On Monday, the DSCC released a Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group poll giving Democrat Evan Bayh a massive 54-33 lead over Republican Rep. Todd Young in the Indiana Senate race. The poll was conducted July 12 to July 14, just after the news broke that Bayh would run to regain his old seat.
Voters give Bayh a strong 55 percent “excellent” or “good” rating, with 25 percent saying their view of him is just “fair” and only 7 percent saying they have a poor impression. (Young’s numbers were not released.) The memo also says that even 47 percent of Donald Trump voters give Bayh positive marks. While Politico had reported that the DSCC showed Bayh polls giving him a double-digit lead over Young when the committee was trying to recruit him, this is the first actual poll we’ve seen of the race.
One thing the memo left out was the question of Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, leaving us with limited information for evaluating this poll; presidential results can serve as a good sanity check to see if the rest of a survey makes sense. We know that GHY did in fact ask the question, though, since the firm’s memo mentions that Trump leads by 5 points among undecided voters, which is meant to suggest that those who haven’t made up their minds yet aren’t even going to be an especially favorable group for Young.
But the actual statewide Clinton-Trump head-to-heads among all voters were not included, very probably because they show Clinton losing, perhaps by double digits. (After Barack Obama’s shocking 1-point win in 2008, Indiana reverted to form four years later and voted for Mitt Romney by 10 points.) Since pretty much all of the other candidates the DSCC is backing in other races have their fortunes tied to Clinton’s, it’s not really in the committee’s interest to release data showing the Democratic presidential nominee faring poorly, especially when their Senate candidate is doing so well.
Indiana is a state that doesn’t get polled very often, so it may be a while before we see some independent confirmation for these results. However, we’ll want to see if the GOP releases its own poll showing Young doing much better, or if they let this 21-point Bayh lead go unanswered.