Artur Davis (D): 35
Bradley Byrne (R): 39Artur Davis (D): 39
Kay Ivey (R): 31Artur Davis (D): 37
Tim James (R): 35Artur Davis (D): 41
Roy Moore (R): 38Ron Sparks (D): 27
Bradley Byrne (R): 41Ron Sparks (D): 33
Kay Ivey (R): 29Ron Sparks (D): 32
Tim James (R): 32Ron Sparks (D): 36
Roy Moore (R): 38
(MoE: ±3.8%)
Artur Davis begins the 2010 gubernatorial race with some impressive numbers, especially compared to state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks. Tom Jensen offers an explanation:
There’s not much doubt the black vote is the reason Davis is polling so much better than Sparks. For instance, against Byrne, Davis holds a 58-point lead with that demographic, 68-10. But Sparks has just an 18 point advantage at 38-20. Sparks actually gets slightly more support from white voters than Davis in all of the possible matches.
It raises the question, then: do these numbers represent something close to a high-water mark for Davis in a general election? While Davis has consolidated a good deal of support from the African-American community already, most of the remaining undecided voters are whites — a notoriously difficult voting bloc for any Democrat in Alabama to crack.
The Davis campaign is hoping to draw a weaker GOP opponent and basically squeak by with a white voter base of 38% or so.
which might be just enough. Pretty risky, though. . .
Race defines politics in the deep south.
I think the pundit mentality that he won’t get any more votes than Barack Obama did last fall isn’t fair. There are a lot of differences between federal and local elections, and Obama never really campaigned in Alabama, allowing all of the nasty rumors abut him to go unanswered in that part of the country. Plus, Davis has a very centrist voting record and if he can prove to voters that he’s not a steretypical Congressonial Black Caucus liberal, he can win this. Think of Rep. Sanford Bishop in Georgia; he does extremely well in Middle/Southwest Georgia and wins the white vote every time. Davis will be at a disadvantage because of the D next to him, but I wouldn’t give up on him just yet.
Sparks of course will have much greater than an 18 point advantage with black voters by election day, should he be the nominee. However, he may not mobilize them the way Davis would, even if Davis gets a few points lower of the white vote.
Just not sure which path will be easier. These numbers, despite the high number of undecideds, give pause to the running theory that Sparks will automatically perform stronger in a general election.
Not sure what Sparks is doing here, I don’t think he really has a shot at this and taking a loss like this could hurt him long term. Dems have a big name at Lt. Gov too right? Folsom or someone?
Remember PPP is democrat polling company. I am not saying they rigged the poll.
But it might have something to do why they took the poll during Davis’ annoucement media attention.
So that had to up him a couple points.
With the media praising Davis when the poll was and with a lot people not knowing his close ties to Obama and his liberal voting record, Davis almost surely has nowhere to go but down in the general election.
As I said before, Davis probably loses to any Republican.
As for your stomping on Moore. Davis and Moore are is a statisical dead head in democrat’s polling company poll taken during a positive buzz for Davis and bashing of Moore by the media.
So that would translate into losing in real life.
Remember PPP is democrat polling company. I am not saying they rigged the poll.
But it might have something to do why they took the poll during Davis’ annoucement media attention.
So that had to up him a couple points.
With the media praising Davis when the poll was and with a lot people not knowing his close ties to Obama and his liberal voting record, Davis almost surely has nowhere to go but down in the general election.
As I said before, Davis probably loses to any Republican.
As for your stomping on Moore. Davis and Moore are is a statisical dead head in democrat’s polling company poll taken during a positive buzz for Davis and bashing of Moore by the media.
So that would translate into losing in real life.
the problem comes when you try to go past that.
Democrats ran an AA candidate for the Alabamy senate seat Parker Griffith vacated. They lost.
Alabamy is not Viriginy yet.
It just irritates me because it always comes down to race it seems so, well, wrong. Just seems like we’re building another glass ceiling here when we do this sort of thing.
I found Public Policy Polling to be one of the more accurate pollsters last election. Their final polls were actually very close to the final results. They were one of the first pollsters to show Hagan taking the lead against Dole. In addition, their poll predicted that Franken would beat Coleman.
However, it is still very very early and Alabama is the most welcoming state to african americans or democrats. Alabama is so conservative that Artur Davis’s vote for the stimulus as a congressman could be used against him.
I mean to say Alabama is “not” the most welcoming state toward democrats and African Americans.
I was just reading the comments from the new gov ratings and people were talking about the New Jersey governor’s race. The reason the fix and cookpolitical still rate Jew Jersey as lean dem is because the RGA is not putting that much money into the race while Corezine will obviously put a ton of money into the race. Of course this may change because of the VIrginia race looking more like a Deeds pickup.
A lot of people are poo pooing the idea the Deeds could win this thing with a plus 5 percent margin or so but I don’t see why not. Deeds is much more conservative than Obama and Obama won it by 6 points. Dems have a strong base operation there and it has been tilting dem the last several cycles. As long as Obama’s aproval rating is high I think NJ will be the race to watch and VA will be a cake walk. However, I still believe money matters in NJ and that is why Corizine will win as well.