Univ. of Washington (5/3-23, registered voters):
Patty Murray (D-inc): 44
Dino Rossi (R): 40
Undecided: 12
(MoE: ±2.8%)
A new poll from the University of Washington shows a fairly close contest in the hypothetical race between Patty Murray and Dino Rossi, although within the general range that non-SurveyUSA pollsters have pegged it. Interestingly, they actually find “Generic Republican” overperforming Rossi a bit (there, Murray wins 42-39), despite the way that Rossi has performed much better against Murray in other polls compared with the little-known Don Bentons and Clint Didiers of the world. Murray’s approval is 51/34, pretty strong by today’s I-hate-everybody-but-especially-incumbents standards.
There are a few other interesting tidbits in here, such as a 42-37 generic ballot advantage for Dems in the state legislature, and 58-30 support for I-1077 (which would create an income tax for high earners). Maybe this, plus Measures 66/67 in Oregon and Prop 100 in Arizona, may at some point kill the “it’s an anti-tax year!” meme.
The race may not stay hypothetical for much longer, though. The AP is reporting that anonymous GOP sources are saying that Rossi is getting ready to announce, perhaps as soon as Wednesday. His own spokesperson wouldn’t confirm, but said he’d have a statement in midweek. Politico reports that he’s hired not quite a manager, but at least a prominent consultant: former Enron lobbyist Pat Shortridge. Seems like a good time to remind everyone that no one (with the exception of Frank Lautenberg under unusual circumstances) in more than a decade has won a Senate race getting in this late, especially when starting from essentially $0 in the cash department.
The DSCC’s preemptive oppo operation got one last hit in over the weekend, announcing that Rossi’s investment group had purchased foreclosed property in Seattle. In and of itself, charges of buying a foreclosed building are kind of weak sauce. But this follows quickly on claims from the GOP, in defense of Rossi’s appearance at a how-to-buy-foreclosures seminar, that “Dino has had no involvement with foreclosure investments throughout his real estate career.” Ooops.
I see good news for both in it. The high number of undecided Dems gives Murray a lot of room to go up, but the high-number of undecideds in the East, who will mostly break for Rossi, looks good for him.
Murray is an extremely polished, tough politician with good favorables in a blue state. Rossi’s going to need to run a near-perfect campaign in order to win.
I for one, don’t see it happening. Somewhere between Lean and Likely D, IMO.
I guess Elway was an outlier; I’m sure SurveyUSA will poll soon, though not this weekend since it’s Memorial Day.
Overall, that is. Rossi should just decide whether to run and announce NOW, or forget about it. But I don’t like his chances. If he were to win, that would probably mean the Democrats had already netted a loss of 8 Senate seats or more.
Senate has a higher hurdle than Governor. He’ll have to position himself on national issues.
Indie – 38%
Democrat – 32%
GOP – 30%
Murray – 48/93/10 = 51%
Rossi – 52/7/90 = 49%
That’s what’s hard about this, it’s yet one more headache for us, even though we’re likely to end up winning. We now have to work harder to hold the seat, sucking resources away from elsewhere.
Damn.
Just as I start to feeling better about some races, other races turn against us. NV-Sen in particular is starting to look better, but we have to work extra hard for WA-Sen? Feingold dodges Thompson, but Alexi takes a small (hopefully temporary) dive in neighboring Illinois?
And I’m done even trying to game out Florida, except to say that Rubio is in the strongest long-term position of the 3.
has entered this late and won in a long time. I doubt Rossi will break that trend. This is somewhat good news for the GOP but not really if they really wanted to contest this seat they should have gotten someone much better than Rossi. He is not top tier by any means when you look at what they could have offered. Although the better candidates probably didn’t want to blow their careers over a suicide mission. Rossi has nothing to lose, he knows he can’t make it through a gubernatorial primary in 2012 and this is his last chance. Also this more than likely means that the GOP will waste much needed money here. I would rank this at lean D for now but could see moving it to likely D in the near future. How much CoH does Rossi have? He will need a lot.
will the NRSC have the resources to prop up Rossi? Patty Murray has $6 million on hand, and Rossi only has a few months in which to catch up with that. Is the NRSC going to be able to afford to drop $5-10 million in order to him up? It would seem to me that they’re going to have their hands full in the upper-tier races (Arkansas, Nevada, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Indiana — North Dakota is a foregone conclusion and I’m betting they don’t drop a dime in Delaware). Party spending can make the difference between a win and a loss when the candidate is heavily outspent. (Oregon 2008, for example.)
I really don’t get this one. Rossi had the chance to strike while the iron was hot in the wake of Scott Brown, but dawdled for four months before ultimately (we think) getting in. That’s four months he could have used to fundraise and lay the groundwork against a very entrenched yet not unbeatable incumbent. I wonder what made him decide to get in now, when the polls are starting to show that the Dems have stemmed the bleeding to a degree?