Wyden Still Way Out in Front
Jeff Alworth
Nate Silver gives Ron Wyden a 99.3% chance of winning re-election, and the latest Rasmussen poll shows why. Not only does Wyden continue to maintain a 16-point lead (52% - 36%), but the other numbers are just terrible for challenger Jim Huffman:
Favorable/unfavorable
Wyden: 55%/38%
Huffman: 38%/41%Party breakdown
Dems for Wyden: 86%
GOP for Huffman: 75%
NAVs: Wyden +11%
It's difficult to take out a sitting senator when your unfavorables are higher than your favorables, you have less party loyalty, and you're losing the independents. Maybe Nate's lowballing Wyden's chances.
Since all of this is probably unsurprising, I'll mention a couple other findings that may be juicier. Twenty-one percent of Oregonians consider themselves Tea Partiers, higher than the national average (17%). Yet Oregonians are less likely to favor repeal of the healthcare law (50%) than those nationwide (55%). Oregon has always sported a divided electorate of very liberal liberals and very conservative conservatives, so this seems consistent with that finding. Yet while this would seem to make Oregon prime Tea Party habitat, the opposite is true: our incumbent senator is safe, and our GOP candidate for governor is a moderate. (Not immune, Art Robinson makes sure the Beaver State gets just a taste of the crazy.) As usual, Oregon dances to her own tune.
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10:56 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
When Jim Huffman wants to turn over social security to Wall St. and becomes a front man for CEO bonuses, it's hard to get a favorable rating.
Actually the Kaiser Family Foundation has more extensive and accurate ongoing polling on the Health Care Reform Bill nationally: http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8104.cfm
"The tug of war for public opinion on health reform continues this month, with approval and disapproval staying in the same relatively narrow band each has occupied since passage even as favorable views regain a small upper hand, 49 percent favorable vs. 40 percent unfavorable. Opinion is more closely divided among this fall’s likely voters (46 percent vs. 45 percent), and opponents of the law continue to hold their views more emphatically than supporters. Overall, 26 percent of Americans believe the law should be repealed."
1:35 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
The margin may be even larger given the apparent inaccuracies of polling due to cell phone users/no landline who skew Democratic.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2010/10/pew_cellphone_bias_may_be_bigg.html
1:45 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Bill, it will be interesting to see the results this Nov. I don't think anyone's especially confident that they're sampling correctly, methodologies aside. If the pollsters get it mostly right, it will vindicate their assumptions.
1:38 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
A dollar donated to Wyden's campaign has been a dollar wasted since at least Primary Day. (Sorry Jake, you're just too good!)