LA-Sen: Can Melancon win?

In my latest U.S. Senate projections, posted a few weeks back, I opted to move the Louisiana race, between Republican incumbent David Vitter and Democratic challenger Charlie Melancon, from “Lean GOP” to “Safe GOP.” In fact, it was one of five particular races I gave special attention, given its notable shift in ranking amid my projections.  I moved this race further into red territory, given a) most polling conducted on the match-up has shown Vitter with upwards of a 30 point lead, b) Melancon’s campaign hadn’t ignited much excitement, and c) it appeared as though Louisiana voters had forgotten about or outright forgiven Vitter for the infidelity controversy that plagued his Senate tenure a few years back.

It’s now more than a week into June, and I feel this race deserves a second look.

Why? Because, while Sen. Vitter is doing incredibly well, given the shaky press coverage he’s garnered in recent years, the recent BP disaster has finally given Congressman Melancon, whose district has perhaps been most hard-hit during the crisis, his moment in the sun. And, what a tremendous job he has done.

While both Vitter and fellow Sen. Mary Landrieu deserve kudos for their PR handling of the BP crisis, it has been Melancon who really struck a chord, with both Louisiana’s residents and the nation, on this issue. He gave heartwrenching testimony to Congress regarding the oil spill’s impact upon the people of his district, and he’s hit the cable news circuit, establishing himself as one of the most affective communicators on the issue. I must admit, I’ve been quite moved by Melancon’s work in the past weeks, and I will be rooting for him for the remainder of this political season.

Of course, this begs the question – can Charlie Melancon really defeat David Vitter? Is this still a “Safe GOP” race?

Truthfully, at this point, it’s difficult to tell. LA-Sen has been a gravely-underpolled race, with only the conservative-leaning Rasmussen bothering to conduct polling on it this year. The last time a non-partisan outlet polled it was all the way back in July, 2009 (!), while Public Policy Polling showed Vitter with a 12 point lead. Which, for the record, only constitutes a “Likely GOP” ranking in my methodology, not “Safe GOP.” Rasmussen, for the record, found Vitter with a 24 point lead in both February and March, before giving up on polling the state.

With no help from the pollsters, it’s difficult to get a solid grasp on this race. In all likelihood, Vitter is still ahead, and at least by double-digits. 24 points, though? That’s probably a stretch. A 24-point lead in Louisiana means Vitter trimming a quarter of Democrats from Melancon, and that’s awfully unlikely.

Indeed, the potential good news for Melancon is that Democrats make up a plurality – about 40 percent – of the Louisiana electorate. The bad news? About a third to a fourth of those Democrats are conservative ones, “Blue Dogs” if you will. And the Republicans? They’re some of the most conservative in the country. The non-affiliated voters, who make up a fifth of the electorate, are also right-leaning.

If I had to take a stab on the outcome of this race, I imagine it looks something like…

Democrat – 40%

GOP – 38%

Independent – 22%

Melancon – 85%/10%/46% = 48%

Vitter – 15%/90%/54% = 52%

Which, would of course make this a bonifide toss-up. Despite my voter model, I suppose Vitter is perhaps ahead by more. If only Rasmussen would release its internal numbers, which it, unfortunately, does not. For the time being, I’ll give the benefit of doubt to Sen. Vitter, but Melancon could be on the rise.

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12 thoughts on “LA-Sen: Can Melancon win?”

  1. Rasmussen showed Vitter up 52-36 in April, obviously tighter than the preceding 2 times, but in truth Rasmussen’s methodology is so poor that changes from poll to poll aren’t really worth anything.  The only thing Rasmussen is good for is to give a vague sense of how competitive a race is.  If they show a Republican up 30, he’s not really up 30 or even close to it, but you can bet he’s ahead by a comfortable margin if a valid poll were done at the same time.  That’s as much as we can take from Rasmussen.  And of course Rasmussen’s erratic results produce some that are perfectly in line with other polls, so you can’t automatically apply a mathematical “discount” of 5 points or whatever for GOP bias.  You just have to wait for credible polling by others to compare.

    FWIW, I’m a Rasmussen subscriber (been thinking of dropping them lately for obvious reasons), and their April internals available to subscribers show Vitter with 60-37 favorables compared to 46-41 for Melancon.  They’ve got Vitter up 64-23 with whites, down 79-13 with blacks, and up 71-22 with “others;” keep in mind that one of Rasmussen’s many failings is they seldom get an honest sample of racial minorities, so the racial breakdown is very often whacked and not in line with reality.

    Their April poll also has Obama’s job approval at 40-59, and Jindal’s at 64-35.

    I actually think the April LA-Sen poll is one likely in line with reality on the topline, as 16 points with Vitter just over 50 sounds about right to me intuitively, given an anti-Democratic year in a very conservative state with a race involving an incumbent Republican.  White conservative voters basically just shrug off poor personal character and outrageous behavior by white conservative politicians, they want to hold accountable only Democrats and liberals for that.  So Vitter’s misdeeds get only a shrug.

    And regarding your 52-48 take on the race, I don’t see that happening at all.  I think Melancon loses by double-digits, and likely ends up defeated something closer to 58-42 than 52-48.  Charlie made a good move anyway because his seat will be lost in census results and redistricting, and it made sense for him to take a flyer on the Senate race in case lightning strikes.  After all, when you’re dealing with a lying sleezeball like Vitter, you never know when another shoe might drop unexpectedly.

  2. Obviously, the BP mess is a game changer to some degree, but only in those districts that are affected by it – chiefly LA-02 and LA-03, both of which Melancon was going to carry anyway, and LA-07, which is the only area that he can really yank away from Vitter on this issue.

    Given the dynamics of LA voters, personal scandals have NEVER mattered (politics are theater in that state), and someone in, say, Shreveport, is going to care a lot more about the usual oil = jobs rhetoric from Vitter and friends than they are about damage to the Gulf Coast ecosystem.

    I see this race as a Likely R. I think Melancon has done a fantastic job on the issue and as long as the spill is going he can get some traction from it, but it’s not going to put him over the top by itself in a state that’s been trending away from us for a decade.  

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