Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/12-14. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines):
Christie Vilsack (D) 40
Chuck Grassley (R) 51Roxanne Conlin (D) 39
Chuck Grassley (R) 51
I wouldn’t have thought that Chuck Grassley would be vulnerable, even after his teabagger courting this summer and Christie Vilsack musing about a run, but these numbers are quite telling for a man who’s used to winning between 65% to 70% of the vote in Iowa.
I personally don’t know much about who these two new candidates are, but we should show them some support if they can be this competitive.
Vilsack is a former IA first lady, Conlin has run statewide before, I think.
The cross tabs at http://www.dailykos.com/statep… suggest that about 30% don’t have a fav/unfav opinion of them, which suggests a bit of room for growth in their numbers.
Have either of them held office before?
in all seriousness, it’s hard to tell how vulnerable grassley is. the surveyusa poll showed some funky numbers. 18-34 year olds were the demographic he did worst with, but they were 30% of the sample, it seems unlikely that they’d make up that high a voting percentage. h
is best domographics, 50+ make up 44% of the poll. in midterms, the electorate is usally older than the general election, meaning his worst demos will fall, while his best will rise.
plus he only gets 66% approval from republicans. most likely 20% of that are the teabaggers that don’t like his moderate image. the remaining 14% or so is the 10% or so that usually votes for the other party. when team red comes home to grassley, he’ll go up.
BUT most of his floundering support is coming from indies and dems, meaning if we get a good dem in there we might have a chance at pulling it off.
we can’t afford to just let GOP incumbents slide in Dem-leaning states. Let’s say we lose by 12%, maybe six years from now a heavy-hitter will actually jump in, encourage Grassley to retire. We always got to be thinking ahead.
If the political atmosphere in Nov 10′ is similar to what it is now then it will be impossible to take a fairly popular incumbant senator down.
There would have to be a strong national shift to unseat this guy. Something like 2006, when fellow Iowa Republican Leach lost his seat after having it forever.