Posted on 03/13/2014 10:27:59 AM PDT by abb
Hickman Analytics is a Democrat polling organization which has been surveying the swing-state Senate races around the country, and it conducted a poll on the Louisiana Senate race from Feb. 17-24.
What that survey found has to be extremely scary for Mary Landrieu’s camp. If Hickman Analytics’ numbers are valid, she’s all but cooked.
The top line: Bill Cassidy 46, Landrieu 42 among “likely” voters, and – get this – Cassidy by 49-40 among “definite” voters.
What’s worse: Landrieu is upside-down 42-52 on approval.
What’s even worse than that: Landrieu is underwater 36-47 on her re-elect number with “likely” voters, and 35-48 on “definite” voters.
Other interesting numbers: the poll found overwhelming support for fracking (57-15) and the Keystone XL pipeline (67-12), and by a 45-23 margin the respondents said that if President Obama declines to give a permit to the pipeline it would make them less likely to vote for Landrieu.
And as we said, this is from a Democrat firm. The sample for the poll is 47 percent Democrat by registration and 28 percent Republican, which is about what the state’s current registration numbers look like – and by affiliation it’s actually more Democrat than voting patterns indicate: 35 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican.
And yet they still came up with these numbers.
What to make from this? First, there is no question the Americans For Prosperity campaign hammering Landrieu over Obamacare is having a continuous, and devastating, effect on her reputation within the state – and Landrieu so far has not found a defense against it.
Second, it appears Cassidy is slowly, steadily gaining momentum. Landrieu’s performance in this poll – between 40 and 42 percent – is about where she’s been since late last year; she has more or less the Democrats’ base vote locked up and probably won’t go much below the low 40′s. But the difference is that Cassidy is now inching into the high 40′s even in a survey that has more Democrats by affiliation than Republicans.
That’s a validation of Cassidy’s campaign as being very conservative (stylistically) in its messaging, taking shots only when it’s safe to do so, and generally playing it safe. That style has led many to complain that Cassidy doesn’t excite the conservative base in the state (the Hickman poll found that the state is profoundly red: 36 percent of respondents called themselves strong conservatives, 21 percent said somewhat conservative, 16 percent said they were moderate, five percent said somewhat liberal and 12 percent said strong liberal).
You could say that if Cassidy is somewhere between 46 and 49 percent and 57 percent of the state’s voters call themselves conservatives of one stripe or another the way for Cassidy to lock this thing up is still to move to the right, and you could well be correct in that analysis.
But either way, Landrieu has a major problem. This poll shows, like others have, that it’s extremely difficult to get her above 50 percent with Louisiana’s current political reality. Unless something major changes in this race, she can’t win.
Time to pull out the Alex Sink strategy.
“We’ll fix the Affordable Care Act.”
“And how do you propose to do that, Senator?”
“...............I don’t know.”
Geaux Louisiana!!!
I wish every RED state with a democrat up for reelection has the same results. Heck, even some BLUE states if the sheeple wake up.
Nothing could make me happier than to see Harry Reid out of his Majority Leadership chair. That would truly end 6 years of a corrupt Congress.
Do you think LA actually could not be purchased? Hope so.
Like any place, there are many patriots here among the scalawags. Sometimes Louisiana voters do the right things for the right reasons. I expect this to be one of those times.
Yes seeing Miss Piggy go would be good news. However Cassidy is more a Lindsey Graham than a Ted Cruz.
"The sample for the poll is 47 percent Democrat by registration and 28 percent Republican, which is about what the state’s current registration numbers look like"
"the Hickman poll found that the state is profoundly red: 36 percent of respondents called themselves strong conservatives, 21 percent said somewhat conservative, 16 percent said they were moderate, five percent said somewhat liberal and 12 percent said strong liberal"
I do not agree with that assessment. Many people whose political judgement I explicitly trust support Cassidy. See here an interview I did with Cassidy last Friday for my newsblog.
http://lincolnparishnewsonline.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/cassidy-landrieu-supports-obamas-agenda-97-of-the-time/
Despite distancing themselves and staying away from their Liberal God, there is no where for RATs (Senate/House) to run or hide from their “YES” votes on ObamaCare and their support for the RAT disaster that has been videotaped.
There are a lot more registered Dems than Repus in the Swamp State. That is because of the combination of closed primaries and the pretty unique Louisiana habit of having many contenders running in the primary. Politics is intensely personal and local in Louisiana and the fragmentation and segmentation of the electorate makes politics a sort of mass sporting event for many Dems. These are the old and traditional patterns of political life here. The GOP is really a new (since Eisenhower) phenomenon here and the people voting R are often not the those with the traditional Louisiana political blood sport attitudes so they only show up on election day. This is not really good as often a small group of insiders can control the direction of the party in the state. The good news is that the white population is far more conservative politically and socially than in the majority of the US and real leftist , outside of Orleans Parish, will have a difficult time.
Mary Landrieu may not have as big a problem as it seems. Governor Bobby Jindal, loved by Rush and Sean for whatever reason I don’t know, will be supporting Landrieu by refusing to endorse the Republican candidate. Jindal can speak in so many different directions he should have been a weather vane.
Great news, we need that seat.
Not to worry, Mary’s brother Mitch is the Mayor of New Orleans.
When Mary first ran, she carried only one parish in the entire state. It was Orleans parish.
Seems that when the exit polls showed Mary losing the race handily to Woody Jenkins, she found a friendly judge who ordered the Orleans parish(and ONLY that parish) polls to remain open a few more hours so she could bus in enough Orleans “voters” to get her over the hump.
And that is the way it works in Louisiana, where a guy with a slogan “Vote for the Crook” could win the governership like Eddie Edwards did. What did he do after being governor? He just got out of the federal penitentiary after bribery and corruption conviction.
Vitter will run for governor in 2015, 1 year BEFORE his senate term is up in 2016. Once elected governor, he can appoint his replacement in the senate.
That POS is probably going to one of a number of Rats running for Cassidy’s old seat. I he has a plan beyond some more headlines it is to get into Congress and hang on until he dies so the total number of terms (he was a two term Congressman , I believe) will vest him in the congressional retirement system big enough to give his new young wife a good widow's pension.
Yes, I remember ‘Vote the Thief’. James Meredith, who must have steel gonads, spoke up supporting David Duke. He said that it would be impossible for Duke, even if he sat in the governor's office in Klan robes, to do as much damage as another four years of Edward Edwards. He was right. Edwards is a more intelligent and competent Bill Clinton.
That is because of the combination of closed primaries and the pretty unique Louisiana
habit of having many contenders running in the primary.
*************
When did LA change their primary system? It was a jungle primary where all contenders
were on the same ballot. Winner take all or top two into a runoff.
Recall that they were both governors in the early 80s. Political gossip is that Edwards taught Clinton the technique of using his state trooper bodyguards as procurers (pimps?) for women.
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