over again- a candidate running on the deceased Great Man's legacy.  And then to their surprise reaping a backlash to the deceased and what he stood for from a resentment that everyone knew existed.  But Democrats figured it would disappear with his passing.

Byrd understood that his state was changing and was starting to change with it.  He was the inveterate and unapologetic advocate of the coal mining corporations in Congress for many years.  In the past two or three years he began to walk away from that- there's a beautiful editorial in one of the West Virginia papers under his name announcing this.

I think Manchin would be best off assuring diehard Byrd supporters of carrying much of the mantle.  But to everyone else he has to say that the state has begun to change in a deep way and that it is necessary to respect that.

But I suspect that the conservaDem-to-Republican evolution has begun in earnest in WV now.  And then it's usually just a matter of two or three successive elections wiping out practically the whole conservative Democratic establishment in a state.  (Unless there's some profound demographic division in the state, e.g. race in Mississippi and Alabama.  But that's not the case in West Virginia.  And the racial division, while not closing, is declining in bitterness all over including the Deep South.)

So I'm not going to be surprised if Manchin starts to get really shaky in the polling and doesn't succeed on Election Day.

[ Parent ]
Unfortunate I'd take a PPP poll over a Rasmussen one.
I believe them just as much when they give good news as bad.

The problem as everywhere is the enthusiasm gap.  Right now it's probably too late to make a case to change peoples minds.  But what you can do is rally your base and try to win the turnout game.  And THAT is what really scares me.

You laugh at the insane teapartyers.  And admittedly with many there is good reason to laugh.  But if they can inspire their folks to go to the polls.  And in greater number than the swing true indies who may or may not show up.  That's a reciple for some surprise victories.

NY-13, Democrat. Blog @ http://infinitefunction.wordpr...

This is probably an outlier...
...or a result of PPP's extremely stingy voter screen, but they did call a lot of people (twice as many as california for some reason).  Perhaps that adds some sort of error in a mountainous state.  It should reduce it.

The bad news is that the publicity of this race will wake up the right and star to funnel in money, resources, and "hope" for them, not a good thing at all.

Is any non-automated pollster going to poll this race?

Word I'm getting from on the ground is that Manchin is still the man, and lots of signs on republican lawns.  Of course, in WV, republicans are  more liberal than conservadems, so that may not be enough.

Raese
Raese always had the money he needed, but adding hope to it is going to change things in a big way, I think.  And for sure with DE-Sen slipping away, the national GOP will be sure to send some extra GOTV effort here.  Raese is probably much better positioned financially than Manchin is - does that mean the Dems are going to have to take money from elsewhere to send here?  They might as well cut off OH-Sen, that seems totally lost to them at this point.   And you have to wonder about PN-Sen - that's an expensive state, how much are they going to spend there?

43 - Male - GOP/Libertarian - FL 22
[ Parent ]
They seemed to have cut off OH-Sen months ago...
They are hoarding for the most part, although throwing money away in Missouri and Kentucky... at least those are cheap states.  They seem to be reserving resources for the very end.
[ Parent ]
Somewhere Capito . . .
is banging her head against the wall.  Had she run, she'd probably be up by ten.  Another recruiting failure for the GOP.  

Having said that, the DSCC will now have to through money at this race.  That, of course, means less money for places like Missouri and New Hampshire (and maybe even Pennsylvania).  That, in turn, probably means more GOP money flowing into Colorado, Wisconsin, Nevada and West Virginia.  A real domino effect.  

With WV and WI trending away...
It seems sort of crazy to be spending money in PA where an opponant has shown a high single digit lead the entire race.

I'd bet whoever wins this race will be the next Senator from WV for a long time. It should be a top priority for both parties.

[ Parent ]
Capito
I don't see it that way.  Capito is 'establishment' in a non-establishment year.  And a 'dynasty' candidate to boot.  She did have some money in the bank, but Raese can self fund more than she had, so I think he's actually a stronger candidate.  Much the same way I think Johnston up in WI-Sen has turned out to be a stronger candidate than Tommy Thompson would have been.  It's just that sort of year.

43 - Male - GOP/Libertarian - FL 22
[ Parent ]
Nah. Probably not that much...
Of an effect. Last I checked, West Virginia is a pretty cheap state to campaign in. Will it probably drain Democrats of resources that could go elsewhere? Yes, most certainly. However, it shouldn't be too much of an effect simply because West Virginia is nowhere near as an expensive state to campaign as Pennsylvania, or even Colorado. Plus, last I checked the two Senate committees have plenty of money and the DNC continues to outraise the RNC. At least Dems have built up enough of a war chest to compete in all these places.

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)
[ Parent ]
Not Cheap
It's not cheap at all - it's covered by several markets including DC and Pittsburgh.  To cover the whole state, you have put run ads in lots of places.

43 - Male - GOP/Libertarian - FL 22
[ Parent ]
Media market map
http://www.wvablue.com/diary/2...

