If Richard Blumenthal has to be replaced as the Democratic Senate nominee in Connecticut the party should still be favored to keep the seat as long as it gets a functional candidate.
In early January we polled Congressman Chris Murphy against Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon and he led each of them by seven points. Almost half of the voters in the state said they had no opinion of Murphy personally so he functioned basically as a generic Democratic candidate. If the nominee ends up being someone of comparable quality- or Murphy himself- the party will continue to be favored in the race although certainly not by the stratospheric kind of numbers that Blumenthal was.
And of course Blumenthal may be able to weather this- it's always hard to tell with these things.
Here's the numbers from our January poll
I thought you weren't supposed to admit who it was till tommorrow. Jumping the gun there Jensen???
ReplyDeleteWhere did I admit anything? The poll I was referencing in this post was done in January
ReplyDeleteDemocrats would be idiots to try and get Chris Murphy into this race. Chris Murphy was a wash in from the 2006 Democratic wave. Also, Democrats would probably lose his seat without him there when they cant afford to keep giving away House seats.
ReplyDeleteOOOh I didn't know about the whole Blumenthal scandal, thats why you brought it up never mind.
ReplyDeleteTom, any chance of doing a snap CT poll in a few days to see how things are looking for Blumenthal?
ReplyDelete-Pat
I'm guessing Anonymous #1 mixed up his parties and was referring to:
ReplyDeleteI'll let you know we have new numbers coming out tomorrow showing yet another NRSC recruited candidate in deep trouble of not winning their party's primary.
It's nice to see that Dems are upset about this. It's not of the level of John Edwards but it's a similar situation.Why didn't he come clean about this years ago? Can we make a deal? We promise to never nominate John Ensign or Mark Sanford for any office again.
ReplyDeleteWhat's worse is that his campaign has called the Times story "an outrageous distortion" and touts his six months of service in the Marine Corps Reserves.
Bush and Cheney were roasted for their lack of service, but at least they didn't say they did. I bet Blumenthal has better stories than Rob Simmons, a guy who has actually getting shot at by the enemy.
Murphy is a rubber stamp for Pelosi. He approved heathcare and that was enough for me to oppose him.
ReplyDeleteI think Dodd considers jumping back in, actually. We'll see tomorrow. This is either career-ending or a one-day story, no in-between.
ReplyDeleteSerious question, Tom: assuming Blumenthal drops (and he's going to see his numbers drop like a stone among McCain voters if he doesn't), do you think that the spillover would affect other Dem candidates?
ReplyDeleteA poll right now in CT would reveal what Blumenthal's floor of support would be.
ReplyDeleteThere hasn't been a CT Senate poll in a while, now is the time.
ReplyDeleteMy take-Blumenthal stays in and wins in November, esp. if Linda McMahon is the Republican nominee.
ReplyDeleteBlumenthal has dropped below 50%.
ReplyDeleteBlumenthal 48
McMahon 45
Blumenthal 50
Simmons 39
Rasmussen
conducted May 18
500 LV +/-4.5%