Vitter remains ahead

There continues to be very little change in the state of the Louisiana Senate race. PPP finds David Vitter leading Charlie Melancon by a 51-41 margin, similar to the 9 and 12 point spreads he showed in our previous two polls.

Vitter has a 53% approval rating with 41% of voters disapproving of him. That actually makes him, along with Barbara Mikulski and Dick Durbin, one of only three Senators PPP has found with approval ratings over 50% in all of 2010. He is significantly ahead of the curve in terms of his job reviews.

What makes that all the more interesting is that Louisiana voters do have a pretty dim view of Vitter as a human being. 44% think Vitter has been a poor model of Christian living to only 21% who think he's been a good model and by a 32-22 margin they say Melancon has been a better exemplar of Christian values. But there's a disconnect between how voters feel about the candidates personally and how they're planning to vote. For instance Vitter's getting 30% from people who think he's been a poor model- party is trumping values.

Vitter's getting 86% of the Republican vote while Melancon's getting 77% of the Democratic vote, and he also has a 48-38 lead with independents. His lead certainly isn't insurmountable, but Melancon needs to start making some progress soon.

The biggest question for Democrats when it comes to Louisiana is whether they can defeat an incumbent in a state where Barack Obama's approval rating is 35%. 61% of Louisianans disapprove of Obama and that includes 65% of independents and even 24% of Democrats. Even if Melancon proves to be a strong candidate statewide that's a tough backdrop to be running against.

Melancon does lead Vitter primary challenger Chet Traylor 40-39 but primary numbers we'll release in Louisiana tomorrow show that's about as irrelevant as it could possibly be.

Full results here