Rasmussen (9/29, likely voters, 8/21 in parens):
Rick Noriega (D): 43 (38)
John Cornyn (R-inc): 50 (52)
(MoE: ±4.5%)
I remain as skeptical as I’ve ever been that Noriega has enough gas in the tank to knock off Cornyn in this steeply expensive state, but the final result could give us a good sense of Texas’ blue trend.
He would be a shoe-in.
If Hillary were to make an appearance (the Valley, Laredo, El Paso, San Antonio), that would be great. If only Noriega had some $ to introduce himself to voters and make his case in these final weeks.
This race has been so frustrating for me! It seems to tantalizingly close… Then Cornyn pulls away again & McCain strengthens his lead. I wish Noriega’s campaign could get its act together & I wish we had the extra $$$$ to help him. Sure, I guess the DSCC has the $$$$ now to throw here. But with Oregon, North Carolina, Minnesota, Mississippi, and maybe even Georgia within reach (in addition to Virginia & New Mexico looking like solid pick-ups and Colorado, New Hampshire, and Alaska leaning that way), I don’t know if they’ll be able to focus on all these races AND invest in a still long-shot race like Texas.
Has Ras also released a Presidential poll for Texas? I’m curious to see whether Noriega’s boat lift is being caused by a rising Obama tide… Or if he’s going against the “McFlow” there.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
after I posted earlier today about dropping all of these races from my radar…
Hopefully a Maine poll comes out and if it doesn’t show any movement, time to take that $5 million and put it in Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia.
Damn it Tom Allen…. 🙁 I have a lot of respect for someone who gives up their safe house seat to take on a popular incumbent who possibly could’ve been beaten but not likely. He took one for the team and hopefully he is rewarded in the end. Gov in 2010?
Noriega has such a great profile and is a fantastic guy. But he is a horrible fundraiser.
If he had the fundraising chops of say, Al Franken this would be quite a race.
I think that cost analysis tells us to look to Georgia.
before the end of the 3rd quarter. Maybe he would have gotten a spike in his fundraising numbers.
I agree that it would be a waste of money to throw in several million dollars in this race. We don’t know if it’s a live one yet.
But what the DSCC should do is finance some direct mail efforts, phone banks and maybe some state wide radio ads. Radio ads have been working out for Obama.
Then give it a week or so to see if there is any movement.. Btw there must be more Kerry-millions out there among safe incumbents to give the DSCC some extra spending power?