We've been heavily fixated on New England during this first week of 2010, but we'll be returning to our roots this weekend with our first look at Larry Kissell's status.
Should be an interesting poll on a number of fronts:
-We're of course going to test Kissell's approval and the favorabilities of all of his Republican opponents. We'll take a look at all the possible horse race match ups and also how Kissell does against a generic Republican since I doubt any of the GOP hopefuls have very good name recognition.
-We're also going to look at the politics of Kissell's health care vote. One thing I'm particularly interested to see is whether respondents can actually correctly identify how he voted on the bill- I'm guessing the answer is less than half and I wouldn't be surprised if most voters assume he voted for it just because he's a Democrat. It'll be a good reality check on how much most people pay attention.
-We're going to look at whether there's support for a primary challenge to Kissell from the left...not sure how that will come out but based on polling we've done in other Congressional districts I wouldn't be surprised if there are more conservative Democrats unhappy with Kissell than liberal ones. Even though he's voted against several major Democratic initiatives, he may get lumped in with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi anyway.
-And it'll be interesting to see how Barack Obama's popularity has held up in a district he won in 2008- as well as how Richard Burr's doing in what's somewhat of a swing district in closely contested statewide races.
Look for that starting Tuesday!
When you start a story, you should identify the state, the office and the party that the story is about.
ReplyDeleteWhy should they? Most informed people know Larry Kissell is a freshman Congressman representing the 8th Congressional District in North Carolina.
ReplyDeleteNo Republican with name recognition? What about "The Big Guy" Harold Johnson, beloved WSOC TV sports caster for 25 plus years?? Everybody knows and loves him!
ReplyDelete8th district GOP name recognition? Come on guys, one has the distinct advantage on that front.
ReplyDeleteDid you poll Chris Kouri or one of the former Kissell operatives pondering a run?
ReplyDeleteAs someone who was polled by PPP over the past weekend on this very topic, I must say that the poll was very professional and well-done. Great job, PPP! ... I'm curious about how the final results tally up, and I particularly am intrigued about the question asked to determine whether the listener actually knows Congressman Kissell's health care reform bill vote. ...
ReplyDeleteI'm also curious whether there may be any impact evident in this poll regarding the name ID of the GOP's D'Annunzio. He actually started running TV ads during the week before the PPP poll. My guess is that his ads were way too few to matter in a district as large as NC's Eighth. Of course, it is true that D'Annunzio has also had a bevy of billboard ads all around the district already. The GOP primary is going to be expensive! ... And that will benefit Congressman Kissell in the end because the eventual GOP nominee he faces will come out of a bruising primary contest.