Nice:
Halter went from down thirteen points in the first primary poll on March 25 to within two points on election night. Lincoln’s support has remained in the low 40’s the entire time while Halter steadily gobbled up the undecided voters.
Halter now has all the momentum going into the runoff and Lincoln’s campaign has not demonstrated that they are able to stop the bleeding. So far their message has been inconsistent and has played into Halter’s strategy of tapping into the anti-incumbent sentiment. He has somehow avoided being painted as a liberal in spite of largely enjoying the support of national liberal groups and unions.
The irony is that these groups will play an important role in the runoff election where the get out the vote effort is critical. Unions are perhaps the best organization for getting their voters to the polls. This gives Halter a decided GOTV advantage in a very close election [...]
Bottom line, it is close but advantage Halter.
A new Research 2000 poll for Democracy for American poll shows Halter leading Lincoln 48-46, though the poll's methodology may be overstating Halter's support by a couple of points -- the horserace question is asked after some leading issue questions. We'll be polling this race much cleaner next week (horserace question first). It'll be curious to see if the results deviate much.
And remember, the runoff turnout will be significantly different than the primary turnout. As I wrote on election night:
Let's see what happened in Arkansas, in a similar situation, on May 19, 1998:
Blanche Lincoln 140,825 45.4%
Winston Bryant 85,066 27.4%
Scott Ferguson 43,351 14.0%
Nate Coulter 40,895 13.2%
Total votes: 310,137
Then three weeks later, in the runoff:
Blanche Lincoln 132,032 62.8%
Winston Bryant 78,192 37.2%
Total votes: 210,224
That's a drop off of about a third of voters, and it's the most motivated who turn out in a runoff. And who are the most motivated? The rebels, the insurgents, the rabble rousers -- those most motivated to give the unpopular incumbent her walking papers.