OR-01: New Daily Kos/SEIU poll shows Suzanne Bonamici with double-digit lead in special election

DailyKos:

Suzanne Bonamici (D) (Carla Axtman)

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 12/13-14. Likely voters. MoE ±3.1% (no trendlines): Suzanne Bonamici (D): 52 Rob Cornilles (R): 41 Undecided: 7 Last week, when reports first emerged that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was spending a cool million bucks on advertising to defend the seat left vacant by the resignation of Democrat David Wu, that certainly caught our attention—and made us a little nervous. Was this just the DCCC playing it safe and and engaging in a smart preventive measure to ensure Republican Rob Cornilles would have no hope of gaining traction, as the NRCC did the Nevada 2nd District special earlier this year? Or were folks in high places seeing ugly poll numbers for Democrat Suzanne Bonamici that had them truly spooked into action, as happened with the D-Trip in September's NY-09 special—albeit far too late? That question is what spurred us to conduct this poll, and fortunately, it looks like the former, not the latter. Bonamici, a former state senator, has a healthy lead over her opponent in the Jan. 31 election, and she's also poking her nose above the 50-percent mark. That means that Cornilles is in the difficult position of having to convince people who have already made up their minds in favor of Bonamici to switch sides if he's to have any chance, a tall order indeed in a blue district like this. And the D-Trip's negative ads (which you can watch here) have only just begun airing. They feature footage of Cornilles referring to himself as "the original tea party candidate," not really the kind of profile which fits in well in a district Barack Obama won with 61% of the vote. It's because of this baggage left over from his unsuccessful 2010 run for this seat that Cornilles has tried hard to stress his non-partisan credentials as a "businessman" and "job creator"—but those, too, have come under attack. A pair of new articles in the local press has exposed many of Cornilles' claims about his record, including things like: • Claiming he'd "created 60 jobs" even though his business never employed more than about 20 people—a number which, in any event, is now down to just four full-time workers; • Getting hit with an $83,000 lien by the IRS for failing to pay payroll taxes; • Being forced by the state to disgorge $9,000 in back wages to trainees it had refused to pay; and • Pretending his downsized company still worked out of a 6,800 square foot office in filings with the state, even though he was actually using a post office box as his business address

In the ordinary court of events, these kinds of things probably happen all the time. But this is no ordinary situation: Cornilles is running for Congress, and he's been running heavily on his record in the business world. This can only hurt the argument he's trying to make, and what's more, these revelations only emerged this week, which suggests that they may not have fully percolated and may not be completely reflected in this poll. That is to say, I'd expect things to get worse, not better, for Cornilles. The rest of our poll results also paint bad news for the Republican. Bonamici has a strong favorability rating of 56-30, while Cornilles is barely above water at 44-42. And by a 50-39 margin, respondents say they want their new member of Congress to caucus with Democrats—very similar to our topline head-to-head results, but further indicative of a pretty high floor for Democratic performance in this district. Similarly, 48% of our sample reported voting in the Democratic primary, while 35% said they participated in the GOP primary. These are very tough obstacles for Cornilles to overcome, and the DCCC's advertising looks like it's just going to be the nail in the coffin. In the end, though, this is nothing to get excited about. We're playing defense, after all, and shelling out $1 million on a seat that we'd rather not have to spend a dime on. The good news is that we're likely to wind up with a new member of Congress far, far superior to the unlamented Wu (who sports an impressive 13-76 favorability score). And the NRCC seems to recognize it, too, since they've said they have no plans to commit any money here. As always, though, we'll be keeping a close eye on this race. While this poll is welcome news for Democrats, we should never assume anything is in the bag—and that goes just as much for this race.

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