The latest out of Washington state will probably have Dino Rossi continuing his Hamlet routine, stringing along Cornyn and the NRSC and keeping his name in the news for doing nothing.
According to the latest Elway Poll, US Sen. Patty Murray has a double-digit lead over all potential Republican challengers, including two-time gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, who was the only potential or declared challenger to break 30 percent.
Rossi has not yet said whether he will enter the race against Murray, but the latest numbers are bad news—in a head-to-head matchup against Murray, Rossi polled at 34 percent to Murray’s 51 percent, not far ahead of state Sen. Don Benton (R-17), who plans to run to the right of Rossi.
According to the poll analysis, “Any Republican challenger would have to capture all the Republican voters, all the Republican “leaners,” all of the undecided and 2/3 of the Murray “leaners” just to get to 50%.”
This poll mirrors the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll conducted at the end of March, and contradicts a poll from SurveyUSA last week showing Rossi with a 52-42 lead. Both camps dismissed that poll as an outlier. Goldy compares the polls:
SurveyUSA had Murray only garnering 73% of both self-identified Democrats and Liberals, and a paltry 46% of metro Seattle voters... unimaginably low numbers come November. By comparison, Elway found Murray enjoying the support of 92% of Democrats, and 73% of Seattleites.
Further, Elway examines Murray’s job performance ratings, a number often looked to as an indicator of electoral strength, and while incumbents never want to come in under 50%, Elway points out that “Murray’s ratings have historically been mediocre,” and that her current 48% rating falls only slightly below her 17-year average. So Republicans shouldn’t take much encouragement from that either.
Rossi is still playing hard to get, telling SeattlePI columnist Joel Connelly, "'We are working some things through with the family and the feasibility of whether this can be done,' Rossi said in an interview Tuesday. He set no timetable for when he will announce a decision on whether to run against three-term Democratic Sen. Patty Murray." This new poll is likely to keep him on the fence a while longer.