Heinous wingnut Michelle Malkin is breathlessly reporting a leaked GOP internal poll in PA-12 showing incumbent John Murtha (D) losing by approximately 13 points to GOP challenger Bill Russell.
Dane and Associates (R) (10/22, 800 likely voters)
John Murtha (D-inc): 34.8
Bill Russell (R): 47.6
Update: I should point out that we don’t have a full press release on this, and as one commenter pointed out, for all we know this could be a message-testing poll. In other words, they might be preceding the poll question with negative information about Murtha and/or positive info about Russell. If more info is released, I will update further.
Murtha had a reverse-Macaca moment recently when he called western Pennsylvania a “racist area” and said that the area until recent years used to be “really redneck”. Predictably, these comments have not been received well, much as Michelle Bachmann’s “anti-American” comments changed the dynamic in her district. Another poll by Republican pollster Susquehanna Polling & Research conducted a day prior for consevative rag the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the Mellon Scaife outfit) showed Murtha up by 5 points but very vulnerable.
Susquehanna POlling & Research (R) (10/21, 400 likely voters)
John Murtha (D-inc): 46
Bill Russell (R): 41
(MoE: ±4.9%)
It should be noted that Russell used BMW Direct for fundraising, a scam company that raises huge amounts of money for longshot candidates and keeps most of the money for itself. In the 3rd quarter, Russell raised an eyebrow-raising $1.592 million, and “spent” $1.529 million (ie, about 95% went to BMW Direct from the looks of it). Murtha, on the other hand, raised $457k and spent all of it presumably on defending his seat. The CoH picture is not really confidence-inspiring – Murtha reported $591k to Russell’s $333k. The PVI of this district is D+5, so if we do lose this seat, it will become a top priority challenge next cycle. Bill Russell is way more conservative than this district (Malkin has been pumping for him all year), but his millitary-hero story is likely to win him some points.
Unfortunately for Murtha and Kanjorski, the fierce anti-incumbent mood that has been playing in Pennsylvania since 2006 (causing huge turnover in state legislative races) can topple Democrats as well as Republicans.
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One that says “Do you support John Murtha, the Congressman who calls his constitutients racist or Bill Russell, a decorated war veteran”?
has to be pure, unadulterated bull crap. That other could well be close to the truth, though.
I’d be shocked to see Murtha lose, but the anti-incumbant mood you pointed out along with this part of PA’s general trend away from Democrats might be enough to reason to file this race under Likely Democrat in light of recent events.
But, if this goober’s neck-deep in the BMW scam, does anyone believe he has the prowess or know-how to close the deal on his own? This race seems 100% dependent on Murtha.
The Russell internal poll lacks any credibility – if anyone actually believes that Murtha is at 35%, they need to put down the crack pipe. The gaffes may have hurt him, but not on any scale like that — unless they are willing to release the entire poll (full questions, internals, etc) we can assume that it is nothing more than a bogus campaign effort to drum up more contributions from the right wing donor base.
As for the Susq. 46-41 poll, while the results are slightly more credible, but still quite suspect — as a poll by a strongly Republican pollster, published by a far right paper owned by the funder of the “vast right wing conspiracy”, and with no published internals available– it should be treated for what it essentially is – little more than an internal Republican house poll.
I was born in this district, and some of my relatives there are probably pretty representative of the kinds of voters that Murtha was talking about. One of my uncles is a retired steel worker, a long time National Guard member — he swears that he would never vote for “that n****r Obama”, but he still thinks Jack Murtha walks on water. Like most of my other relatives, he doesn’t care about Murtha’s gaffes (dismissing it as “just Jack going on again”), couldn’t give a damn about ethics (believing that Murtha brings home the bacon for the district), and that “Jack takes care of our boys” in the Army and Guard.
William Russell moved to the district less than 2 years ago specifically to run for Congress – not the kind of carpet-bagger move that works well in a district full of old towns where the people have extremely deep roots and distruct of outsiders. One of the main reasons that Jack Murtha will win is that people here view him as one of them – warts and all. His margin will go down, and he will have to work, but he will win.
Kanjorski is more vulnerable, but the assumptions of a few weeks ago hat he was definitely going down has been reversed (thanks largely to the economy, outside spending, and a strong Democratic ground game) and that race is probably a 50/50 bet right now.
Republicans who are getting excited about taking two Democratic seats in PA are more likely to wake up on Wednesday to find out that they didn’t succeed in these two districts, while losing Phil English in PA-3.