PPP finds that West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin has expanded his lead over Florida Republican John Raese from three points earlier this month to six points today.
The great challenge of Joe Manchin's Senate campaign has been this: convincing West Virginia voters who like him but don't like Barack Obama to let their affection for him outweigh their animosity toward the President in deciding how to vote this fall. He's been improving in his ability to do that over the last 2 weeks and as a result he's increased his lead over John Raese to 50-44. He led by 3 on a PPP poll a couple weeks ago and had trailed by 3 on a September survey.
PPP's Tom Jensen reports that Manchin has improved his standing among conservatives, going from 17% support to 24%, suggesting that Manchin's ad attacking cap-and-trade may have paid dividends. But the bigger shift may be in the exploding unpopularity of John Raese, who in September had a favorability rating of 41/35 but is now at 42/47 -- a net drop of 11 points during a stretch in which Raese has made blunder after blunder, including pinning the "hick" label on West Virginians, mishandling news that he was not only a from Florida but also Colorado, and inexplicably making repeal of the minimum wage a campaign issue.