Republican Bill Cassidy
On Tuesday, Public Policy Polling
released its poll of the Pelican State and they found what most pollsters have found: A small but stubborn lead for Republican Bill Cassidy in a one-on-one race with Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.
In Louisiana's November all-party primary, Landrieu leads with 42 percent, far from the 50 percent she'd need to win without a runoff. Cassidy leads fellow Republican and tea partier Rob Maness 34-12: All around, about the same numbers ORC recently found for CNN. Democrats would love to face Maness instead of Cassidy but he doesn't have many resources and no well-funded outside groups are coming to his aid right now. Unless there's a massive surprise, it looks inevitable that Landrieu and Cassidy will advance to a runoff in December.
In a hypothetical runoff, Landrieu trails 48-45. The 7 percent who are undecided identify as Republicans and Democrats in equal numbers, and voted for Mitt Romney 7-3. Most polling over the last few months has shown Cassidy with a small lead in one-on-one matches. A Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll conducted for the Democratic group Senate Majority PAC gave Landrieu a 2-point edge, but she's generally trailed by 1 to 3 points (with the exception of a Fox News poll that gave Cassidy an unrealistic double-digit lead).
While a 3-point deficit is far from insurmountable, PPP finds that Landrieu is quite unpopular: They peg her approval rating at 42-52. Cassidy's favorables aren't incredible at 37-41 but he has the advantage of running in a very conservative state. It's worth noting that PPP has generally found politicians from both parties with weaker ratings than most other pollsters, but it's still not a good sign for Landrieu if Cassidy has better personal numbers. If you're an unpopular incumbent running in an increasingly hostile state with a very disliked president representing your party (Obama sports a 39-56 approval rating here), your only real option is to make your opponent even more unpopular than you: So far, that doesn't seem to be happening.
PPP also answered the most important question in American politics: Is it a good idea for a politician in a tough race to help someone do a keg stand? It looks like the answer is no: Voters say they disapprove of Landrieu's "keg stand gambit" by a 21-36 margin. If you can't get away with assisting a constituent consume alcohol in Louisiana, you just can't get away with it anywhere.
Mary Landrieu is an incredibly tough campaigner. In 2002 she prevailed in a runoff that Republicans felt they were certain to win. It's also worth noting that while Democrats have usually had problems getting their voters to the polls in runoffs and special elections, Louisiana is one state that's very used to voting at irregular times. In 2002, turnout between November and December dropped by less than 1 percent, though there haven't been any Senate runoffs since then. Even so, for her to win she'll likely need PPP to severely be underestimating her popularity, or she'll take Cassidy's numbers even further below sea level than they are now. Democrats always knew this would be a difficult race, and this poll only confirms it.
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