The Post-Dispatch and Mason-Dixon have published a poll showing Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan, 48-42.
The numbers don’t surprise me, frankly. A year ago, most people expected that Carnahan would easily defeat Blunt. But Missouri is a red-leaning state and in this political climate it will be very difficult for her to prevail.
What’s especially striking is how poor Obama’s numbers are in Missouri: far poorer than you might expect.
According to the poll:
The poll, conducted July 19-21, asked voters if they would support Blunt, a congressman from Springfield, or Carnahan, Missouri’s secretary of state. Blunt was backed by 48 percent of the respondents, compared to 42 percent for Carnahan. The remaining 10 percent were undecided.
The two are expected to sail through their party primaries on Aug. 3 and face off in the general election in November.
“Outside of the metro areas, he’s killing her,” said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, the firm that conducted the poll.
…
In the poll, 57 percent of respondents disapproved of Obama’s performance as president, compared to 34 percent who approved. Among independent voters – those who didn’t identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans – 63 percent disapproved of Obama’s performance.
Personally, I think this race may well be lean-R. Yes, it’ll probably be decided by less than 5 points, but with numbers for Obama and the Democrats that bad, it’s going to be quite difficult for Carnahan to win.
The big mystery to me is why Obama’s numbers are so bad in Missouri. He only barely lost the state in 2008, and together Obama’s and Nader’s voters outpolled McCain and Bob Barr. Obama even won the primary here (albeit just barely). Yet compared to other close states like Ohio and even Indiana, Obama’s numbers here are dismal. More like the numbers he’s gotten out of Kentucky and Tennessee.
What, exactly, is going on? I realize that Missouri is a fairly racially-polarized state. I realize that outside St. Louis and Kansas City, it has a fairly conservative electorate. I realize it’s a demographically older and more working-class population. Yet I would expect his numbers to be in the low-to-mid 40s, not 34. And in no other state have his numbers fallen quite as far in relation to his performance on election day, ’08.
Any theories?
Unpopularity doesn’t surprise me, Missouri was the one state he underperformed expectations on election night. Many people thought he would win Missouri but few thought he would win Indiana. To win this race Carnahan has to keep away from the President and hammer home Blunt as the Washington insider.
This poll is the biggest pile of BS I’ve seen in polling besides R2K and Rasmussen.
First off- The demographics of the poll need to be taken into consideration-
IND-36%
GOP-35%
DEM-29%
Democrats have a signifigant lead in registration over Republicans in Missouri, always has been. The data set here is badly messed up.
The actual party affiliation numbers for Missouri are around
DEM-41%
GOP-33%
IND-26%
Let’s also look at favorale/unfavorable numbers from this poll-
CARNAHAN 39/38
BLUNT 39/23
This is reversed from what every other poll I’ve seen in past years have said. Blunt was SoS earlier in his career and his son was a realativley unpopular governor. This is one of the worst polls I’ve ever seen from Mason-Dixon and I’m very disappointed. I advise roughly a House effect of 4R (although not the traditional add half/subtract half, I suggest 3 points be added to Carnahan and one subtracted from Blunt to make up for this terrible data set) on this poll, giving Blunt a narrow lead over Carnahan but not overcoming her in my cumulative average (above).
This poll has a GOP lean.
Carnahan leads Blunt 45.75-45.25 by my cumulative average.
DATA (house effect of 4R added in to Rasmussen)
1. RASSY- EARLY JUNE Carnahan 46-43 (C+3)
2. RASSY- END OF JUNE Blunt 46-45 (B+1)
3. RASSY- MID-JULY Carnahan 47-45 (C+2)
4. MASON-DIXON- LATE JULY Blunt 47-45 (B+2)
Add it up, Divide by 4 and you have the grand total.
Also, whatever Obama does to Carnahan will be reversed by getting African-Americans in KC ans St. Louis rallied around her and out to the polling locations. Blunt has a record in DC like no other, pushing through these huge spending bills as House Maj. Whip that got us this huge deficit in the first place!
Bush.
Ambramoff.
Rove.
It’s all there waiting for Carnahan to use against him.
His ties to big oil are going to come back to haunt him with this BP mess. Here’s three ads on the subject from Camp Carnahan.
NOTE: If the videos don’t work, I’ll try posting them again.
She did spectacularly in her 2008 SoS race out in the rural areas, sometimes taking up to 58% in small counties.
More like…
Democrat – 37%
Republican – 36%
Independent – 27%
Blunt – 7/95/54 = 52%
Carnahan – 93/5/46 = 48%
I might actually suggest Carnahan focus more upon the Dem strongholds. We all see what the rural strategy did for Creigh Deeds.
is different from Virginia. Rural appeal is how we got Sen. McCaskill, SoS Carnahan and Gov. Nixon.
Do both. Get out the KC and St. Louis vote using African-American leaders. Campaign hard in the rural areas.
Is a good indicator of the way the state is going. It’s results are always close to the statewide results. Although insignifigant population-wise, it is a county Carnahan must win.
from Mason-Dixon should not be taken seriously.
know if I’m on the money with this, but I think Missouri more in line with the South politically because its trending away from the Democratic party. The rural counties are trending more and more Republican and the population in Kansas City and St. Louis remain stagnant. Even if Obama is winning his reelection in 2012, I think he’ll lose Missouri by a larger margin than he did in 2008. Which could spell trouble for Ike Skelton, Jay Nixon, and Claire McCaskill.
This proves how undercoverd Missouri is.
There’s also a disgusting lack of polling.