While most of the markets are cheap, others are really expensive.  In particular, the two most expensive markets also have sizable chunks of the state's population.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

[ Parent ]
eh
The two counties in the Pittsburgh area have about 120k people and the 7 in the DC market in the panhandle about 250k. The state's population is about 1.8m so about 80% of them are in the dirt-cheap markets.

41, Ind, CA-05
[ Parent ]
this seems to be
the election of guts.  people who had the guts to take on difficult races (Coons, odonnell, raese, johnson etc) seem to be rewarded with some type of win, while the beau biden types who step back and wait meekly for a better year are left by the wayside.

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
[ Parent ]
Recruiting failure?
We don't know how Moore-Capito would be doing, but we do know that Raese is ahead in this poll. Let's give him some credit here--he's turned out to be stronger than anyone expected.

Could Manchin join Crist and Hutchison in the category of people who tried to leave their current job to move up and got rejected?

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

[ Parent ]
I think
Raese may actually be an improvement. He can self fund and has no voting record to pick apart. Plus, Capito, from the moment she announced, would have been taken seriously. Raese was not. Raese is also able to run a more outsidery campaign, while Capito would have been attacked as a DC insider.  
[ Parent ]
Serves Manchin right
This election need not, and should not, have been held.  But his ambition and fear of what the RWEC would say, got the best of him.
no shit
I really didnt like him thinking he should run this year.  Popularity be damned, this was definitely not the time to have an election.
[ Parent ]
What Mudslingus giveth, Mudslingus taketh away.
Last week, we had Murray polling well, the Republicans giving us Delaware back, almost giving us NH-02, and a close race in NH-Sen.  Now, we're getting crappy poll numbers here and in WI-Sen.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
Whack-a-mole is right
But I'm through with that.  As long as the progressives win in Democratic-held seats, I'll be happy, regardless of what else happens.  That means California, Wisconsin, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Nevada.  A loss in Illinois I could live with because Kirk is relatively sane.
General agree.
Kirk being relatively sane isn't enough, though.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
As someone who has to live in Illinois
for at least another year, I would find a Kirk win very depressing. The guy's a grade-A dick.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
I was just starting to feel good about November, too
Recent polls posted here have shown Dems trending upwards in hard fought battles. This poll depresses me once more.

23, Male, PA-05 (summer) PA-12 (winter)
Take heart, though.
This is a state that's been trending away from us anyways.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
Manchin Approval at 59?
I find that hard to swallow.  Isn't it supposed to be at 70?

Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
So little time, so much to know!
I'm split on this race
Part of me thinks that Raese is going to win this race, possibly going away.  Part of me thinks that this will end up like the one in PA-12 (whose demographics are very similar to WV, and Raese is similar to Tim Burns as a candidate).

On another note, Ron Johnson is going to beat Feingold.  That I'm pretty sure of right now.


38, male, conservative Republican, TX-3 currently (IL-13)

Similar to Nebraska in 1996
Ben Nelson was a popular governor in a red state (in actually a good Democratic year -- but not in Nebraska), and most people assumed he'd beat this unknown guy named Chuck Hagel.  Hagel ended up winning by 14 points, even though most Nebraskans had a favorable view of Nelson and thought he was a good governor.  

Nelson ran again four years later and eeeked out a very close win.  Now, I'm not saying this means Joe Manchin loses -- in large part because the guy he's running against is no Chuck Hagel.

I still think Manchin wins
It's hard to say what's going on with two different polls showing two different thing. It's clear that Raese is in the mid-40s, but the thing is, Rasmussen and PPP are seeing different things as to where Manchin's support is. 43% in one poll and 50% in another is a big gap.

24, male, African-American, CA-24, Democrat. Chair of the SSP Black Caucus.
african-american?
that's cool, i didn't realize we had any on this site.

18, Dem, CA-14 (home) CA-09 (college, next year). social libertarian, economic liberal, fiscal conservative.   Everybody should put age and CD here. :)
[ Parent ]
When in doubt
Trust PPP.  
[ Parent ]
Sure, until they have some stinkers, which they've had and will have again. The rule remains...
..."totality of polling."

And the pattern in all elections the past decade, as polling has proliferated, has been that all polling converges close to the election.  There's a lot more divergence further out.  We're moving toward convergence now in that there are now fewer crazy outliers by pollsters, but the convergence isn't complete.

I still think Manchin will win, and what helps him and distinguishes this race from MA-Sen Special is that we're still 6 weeks away when this is happening.  Coakley had tight polling surprise her a couple weeks out.  Manchin has plenty of time to respond and counterattack.  Of course there are other differences, such as his enormous personal popularity while Coakley was much less well-known, but offset by WV being much more conservative than MA.  But all in all, if this has to tighten, I'm happy we're seeing this on September 21 instead of October 21 when it might be too late to stop the bleeding.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
^This
If we were 1 week as opposed to 6 weeks away, I'd feel a lot better about Raese's chances. The "default vote" in West Virginia is for Manchin, and the Democrats still have a political lifetime to bring Raese-leaners back into the fold.

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08
[ Parent ]
WV-Sen: Raese Ahead of Manchin; SSP Moves to Lean D | 45 comments

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