Monmouth is the first independent pollster to take a look at Indiana in months, and they certainly have some interesting numbers. In the Senate race, Democrat Evan Bayh leads Republican Todd Young 48-41. In the gubernatorial contest, Republican Eric Holcomb edges Democrat John Gregg 42-41. Last week, the Democratic pollster Expedition Strategies gave Bayh a much-stronger 58-32 edge, and had Gregg up 46-39.
One key difference between the two polls is the presidential numbers. Monmouth shows Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton 47-36, while Expedition had the two deadlocked 44-44. So far, Clinton and her allies haven’t made any moves to target Indiana’s 11 electoral votes, though if they’re seeing similar numbers as Expedition, that could change. According to Monmouth, Trump is performing the same in Indiana as Mitt Romney did four years ago, even though they have him underperforming Romney in several other states. Trump’s running mate is Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and Monmouth gives Pence a solid 54-33 approval rating: If Pence is as popular as they think he is, then it makes sense that he’d be giving Trump a lift at home.
But that’s a big, big if. Back in May, a poll for an anti-Pence Republican gave the governor a mixed 40-42 score. Pence also ended his re-election campaign in order to join Trump’s ticket: If Pence thought he was anywhere near as popular as Monmouth says he is, it’s unlikely he would have pulled the plug on a safe re-election campaign to join a risky presidential ticket. In any case, this is one poll, and Pence’s gaudy numbers give us a good reason to think the sample is a bit too red.
Still, it’s a good sign for Bayh that he’s running so far ahead of the Democratic ticket.
The Monmouth poll gives the ex-senator a good 46-19 favorable rating, while opponent Young is pretty anonymous at 29-15. Both parties are airing ads here, which suggests that they think that Young has a shot to turn things around as he becomes better known. Bayh also attracted some bad headlines earlier this week when CNN reported that, while Bayh has insisted that he “never left” Indiana after exiting the Senate in 2011, he really had moved to Washington and doesn’t appear to have lived in his Indiana residence in years. Republicans have already been accusing Bayh of cashing out and becoming a super lobbyist, and his numbers could take a hit once Team Red runs commercials arguing that he’s abandoned the state.
Monmouth did not release favorable numbers for either gubernatorial candidate. Holcomb only became lieutenant governor earlier this year and he’s been Team Red’s gubernatorial nominee for less than a month, so he undoubtedly has little name recognition right now. Gregg has been running ads tying Holcomb to Pence, which he almost certainly wouldn’t be doing if he believed Pence was popular.
We’re still relying on limited data, and hopefully we’ll see some more polls soon. Still, while Expedition and Monmouth disagree on a lot, they both have Gregg and especially Bayh clearly outperforming Clinton. Both of these contests only took shape weeks ago and the ad spending has only begun to ramp up, so things are still very unsettled in Indiana.