Public Policy Polling (6/26-27, North Carolina voters, 6/4-6 in parens):
Elaine Marshall (D): 33 (39)
Richard Burr (R-inc): 38 (49)
Michael Beitler (L): 10 (n/a)
Undecided: 20 (16)
(MoE: ±4.4%)
PPP gives us their first post-runoff poll of Richard Burr’s first re-election bid, and finds that it’s more of the same for the incumbent:
The punditry has stated time and again that one reason the 2010 North Carolina Senate race won’t be a repeat of the 2008 contest is that Burr has been much more visible than Dole was, but someone forgot to tell the voters that. 41% of North Carolinians think that Dole was more visible as a Senator than Burr has been to 32% who think Burr has been more visible, and 27% with no opinion. The feeling that Dole was more visible is held by Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike.
Burr’s relatively anonymity for an incumbent Senator can be seen in his approval numbers. 28% of voters still have no opinion of him, with those who do splitting negatively. 34% like the job he’s doing while 39% disapprove.
Marshall is still pretty unknown too despite 14 years in statewide office and a recently completed campaign to secure her party’s nomination. 58% of voters have no opinion about her with 22% seeing her favorably and 20% unfavorably.
Remarkably (given the nature of the year), this race still isn’t out of reach for Democrats. The problem, though, is that Marshall is seriously out-gunned financially. Never a prodigious fundraiser, it was disturbing to see that Marshall’s campaign boasted about raising under $140,000 in the two-week period following her runoff win over ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham. A level of fundraising at that pace would amount to less than $900K for a full fundraising quarter — which just isn’t enough to beat a Republican incumbent in a year like this. Marshall will need to find a way to step it up, because the DSCC will have their hands full with other races before they bankroll this one.
UPDATE: Mike Nellis, a Marshall staffer, writes in the comments that their $140K haul represents online donations only. That’s much better news.
She’s not going to win with that disparity.
I’m fearing we’ll end up losing NC-Sen and OH-Sen for that same reason, underfunded candidates who just don’t have the pull or make the needed effort to raise what’s needed.
At least in Ohio the Governor’s race and other things help gin up turnout, and on messaging the DSCC will surely help as long as Fisher is in a dead heat as he is now or at least close to it even if he falls behind a little. But yeah, in NC the DSCC won’t play if Marshall can’t get it together herself a little sooner.
Regarding this PPP poll itself, I’m disappointed to see them include the Libertarian. That really skews the results far from reality. North Carolina has no history of giving anything but trivial numbers of votes to 3rd wheels, and this Libertarian has no money, no name recognition, and no other means of making himself visible to most midterm voters. I want to see more 2-way polling on this, but at least I’ll view the 5-point margin in the 2-way comparison as credible.
So under North Carolina election laws, the threshold for primary and general elections to avoid a runoff is 40% plus, right? Burr needs to get over 40% to avoid going to a runoff after the general.
Staurt Rothenberg, SSP’s public enemy number 1 during the last election cycle, wrote a piece in CQPolitics about how main party challengers are hoping third party challengers would siphon enough votes from their competition to allow them to sneak up the middle. It doesn’t really apply to North Carolina’s case, but I’m guessing Marshall’s pretty happy with these numbers down the road.
Anyone know what the fundraising disparity between Kay Hagan & Liddy Dole was? I would imagine that Dole outraised her significantly, yet Hagan whupped her good. So money isn’t everything.
That said, Marshall has exactly one quarter to show some fundraising umph. Now that she’s past the primary, hopefully Dems will coalesce and some national money will start flowing her way, too.
But the fracking DSCC better not effing give up on her, after all the BS they pulled with supporting Cunningham. Well-funded candidate or not, North Carolina still has to be considered among the better pickup opportunities.
We were talking about raising 140K online, not total.
I work for Elaine.
So are the Big Dog’s:
http://publicpolicypolling.blo…
The numbers are misleading because as PPP says, Republicans will always say that they are less likely to vote for the candidate Obama endorses even though they were never going to vote for the candidate that Obama endorses anyway. The same principle applied to the numbers that were released about Palin’s endorsement numbers.
It appears that indies will naturally say they oppose any endorsement from someone out of the state. It seems that they want anything but national political figures getting involved in their races.
While I don’t doubt that Burr probably only has a small lead, this sample is just flat bad. PPP has the electorate actually MORE Democratic than in 2008. That will not happen.
What’s Christie going to do?