Good news for Walter Jones

Our Texas poll looking at Ron Paul's primary challenge for Congress might have good implications for Walter Jones right here in North Carolina.

Paul and Jones are closely tied- Paul has been helping Jones with fundraising. And their challengers, Chris Peden and Joe McLaughlin, are similar too. They're both local elected officials. They're both hammering their opponents on the war and on family values issues. And they're both citing internal polls to show the incumbents are in really big trouble.

We called Peden's bluff on the polling with our numbers yesterday. They showed that not only was Paul leading by 33 points overall, but his leads were even greater among voters most concerned about the war (64-27), and moral and family values (65-28).

Just as Ron Paul has been representing his district on and off for over three decades, the Jones father/son tandem has been representing eastern North Carolina for decades. Those ties run deep and are bigger than a few unpopular issue stances. My guess is that Jones is in pretty good shape, and the McLaughlin challenge is more noise than anything else.