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 Landrieus camp. If Hickman Analytics numbers are valid, shes all but cooked.
The top line: Bill Cassidy 46, Landrieu 42 among likely voters, and get this Cassidy by 49-40 among definite voters.
Whats worse: Landrieu is upside-down 42-52 on approval.
Whats 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 states current registration numbers look like and by affiliation its 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. Landrieus performance in this poll between 40 and 42 percent is about where shes been since late last year; she has more or less the Democrats base vote locked up and probably wont 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.
Thats a validation of Cassidys campaign as being very conservative (stylistically) in its messaging, taking shots only when its safe to do so, and generally playing it safe. That style has led many to complain that Cassidy doesnt 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 states 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 its extremely difficult to get her above 50 percent with Louisianas current political reality. Unless something major changes in this race, she cant win.
So smart move for Jindal if he’s going for a Senate career.
But very bad move if he’s going to try for President. The GOP base isn’t going to like hearing (and being reminded. Repeatedly) that he declined to endorse the GOP candidate against Landrieu.
My mistake. The GOP likes closed primaries. The Dems just have mass signups. Some times there are as many as six candidates.
Not saying that if polling were done today it would be any better for Landreu, but this poll is already several weeks old.
BTW, would you have poll numbers on any other swing-state Senate races?
As long as we're into clever puns, here's to hoping that Cassidy keeps hopping along.
Interesting. Never heard that before. I didn't think Clinton needed any teaching about such things. (LOL!)
Here is another Louisiana poll just reported this afternoon.
The Voter Consumer Research poll conducted for the Louisiana State Medical Society and PhRMA, compared to one taken by the same pollster a year ago, shows Sen. Mary Landrieu’s 14-point lead over Congressman Bill Cassidy in January 2013 shrinking to a 45-44 percent statistical tie in February 2014. Over that same span, opposition to the Affordable Care Act grew from 54-41 percent against to 57-35 percent opposed.
Vitter is NOT leaving the Senate unless he is elected governor; then he would name his ten-months successor.
The’rats will pay!
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