Arkansas Poll Preview

We are going to have Blanche Lincoln-John Boozman numbers tomorrow and they aren't pretty for Lincoln.

If I had to name one reason Lincoln is in so much trouble it's that voters are no longer differentiating her from national Democrats. The state has trended increasingly Republican at the Presidential level over the last decade. That means for Democrats to keep getting elected to the Senate voters have to see them differently than they do the national party standard bearers. In 2004 that was still true for Lincoln. Exit polls showed her getting 22% of the vote from people who supported George W. Bush. In the poll we're releasing tomorrow she receives just 7% from folks who voted for John McCain- and McCain's share of the vote in the state was higher than Bush's.

That's her biggest problem but the base problem certainly doesn't help either. Her approval among people who voted for Obama is only 54%. She still gets 70% of the vote against Boozman with those folks but that 16% gap between her support and her approval is a lot of voters who aren't too enthusiastic about her.

Because of Lincoln's increasingly precarious position we tested a bunch of Democratic alternatives to her as well. They do better, but for the most part not by much. Lincoln certainly has a lot of personal blame for the situation she finds herself in, but it would be tough for any Democrat to win a Senate race in Arkansas this year. We'll have the results tomorrow.