Blunt under 50%

Benefiting from anti-Washington sentiment within the GOP primary electorate, little known State Senator Chuck Purgason is holding Roy Blunt under 50% in his bid to be the Republican nominee for Kit Bond's Senate seat.

Blunt is getting 48% to 18% for Purgason. 31% of Republican voters in the state say they're unhappy with their party's leadership in Congress and among those folks Blunt leads Purgason only 32-27.

The support Purgason's receiving seems to derive more from an 'anyone but Blunt' phenomenon than anything else. He's at 18% despite the fact that only 7% of likely primary voters have a favorable opinion of him. 84% don't know enough about him to have an opinion.

Even Blunt has a relatively big chunk of Republicans voters who don't have an opinion about him. 34% say they're ambivalent while 47% view him favorably and 19% have a negative view of him.

It's unlikely Blunt has to worry about not winning the Republican nomination but these numbers are underwhelming considering his major presence in Missouri GOP politics over the last several decades. A big thing to watch moving forward is the extent to which Robin Carnahan can win over these Republican voters who don't like Blunt- right now she has basically no support from them but if she could get even a quarter of their votes by November that would make a big difference.

Full results here