Posted on 10/13/2010 1:43:04 PM PDT by WebFocus
Worth flagging if only because this is the last comparison point we’ll have before tonight’s debate blockbuster. I’m searching for the silver lining in the crosstabs, but … help me out. The pollster’s reputable, the sample is enormous and limited to likely voters, and it’s right in the same range of all the other numbers we’ve been seeing lately — except a bit worse. (This is the first poll, I think, to put the margin at +20.) It was also taken over the last few days, which means the effect of her “I’m not a witch” ad is probably priced in. And it’s consistent with another trend we’ve seen in the Delaware polling, namely, that it’s women voters, not men, who are responsible for the bulk of Coons’s lead. Among men, O’Donnell trails here 49/41; among women, it’s 58/25. There’s a number worth crunching for Nate Silver or Mark Blumenthal or some other statistician with time on his hands today. Is there any wider gender gap in any race this year than the Delaware Senate battle?
The silver linings, I guess, are (a) she’s still sitting on a pile of money with which to fund ads, and of course (b) turnout. Two years ago, Biden crushed O’Donnell thanks to a partisan breakdown of 48D/31R/21I. Hopenchange fee-vah was high, so Democrats were motivated. Survey USA’s sample predicts turnout this year at 44D/30R/22I, which surely ain’t happening. There’s bound to be more Republicans in the pool this time with tea partiers enthusiastic and no Obama at the top of the ticket. The thing is, there’d have to be many, many, many more to dent a 15-20 point lead, especially since O’Donnell wins the GOP vote only by a relatively narrow 64/19 margin (Coons, by comparison, takes Democrats 81/10). So there’s your “what to expect” checklist for tonight’s debate — lots of talking points aimed at winning women and the centrist Republicans in Castle’s base. Castle himself could help in that regard, of course, but … he’s not going to. Quote:
Nine-term Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, who lost his state’s Senate GOP primary, said Wednesday that he won’t endorse a candidate in the general election…
“No, I’m not going to endorse anybody in that particular race, not because of the competence of any of the candidates, but because the primary I went through was very nasty in a variety of ways, both politically and personally, and I’ve just declined to get involved in that,” Castle told CNN’s John King in an interview to air Wednesday evening.
Translation: “I’m a sore loser.” At the very least, we’ve gotten some tasty Taiwanese animation out of this race. It’s mostly a goof on O’Donnell, but enjoy the salute to Harry Reid’s “pet” near the end. Open thread fo
Absolutely.
>>> Yeahhhh, it’s too bad we won’t have Castle there to break the tie! He always stood with the repubs. /LOL
More to the point, too bad we won’t have Castle there to vote for a republican Majority Leader, whose committee heads would then control the flow of legislation.
Bigger /LOL from Reid and Obama.
Do the pollsters only call land-line numbers? If so, they’re not getting a representative sample, regardless of the sample size.
DE hasn’t changed! Who would have thought otherwise?
Someone else already answered the question: so Obama can campaign for Coons and take credit for a sure Democrat victory there. Then Obama can say he would have “saved others” had they only bothered to ask.
Yea, it’s much like Jeff Bell did in NJ in 1978, ousting Clifford P. Case and voters turning to “Bill” Bradley for liberal consolation.
I would like to see a COD commercial that says “It’s a sad day in America when one is invited to debate and not allowed to finish her answers to questions asked by hostile, smirking moderaters.” And use clips of the recent debate.
The AP story is probably already written, with only the final numbers to be inserted.
But we knew this was going to be a likely result. The point of nominating O'Donnell was to get the message out that RINOs like Castle are no longer welcome, even at the expense of majority status in the Senate. I think the message has been received.
I'm picturing RINOs fighting like kids over an ice cream cone for who gets to turn coat and be #51 for the Dems.
Coons looks like a sure thing and 0bama wants to be able to take the credit for something on Nov 3.
It will also stitch him into the main fabric of the day-after reporting on the election, which is expected to be a Republican victory of major proportions. They’ll say, this was not a referendum on 0bama but on the Bush-inheritance economy. Look, 0bama pulled a Dem over the finish line in Delaware! Behold his mighty works!
An O’D win would throw a horrific wrench into their gears.
But...it’s Delaware, a state that raised up Joe Biden.
Actually, 0bambi just went out to help O’Donnell. I’m sure he’s not intending to, but his presence should give O’Donnell 10 more percentage points.
If it is 50-50 the Senate Majority Leader will be decided by Biden. After that, Dems control the process and agenda.
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